Filed under: Uncategorized
No, not the Olympics.
Months ago, I responded immediately to a listserv posting
that read: Teach in
China. A month later, I was invited for an interview at JFK,
who is partnering with another school in Beijing. The plan is to bring 3 professional
psychology professors to teach workshops in Beijing this year. If all goes well, JFK will
help them set up an actual certification program (i.e. a 15 course series for a
psychology/mental health certification.) The hourly pay rate is just Ok, but of course flight, room and board are
covered and Helen pretty much never turns down an occasion to get on a boat or
plane!
When they asked me to teach Clinical Supervision, I said
,“YES!” and began plotting my China vacation, for P to meet me in Beijing I was done teaching, to meet up with China Bruin –my UCLA buddy who now co-owns
a restaurant by the Great Wall, and possibly have a cousin and dear friend in
Taiwan come meet up with us as well.
I Bought the Discovery channel China guidebook to give me a Cliffs
note version of 5000 yrs of Chinese history and a fifth of the world’s
population. Dad advised me about my
Mandarin pronunciation, we made fun of the tongue curling mainland accent which
I find so difficult to decipher, and he reminded me not to screw up my tones or
else “Advanced supervision” would come out as something akin to “ regional fish
gut stew dish”.
Friends were excited for me, everyone knows teaching abroad
is one of my career ultimate goals/interests. P was most definitely not thrilled at the notion of my leaving for a
semester or year abroad - so a short workshop seemed like the ideal
compromise. As the weeks went by, we had
an international conference call, and I was told to reserve the dates.
P requested vacation leave. People would ask
when I was leaving and I always said…”supposedly August 3-5.”
I’d always get a puzzled look. “are they not sure yet?”
No, they had confirmed it. But it is in my mildly paranoid
nature & my distrust of international coordination efforts that “I probably
won’t really believe I am going until I’m on the plane.”
I got an e-mail: Go get your China visa and contact Ms. L to
make travel reservations. Hmmm. Guess it’s a go after all.
Time to start panicking about my curriculum! P and I take
mug shots of one another for the visa application. We take them at 9:30 p.m on a work night when I am ready to pass out. I ponder that "I look kinda OLD" in these pics, then decide that looking older is better for my professional credibility.
Then suddenly- another e-mail: stop the presses.
Beijing is postponed a
month (or two). Apparently they need more
time to market the courses & to translate our materials.
Geez. Am I psychic? I just had a feeling all along August
was not the real date…no, I am just Chinese!
Look, there actually is a reality to the figure of speech
“Chinese fire drill.”
I can’t fathom why the same culture that managed to invent
the compass and gunpowder and silk can’t seem to plan their way out of a paper
bag! Sheesh.
Hence when we were planning our wedding, I refused to
utilize Chinese vendors-despite their significantly cheaper prices. The lack of binding contracts and the
sloppiness with details was not something I would risk on that big day. We went with the obsessive tendencies of a
Japanese photographer instead and the other, Western, contract-bound hires.
They say part of the reason China was occupied by the Japanese
back in the day was our relative lack of organization. Their citizens starved (not that the emperr gave them choice in the matter) so their soldiers were
nourished, and they were single -minded in their evil imperialistic goals. Meanwhile, the Chinese were so disorganized that
those who fought side by side often couldn’t even speak the same dialect to communicate. All I can say is dude, if someone is shooting things right next to me, I need to COMMUNICATE.
In Iris Chang’s book about the earliest Chinese Americans,
she wrote about how much the white miners hated the Chinese. The “chinamen” worked for less, were small in
stature - but could haul rock & dynamite mountains longer and harder than
the white miners. While the whites got scurvy from boozin’ & meat/potatoes
eatin’ the Chinese were boiling vegetables (cheap n’ healthy). When the white minders attacked the Chinese
miners they were surprised at how those little guys could fight tooth and nail, rock and pick.
Maybe it’s just the bell curve…we got some of the brainiest, scrappiest
people…and we also got PLENTY of the rest of that statistical bell.
So we invent things & accomplish tasks on
a shoestring budget, and set up successful businesses in every country of the
world, and can work ourselves day and night like no one else. (Our tour guide in Belize proclaimed that the Chinese would ‘take over’ due to their business acumen). But we also “oops” poison into commercial
products, practiced grotesque foot-binding, and self-destructed all the
intellectuals & freethinkers in the cultural revolution. I can sing these praises as well as talk
this smack since it pervades my own life and personality too.
Anyways, if all goes well, I will spend July 4th
typing up Clinical Supervision powerpoints like a madwoman hopped up on speed (or at
least on Peet’s Major Dickinson’s blend).
And I will try to not to humiliate myself back in my ancestral homeland when
I finally get over to Beijing to do this thang.
