Rebecca A. Foster

A former student has asked for my help in filling an ESL position at his school in Changde and my former university in Chongqing is accepting applications until July 31st. If you are interested in being an ESL teacher in China, please click the 'Contact' button above to shoot me an email and I'll hook you up with their info. T. told me this week his school district in San Diego laid off 1,500 teachers; it's the same story I have heard from friends across the country who want to be teachers but their districts aren't hiring. I taught the ESL class in public school for two years (several years ago) and even then because I wasn't tenured my position was knocked back to $600 a year in the budget. Well, that wasn't going to work, so I took a job in business and I've never been back in the public school system. (I volunteer ESL and taught in a Chinese university through Peace Corps.) S., my best friend from Texas, teaches high school in Brooklyn and is an aw...

If you have ever met someone for the first time and been asked, "What are you?", I think we could be friends. It's a perfectly logical question, really. What I hear: "You look different than what I expect and I need to have a category to place you in, so I want to know: what are you?" I usually explain that my father is (was) American, my mother is Chilean, and yes I look like my American father but with the coloring of my Chilean mother, no I don't speak Spanish as my first language, yes I can speak some Spanish but it is Chilean Spanish, yes I prefer wearing dresses not pants, no I don't go anywhere without lipstick on, yes I dress a little formally, no I'm not Catholic, yes I have been to Chile and can make manjar and pebre and empanadas, no I am not expected to date or marry a Chilean. These are some of the common questions I am asked and I'm not offended by them.(Okay, it is a little embarrassing when I meet someone and they begin spea...

You might have heard that China doesn't allow people to express their opinions about the government publicly and doesn't allow freedom of speech. This is all true. One of my great disappointments in learning Mandarin was realizing no one was saying anything really worth overhearing. People won't express a contrary opinion publicly, so they don't say anything opinionated at all. Casual conversations flow about food, fashion and money and not much else. Which is why it was so shocking when I was judging a Shanghai Education Press-sponsored, city-wide high school English speech competition, and one of the girls opened her speech in the crowded auditorium by saying, "Our hands built the buildings that fell during the earthquake; our hands made the milk that killed the babies." (Referring to the tens of thousands killed by shoddy building construction and the tainted milk scandal hushed up because of the Olympics.) I was floored, and shocked, and nervous fo...

I bought this cinnamon and frankincense candle  and loved it so much I went back and got the fragrance oil. It smells very warm and spicy and reminds me of the smell in the Buddhist temples. I bought the oil both for the oil burner I keep in my study/meditation spot and for adding a few drops to a hot bath. I'm about to be so meditative and relaxed. I recommend it, if you like spa-y, spicy smells. ____________ I've been working on putting my memorabilia from China in some sort of organized format. For my small papery souvenirs, I chose these cardstock cards, with a plastic cover on the front side and heavy cardbard backing on the back side. Here's what it looks like fanned out a bit:  I don't like that ring, so I'm going to get a leather string and use that to tie it off instead. I'll use another peace of leather through the bottom holes but tie it in a bow so it an be untied for viewing. Another project: I asked all my students to give me 'name ca...

My Chinese name is Libeisha, which is three words combined: li (丽pretty) bei (蓓 flower bud) sha (莎 no real meaning, just used for the sound). But the word 'sha' with the character 杀  means 'murder.'  I sent an email to a student and was typing too fast and when I hit the keys for 'libeisha' the character string that came up first was the murder-sha 杀, not the sound-name-sha 莎. I chose the murder character, didn't notice, and sent off the email. Hoo boy, did my student find that amusing! He wrote back immediately, "Are you okay? You have been murdered? Oh no!" And told me he had gathered up his classmates to his dorm room so they could see and laugh at my mistake, too. They love that I study Mandarin, but they got quite a kick out of their teacher calling herself  "murdered." Oops. Sometimes, your language skills are only as good as your typing skills. I use Google Mandarin for my keyboard conversion program, btw. Google owns so many p...

Chinese students almost uniformly make the mistake of pluralizing 'clothes' into 'clothes-es' and we are the kind of teachers that mimicked our students most common mistakes when talking to each other, so now I say 'clothes-es' all the time in my head. Other things we said: Deeleeciours (delicious) Advices I wish you happy every day! I miss speaking Chinglish on a daily basis. Luckily I still talk to folks in China so when they say things like this, I write them down. You think you won't forget, but you do! Did you know in Chinese culture it is normal to wear the same clothes for several days in a row? (Not underwear, that I know of!) You wear them until they are dirty, then change into new clothes and wash the ones you've been wearing. It was really hard to get used to at first, but then I loved it. It's much easier than having to choose new outfits every day. My students thought it was really strange Americans change our clothes every day. ...

