whatever you think is best for my future.

in many ways university life in chongqing differs, from what we have come to consider normal. when the momentous day of going off to college arrives, the common denominator for freshman students is their new found freedom. one day you are sneaking out of your parents home, the next you are sneaking into your new home, trying to not disturb your roommate. did you have a late nite? no problem, just skip class the next day, no one will notice. you thought you wanted to be a doctor, huh? turns out you have found your true calling of teaching gym class. well, just change your major. my point is, college students in china abide by certain rules and have less freedom when they move away from their parents. for them this is not anything to get into a fit over, you just accept it, or you can always kill yourself.

this semester my workload is much lighter than the last. i teach seven classes spoken english. the class enrollment ranges from 28 to 34. i also have office hours that consist of 10 to 15 students. office hours give the students more chances to speak and myself more topics to discuss with them. as i have said before, the best part of teaching here is the interaction with my students. they are all freshman and many of them are very shy. they assume their english is not good enough, so the best thing to do is not talk. this only occurs within the classroom. outside of class, the quietest students will talk your ear off, using every english word in their limited vocabulary. they all know english, it is mandatory to learn. they begin at a young age, and even in college they may have at least three more english classes in addition to mine. my job is to get students to talk. sometimes that can be difficult, but i do find success. in china, the teacher speaks, the students listen. they accept what the teacher tells them because the teacher is right. they would not be teaching if they were wrong. i try to get them to voice opinions, arguments, contradictions, classroom proceedings in traditional american universities. usually, the girls are more likely to speak and participate than the boys. many of the boys sit in the back and sleep, while the girls are in front with smiles on their faces. i try to teach to the good students and make the others happy so they stay awake. chinese students are extremely competitive so playing games with them is always a fun activity. classes last about an hour a fifty minutes, with a ten minute break in between. i do not have to keep track of time because there are buzzers, like high school, that signify when class ends and begins. i also must take attendance every class period. i only meet each class once a week, but it reflects on their grade if they do not show, or they try and sneak out of class.

some of things that are totally different from an american university is the idea of not choosing your major. i believe they take a test in high school, then they are placed in the field that suits them best. even if they find their major boring, they just accept it. it is strange like that, the chinese, how they just accept things the way they are. earlier this year the women were forced to move to a dorm further away, creating a much longer walk to campus. i asked them what they thought of this, and the reply was "we now have a TV". "do the boys have a TV?" "yes, they always have." the women just accepted the fact that they did not have television before, and now accept the fact they have a 15-20 minute walk to campus. of course, i explained to them that women in an american university would not be too happy with lesser living standards than the men. another strange fact is the loss of electricity. on the weeknites at 11:30, the power to all dormitories is shut off. the students get around this by having full batteries for their computers or using candles. many even stay off campus and sleep in a karaoke room or internet bar. but there is never any complaining to the superiors at the university, just maybe amongst themselves.

the pressure for students seems to be much higher over here in the east. not only in china, but in many asian countries, suicide is a more frequent occurrence. losing face, or extreme embarrassment, is one of the worst things that could happen to a student. the pressure to perform well is larger for a student because going to college and learning english is significant. some students release this pressure by jumping off a bridge. this happened fairly recently at my university. a junior student walked into the water to release her pressure or save embarrassment. they thought she jumped off a bridge, but then said she drowned herself. they had a meeting about it. told the students not to kill themselves. then accept that it happened, and move on.