My Third week with a Chinese Family.

One of my main goals with my Blog posts that I wrote for HHS was to introduce some of the difficult aspects of being an au pair while still giving it a positive feeling. This is the post where I get to be brutally honest. In the next post I will have to resolve the tensions further and make it more fluffy then I actually feel in order to convey the proper feeling. As you may well know, I have difficulty doing anything that seems to me to be dishonest, and you may ask yourself "how can he feel ok with that?". The answer is has two aspects. On the one hand I am becoming Jaded and less principled. After all at the time of writing this I had practicably no money, and more then half of that no money was my deposit at HHS... On the other hand I feel like although the au pair program is not for me it would be great for the right person. By being less then perfectly honest maybe I can help that person find what is right for them? There is a story in the Mahabharata of a man who after telling the truth to thieves is now roasting in hell. We "must be like the swan who can drink only the milk out of a bowl of milk and water". It is ridiculous of course to believe that swans can do this demonstrating that Indian people are just as silly as Chinese people...

Third Week:

Now, cultural shock has begun to permeate my entire life. I woke up in the morning and wondered why I didn’t move to Hawaii with 3 of my close friends. I was longing not just for the warmth and beauty. I was sad not just because I missed my friends. I was missing “home” not just because life in the United States is so easy, but also because I hate this place. I hate that everything is so dirty and loud. I have never been in such an unfriendly place. When I tried to ask for directions on the street yesterday people walked wide around me. It seems like the only time they are not staring at me is when I need help. I have been immersed in three languages that I could not speak well, or at all, before coming to China, and I have never had this experience. In my orientation I was told, “Your Chinese friends will be the nicest people you have ever met, but never expect anything from someone who you don’t know.”

Things with the family are also starting to be less pleasant. Bob and Sam often argue at dinner and the other day the mother yelled at Bob almost continually while kicking his things around the house all morning until I brought him out to the mall for his English lesson. I told my friend and she referred me to the book Tiger Mom. Of course not all families will be the same and I am told that the way children are treated will be different if they are boys or girls and also depending on their age. I recommend looking at it or at least reading a synopsis and asking the family about how they discipline their child. Discipline notwithstanding, Bob often acts like a spoiled brat. He is always trying to tell me what to do, and he no longer likes to study English. During class he covers his face, pretends to sleep, or doesn’t say anything at all. I told Sam, who told the mother, that I am not an English teacher and I am not going to try to teach him English if he refuses to learn. I was told not to play with him for the rest of the day and he spent all day doing his school homework. He has also stopped practicing yoga and kung fu with me. He thinks it is too hard. Since he can’t do what I can after 10 years of practice he won’t try. I told him to take it slow but he is too proud.

I also had my first personal experience of Chinese communication extremes with the family. In the second week I was told that the internet is only 4 hours a day and for more time we pay extra. I was told not to worry about it as long as I turn the computer off at night. Just the other day Sam got home and walked directly into my room and started yelling at me about the internet. I calmly reminded him of what I was told and after some “discussion” with me talking and him yelling I decided to take a walk. After 3 hours of walking I ended up at the university. I walked by a group of people hoping that they would notice me, they didn’t. I walked around for a while and decide to join the group. Immediately they started talking to me in English! I spent an hour talking until I got to cold and hungry. I got home just before midnight. The mother answered the door with a note from Sam saying she was sorry for Sam’s yelling at me. The next day I told my friend about it. She has not spoken to Sam since the fifth day of my stay. “He was yelling at you!?! In English!?! When I met him he could hardly say “hello”. Sam, like many young Chinese, know a lot of English; they just can’t speak very well. I have been amazed at how fast Sam’ English has improved. I wish my Chinese was improving so quickly.

This event marks roughly marks the end of my third week, and also a positive turning point in my stay. I was not upset about the internet of course. I would not even have been able to use the internet much if they had not bought a computer for my room. Even though they said it is for Sam he rarely uses it. I was only upset because if using the internet was a big deal why couldn’t they say that? Why did they have to wait until they got so frustrated that they had to yell at me about it? Maybe the yelling is a sign that I am now really part of the family.

Another week in paradise.

Here is another Blog I wrote for HHS and below is an excerpt from an email to a friend.