I was going to write today about China, but you know what? I realize my memories will never mean as much to other people as they do to me. And that's okay. I think if you've read my other posts, you have a good idea of what I loved, and what was difficult, about China. Sometimes I miss China so much my heart aches. Sometimes I'm relieved to be back in America where I understand the culture (although this took several months-- reverse culture shock is a real thing). I'm feeling much more comfortable here. Some big changes for me coming up. China did a good job preparing me for the rest of my life. It was a graduate course in flexibility, creativity, strength, courage, acceptance and doing things you never thought possible. I read an analogy recently that made a lot of sense to me, so I want to share it: if you think of life like a river, a lot of us are preoccupied with where we are in the river: what we have materially, or relationships, what we've achieved or...

In Chongqing there aren't many foreigners compared to other big, populated in cities in China. This led to 'Panda Syndrome': we were often treated like special pandas at the zoo. Sounds nice, but really? It's not. I learned I could never handle being famous. One night a few of us Americans were having dinner with some Chinese students. They made a dish for us called 'hui guo rou' known in English as 'twice-cooked pork.' Someone asked what the dish was called and I answered with the correct name. The students started teasing him for not knowing the name and then one of the students said, "The girl knew what it was."  The girl? The girl teacher? The girl version of an American? The girl what ? It bothered me at the time because it was a bit dehumanizing and I was fighting for every bit of my humanity, but now it's kinda funny. Of course the guys who were there started calling me The Girl. It ended one night at dinner when J. was trying to p...

Do you have things in your life that you sometimes feel are both a blessing and a curse? For example, I am very sensitive emotionally. I think the shyness I struggle with is a part of this, like a light shining too brightly in your eyes. But I also think being emotionally sensitive is what makes me a good teacher; I can ‘read’ the emotions of my students very quickly, and adjust my teaching style/lesson/topic for their benefit. On the curse side, sometimes I take things too hard or too personally, and it’s difficult for me to see objectively others’ intentions. On the blessing side, I think it helps me be a good friend, because I am sensitive to my friends’ needs. I have noticed that I gravitate toward people who are far less sensitive than I am. I believe in the principle of yin and yang, that there is a balance to interactions that can benefit both sides. My best friend in high school was a cheerleader, something I would have found intolerable, but she was great at it. My friend ...

I wrote about this briefly before , but I want to expound on it today. As a university teacher in China, I was coming to the cultural game about 20 years late; my students all shared the same cultural background, and because culture just 'is' in China, not very often do they explain or expound upon cultural reasoning or traditions. So sometimes things like this would happen: I devised a lesson plan for my English major students to help them feel more comfortable using the subjunctive tense, i.e. 'If I were...., I would....' and so on. I made the theme 'Superheroes', something I thought they would enjoy talking about, and asked them to choose what superpowers they would have and how they would use them for the benefit of humankind. After giving them time to prepare, I asked a few students to share their answers with the class. "If I were a superhero, I would have the power to read minds so I knew if anyone was going to do something bad, and then I chan...

1. My Mandarin teacher is from Taiwan, which means I am learning some of the cultural differences of how Mandarin is spoken on the Mainland vs. Taiwan. For example, where I lived, every baby was called ‘erzi’ (boy child) regardless of gender. In fact, when I tried to use the gender neutral ‘haizi’, I was corrected to just use erzi. So yesterday in class I had to use the word ‘child’ and I said ‘erzi’ as I had been taught. My teacher said, “No, that means boy, use ‘haizi.’” I said, “That’s interesting. I was corrected to say erzi where I lived.” My teacher, knowing I lived on the Mainland: “Yeah…I don’t like that.” It was a private, friendly exchange between me and my teacher, but it was one example of the way in which language can reflect culture. (I don’t need to go into details, do I?) 2. I’ve been watching a lot of rerun tv (Seinfeld: still funny!), and hence watching a lot of advertisements, something new again to me. And I’ve realized over the past two years that if I really nee...

The last time I flew to America from China I took Air China, which has a Chinese flight crew. This time I took United, which meant we had an American flight crew. The young Chinese guy in the row ahead of me brought a lot of carry-on luggage, and I watched through culturally enlightened eyes the way the flight attendant tried to deal with him. She was being so American! And he was being so Chinese! She kept telling him that it wasn't fair for him to have three bags, because it meant that someone else wouldn't have space for their luggage. And he kept answering in a very Chinese way: "But my bags are already here, and they fit." And she kept right on with her very American line of reasoning that the fair thing to do is to check some of his bags. And he wouldn't give an inch, because he didn't see why he should. In China, if you're first, you win. And that's that. And I'm watching this go on for 5 or so minutes and I want to tell this woman, "...

I’ve been conducting oral interviews this week in English for part of my students’ final exam. One of the things we talk about is their childhood. A few telling facts: -98% of my students are first generation college students -About 90% are from the countryside and their grandparents and/or parents were farmers -About 75% did not live with their parents while growing up because their parents had to leave the countryside to find work in a city in another province in order to put their child/ren through school; instead, most of my students were raised by their grandparents. The kids felt a lot of pressure to do well in school because their parents were working so hard to pay for it. (Farmers are often not subject to the one child rule.)   (One girl is a twin, and she said her grandparents could not afford to keep both her and her sister, so she stayed to live with her grandparents in the countryside and her parents took her sister to work with them in the city. She has spent ...

