Defamiliarization | "White-water" Rafting | American Holidays | Tutoring Grace | Four Things I've Learned | Dancing and Nanfang | Students | Being a Celebrity | The Bathroom | Coming to Terms | Random Conversation

White-water Rafting and Other Things

- Gretchen Hults

      At the end of our first break, we decided to be adventurous and explore Chinese
white water rafting. Floating down the river, we were treated to the sights of
foilage hanging down sheer rock like feathery green beards; rocks dividing
waterfalls into long rushing fingers streaming through the green; mist revealing
and obscuring the fantastically pointed cliffs. The scene seemed
timeless-- until the water guns were pulled out. Men, from small boys to old
grandfathers, sat in small bamboo-poled boats lining the river, waiting for the
rafters, equipped with water guns. As soon as our neon orange life vests rounded
the bend, our fellow boaters would whip out the meter long white and blue
plastic syringes and gleefully douse us all as we floated past. After the first
hour of one sided water fights, each boat bought the guns in self defense and
fell to fighting each other. Epic battles took place on that river-alliances,
double-crossing,broadsided attacks.. not the adventure I had looked for in
"rafting," but adventure nonetheless.

At the very end of the rafting, our boat started singing 'Row row row your boat'
on whim-- and suddenly all the water fighting stopped. The battle cries and
hysterical laughter turned into silence and the other boats listened with
respect. When we finished our song, the next boat over sang one to us. It went
back and forth, trading traditional chinese songs for tuneless renditions of
'Leaving on a jet plane.' We ended on 'Hey Jude'- an instant hit which everyone
sang together. We clapped, smiled and went on our way, bonded for a moment
through water guns and the Beatles.

Things I'm proud of from this trip:

--Spending time with my students outside of our class. I absolutely loved
swimming with them in the river; I went every other day, if not every day for
several stretches, and truly enjoyed having unstructured conversation. I was
especially proud of my youngest students, who found the confidence to initiate
basic conversation with me and hold their own. It thrilled me that they felt
comfortable enough with me to hang out outside of class-- a pretty scary thing,
when you are just beginning a new language. We laughed alot, and I taught the
girls how to swim. Many of the students I felt closest to in Wulingyuan were not
in my classes; our relationship existed at the river, and at the roller rink or
food stands.

--Practicing leading conversations that would feel natural even though
completely premeditated. In class, one of the worst feelings is talking just for
the sake of talking; repeating sentences that have little meaning and no
relevance. I worked hard to make classtime have the illusion of 'english
chatting time,' so the kids would feel like they just happened to be in a
classroom while they were talking with me. Some days I had more success than
others- the age of the kids, and the size of the class, often forced me to
implement a more obvious structure to the lesson than I would have liked, but we
had moments of success-- the best being when we were talking about holidays, and
suddenly the kids were tagteamming their sentences, trying to explain the
communist party, china's relationship with Taiwan and why people visit the
graves of their relatives. Yes, I feigned more ignorance than was truly
accurate, but it was so gratifying to see them stretching out of pre-learned pat
phrases, putting together new sentences in a jumble, trying to make me
understand.

--Having fun being the center of attention. Teaching is performative, and only
embracing the spotlight kept me from burning out (bad pun, I know-- sorry). When
I asked my kids to name a rockstar and they shouted "Gretchen!" I felt like I
had won the Oscar. I really enjoyed pulling stock characters out of my head and
turning into a french waiter or old grandmother.. and the kids just ate it up.
Finding ways to incorporate acting (both my own acting, and the kids' acting)
into all my lessons was one of the most difficult parts of my lesson planning--
but the best choice I made. The students always woke up and quieted down when
someone was making a fool of themselves.. and it made the time fun for me too.

--Adaptability. I was surprised by how easily I slid into my new role here in
China. One of the biggest pleasures on this trip was just seeing how comfortable
I felt in situations which were new and probably should have been rough. I
started to realize this when I got responses from sent emails.. and was shocked
by how others responded to China as 'exotic.' While here, it has seemed like
life-as-it-is, not especially challenging, any more than life anywhere. I think
I've been a stabalizing force for a bunch of the girls on this trip, as they've
struggled with adapting, and wondering if they would ever feel normal here. It's
been good to feel like I was helping to keep the group balanced and keep people
from flipping out.