On the au pair emotional chart the au pair is expected to have a sharp decline in happiness during the second week. I would like to think that I would be an exception to this, but as predicted things are beginning to be more difficult for me. Things are still going really well with the family, and I have even met some friends here in town, but other things are beginning to drag on me. I find culture shock is like an earthquake, you may feel a tremor here and there, but underground where you can’t see it there is a tension building, and all of a sudden something shifts and then the roof falls in on you as if you were in a Sichuanese schoolhouse.

Chinese people don’t seem to have the same value for plans that I do, and when all my plans got thrown out the window without my consent I got very angry. My Chinese friend said she has never thought about it before. “Maybe it’s because we don’t have tenses expressed in our language in the way you do? Anyway there is nothing we can do about it.” Luckily none of these problems were in my family so at least my home life is still going well. I spent the first week largely in the house with the family. Now I spend more time out, both with the family and with friends. My host mother, Bob, my new 9 year old brother, and I went to a really cool art and drama museum. I went to another museum with my friend and learned about the local Chinese history. I know very little about Chinese art, and my knowledge of history is confined to politics so I found it all very interesting. Bob is now on break from school so we spend a lot of time together. Sam, the 18 year old son is in his last year of high school. His uncle said, “The life of a pig is better then the life of a last year student.” I agree. He goes to school early in the morning, even on weekends and comes home for dinner and then after my English lesson he studies until late at night when he goes to sleep. Since it is winter Bob and I spend most of our time inside playing cards, soccer, or tag. I am not used to spending so much time inside and I feel like I am wasting away. I never really liked cold winters in the city. Lan Zhou is very cold, not like Florida where I grew up.
I am also beginning to miss my freedom. There is no key to the door, the grandmother is always home to open it, so I can’t go out at night. It is not that big of a deal since I don’t go out that much anyway. I was really surprised when, in the middle of the night, Sam came into my room and told me it was too late and I have to go to sleep. I opened Google Translator an invaluable, however limited, tool and asked him if I was keeping him awake. He said no, so I told him that I would not be told when to go to sleep. He tried to argue but decided that he would rather sleep. I have not been told when to go to sleep again. Also, the pollution is wearing on me, it is a little worse here than in Beijing. I have been coughing every day. When I lived in Thailand I coughed every day for a month but I got over it. I expect to get over it soon; pollution is a small price to pay to see a whole new world. The coughing only really started after I got really sick. After dinner the grandmother got sick and puked up all of her food. I didn’t think much about it and the next night I ate all the leftovers. It was Jiao zi, one of my favorite dishes. I didn’t think about the grandmother getting sick, or the fact that they don’t refrigerate leftovers. I spent that night in severe discomfort. The next day, after the pain stopped all I did was sleep and go to the bathroom. I hardly ate for the next three days.

First of all: I was told that I would spend the weekend in a hotel, but I got picked up by the mother and the HHS translator at the airport. I did not mind this because I knew the whole thing was being arranged spontaneously. The translator hardly speaks any English and comes off as a very odd person. (Later a Chinese friend I met here independently commented that he was very strange). After we arrived at the house everything was great for the first few days. Of course the family expects me to be a live in English teacher and doesn't understand why I would want to leave the house with out them, but I was planning on dealing with each of these issues in turn.

"Before I could finish addressing the first issue about having my own free time I found out that HHS had signed a 1 month contract with the family. My agreement with Michael was that I would only be here for 15 days. I went to the office with the mother to address the issue. I spoke with Michael (on the phone) and the Lan Zhou officers and agreed to stay for at least 18 days and possibly for the entire contract. Before I was done making this arrangement with Michael the manager left the room and told the mother that I would be staying for longer then the contracted month. After my agreement with Michael was settled he spoke with the translator and told him our arrangement. Immediately after speaking to Michael the translator also told the family that I would be in Lan Zhou for longer then the contracted month. A few days later during dinner the family mentioned "our plans" for the spring festival. I told them that I would not be here for spring festival. They told me that I would. I called my translator friend so that I could understand what happened (accounted above) and spoke with Michael again. He said that the translator did not admit to telling the family that I would be here until after the spring festival. I then asked the mother to record her account of the meeting so that I could share it with Michael because he said that he was too busy to deal with it and I should solve it and get back to him. I will speak to him with my translator tomorrow."

In the end I figured out who was responsible, the regional manager, and he got fired.

:P