It's 12:10 AM Beijing time and I'm awake because I just got done watching the nail-biting U.S. soccer game online (yes, I'm a soccer fan now, thanks China!) and answering texts from my students congratulating me on the U.S. win. I usually ignore texts my students send me after 10 PM until the next day, but tonight I made an exception. They were too cute! Congrats U.S. soccer team! What an ending! Onto the next round! Btw, if you are not watching the U.S. team, you are missing out !

I was asked to do a lecture this week on the English language for the Foreign Language students at my university. Part of my lecture focused on the ways in which new words are added to English. Two ways are*: 1. New meanings for existing words 2. Making up new words For #1, I used the example of the word ‘text,’ which used to mean only written works and/or speeches, but now also means SMS messages. And from this new usage of the noun, we also made the verb ‘to text’ and added the words texting, texted, etc. For #2, I gave the example of the words ‘sexting’ and ‘sext,’ which from what I read online are pretty popular words these days in American culture. I didn’t say much about the meaning of the words themselves, only that they were made up, derived from ‘texting,’ and meant that the text had a sexual topic. I explained that we went from ‘text’ to ‘texting’ to ‘sexting’ back to ‘sext’ in new word formation; that’s awesome from a linguistic etymological process point of view, and...

Today in English class I needed to add up a large string of numbers from the chalkboard, the results of a poll we’d done in class. I got out my trusty calculator and was about halfway way through when the students started yelling out the total. I turned around with a surprised look on my face and said without thinking, “You did that in your head?” They just shrugged. D’oh! Dumb American teacher, twelve o’clock! I was tempted to tell them we don’t learn math in school in America, but they wouldn’t have gotten the joke. Er...yeah. Joke. I’ll stick with that story. Gotta love teaching in China.

I know from this blog it seems like all I do is fight with taxi drivers and hang out with my friends, but I do Peace Corps stuff too. For those of you wondering what Peace Corps does in China, this is your lucky day! -Peace Corps has different job categories in different countries, such as teaching, business development, agriculture, social services, and healthcare. In China, all we do is teaching. The Chinese government forbids us being involved with any other type of work while we are here. -This program started in the early 90’s on a trial basis. A few years later, a contract was signed. As part of the contract, the Chinese Ministry of Education decides where to place volunteers. This is unique; in most countries, the Peace Corps decides where to place volunteers. -Our first priority is to teach English courses at universities in three provinces (Gansu, Sichuan and Guizhou) and one municipality (Chongqing, where I am). These are traditionally some of the poorest parts of China...

(I found internet access so I can post by email, but sorry, I can't see anyone else's blogs or make comments. I will have a lot of catching up to do!) My week of training is going very well so far. I spend half the day in Chinese class, and the other half listening to guest speakers and completing activities. So far we have had the NPR Beijing correspondent come speak to us (really interesting!) and now we have reps from the State Department who specialize in education here doing some training with us. It's like being back in grad school, and I am eating it up. And we are all here in a hotel together, so there are lots of fun times eating and playing together after the work is done. Overall, a great way to spend the week! I complained before about Spiderman Syndrome, so I feel I should also share this small anecdote: V. and I were watching C rouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon earlier this week in his hotel room. Near the end of the movie, he got up and put a little travel pa...

I'm getting to that point in my service where people are asking me what I'm going to do when I get home. For those that don't know, before coming into Peace Corps, I had a real life adult business job, a real life adult apartment full of real-life furniture, a car, etc. I still have the car, and the furniture (thanks mom for your storage help!), so it's time to decide about the job. (I've done my Masters but at least at this time, I'm not going to do a PhD. Maybe in a few years, we'll see.) My goal is to be an ESL teacher, either corporate or government. I've narrowed down the cities where I'll be job-searching, and I have thrown NYC into the ring. I always thought if I moved to NYC I'd live in Washington Heights, but I really do want to live in a Chinese community. So, in the near future, I'll be making a trip back to NYC for a tour around Flushing, Queens. I've never been there, and I have no idea what it's like. I just know a lot...

It's a phenomenon familiar to all foreigners in China: you sit down to eat at a Chinese restaurant, pick up your chopsticks, and all nearby (and sometimes farby) eyes turn to stare at you as you take your first bites. I don't really know why they are staring. Curiosity? Concern? Amusement? Boredom? It's something that is still a mystery to me. If you do manage to get food into your mouth, though, you'll be complimented on your ability to use chopsticks either by a smile and small nod of the head, or words of encouragement from those nearby. Yesterday I was having lunch with a Chinese friend and as we began to eat, I commented on the fact everyone was staring at me. "Oh yes!" she said. "And if I go to America, everyone will stare at *me* to see if I can use a knife and fork." It wasn't a question, it was a matter-of-fact truth in her mind; if the Chinese stare at foreigners, foreigners will stare at the Chinese. A few things I could have said:...