Within the first few days of work I experienced a workplace quite different from what I'd dealt with in the United States and Guam.
The nature of an international school is quite different than most schools, public or private, in the United States. The entire working staff, including the administrators are hired from overseas and that becomes their point of familiarity, for they are from somewhere else. The teachers are expats or people away from their home countries who are in this country for a variety of reasons. Some of these teachers might be intellectuals studying this exotic place, some might be adventurers with every place in the city and countryside an exciting adventure, some are spiritual or political proselytizers out to convert the world and some are near retirement age trying to roll teaching and living in a foreign country into a nice mixture.
The teachers and students that I met were in some respects very much like the students that I had left behind in Guam in their cultural mix. But, just as their fathers and mothers were there in this place on assignment for some large foreign corporation the children were lacking permanence, in the same way. In its entirety this school's teaching staff, students, and parents were all transient. No one was permanent except for the Chinese staff who were hired locally.
What was odd for me was that I had just come from a school which had just taken on some of these transient teachers as a part of that staff. With the inclusion of these new teachers the school on Guam had lost much of its feeling of locality. Someone had come there with a view that that school was somehow an international school. So I was now confronted with these same types of teachers in Suzhou. How would I react to these people?
My first chance to meet the members of the staff, other than my musical colleagues, came in the morning break at 10:15 AM. This was when the teachers would go to the over-sized break room and eat a morning snack. The snack consisted of different items, depending upon the day of the week. This second day, Tuesday, the break food was Chinese noodles (known to my colleagues as slippery noodles to the westerners) which had soy sauce or vinegar for toppings. There was always coffee, tea, orange juice, and milk.
Around this table gathered the teachers who fared from the four corners of the world: Australia, England, New Zealand, France, Germany, USA, as well as Japan, and China. I was the new teacher at the school and generally the other teachers had already established their own circles of friends. How would I fit in?
The second meeting of staff came at lunchtime. The cafeteria was huge and in each of the four corners were separate serving areas with a variety of foods. In one corner was a sandwich counter where people could concoct their own sandwiches in the way that one could at a "Subway" restaurant, in another corner was the Italian counter where each day pizza, and some sort of pasta were served, in another corner was a Japanese counter with mizo soup, and a daily change of menu in Japanese foods, finally in the fourth corner was the Chinese counter where Chinese food was served strangely in combination with British cuisine. How those two were combined is beyond my comprehension. And at each corner display was a smaller salad counter, so vegetables could be added or be the mainstay for someone's lunch. Whatever lunch might be chosen was priced at 11 rmb or slightly under 2 dollars US.
As I entered this place for the first time I somehow found myself gravitating to a table of Chinese workers. I suppose I had been a bit turned off by the teachers who had invaded the school where I'd worked in Guam and I was now carrying this into this new work place. It's a bit strange to have had this reaction, especially since I was now one of these teachers myself, an expat. But, another factor that was in my mind was that I had had a whole lifetime living and working with English speaking peoples and now I found myself in a situation where I could learn about a culture from the inside out. I didn't really know the full length of time that I would be in China so I wanted to soak up as much knowledge, culture, and atmosphere as I could. So, here I was sitting at a table where the occupants were English as a second language and that actually attracted me to them; being different than me.
After lunch I returned to my music room and took on the afternoon classes. The schedule for school would take me and all teachers to 3:30 when all the students would get on their particular bus and make their way home. This was followed by a wave of teachers who could elect to take the 4 PM bus (there were three buses for this trip), with a second bus caravan (this time five buses) leaving at 5 PM which included the Chinese workers who had a longer working day. This was the daily work schedule at SSIS.
The nature of an international school is quite different than most schools, public or private, in the United States. The entire working staff, including the administrators are hired from overseas and that becomes their point of familiarity, for they are from somewhere else. The teachers are expats or people away from their home countries who are in this country for a variety of reasons. Some of these teachers might be intellectuals studying this exotic place, some might be adventurers with every place in the city and countryside an exciting adventure, some are spiritual or political proselytizers out to convert the world and some are near retirement age trying to roll teaching and living in a foreign country into a nice mixture.
The teachers and students that I met were in some respects very much like the students that I had left behind in Guam in their cultural mix. But, just as their fathers and mothers were there in this place on assignment for some large foreign corporation the children were lacking permanence, in the same way. In its entirety this school's teaching staff, students, and parents were all transient. No one was permanent except for the Chinese staff who were hired locally.
What was odd for me was that I had just come from a school which had just taken on some of these transient teachers as a part of that staff. With the inclusion of these new teachers the school on Guam had lost much of its feeling of locality. Someone had come there with a view that that school was somehow an international school. So I was now confronted with these same types of teachers in Suzhou. How would I react to these people?
My first chance to meet the members of the staff, other than my musical colleagues, came in the morning break at 10:15 AM. This was when the teachers would go to the over-sized break room and eat a morning snack. The snack consisted of different items, depending upon the day of the week. This second day, Tuesday, the break food was Chinese noodles (known to my colleagues as slippery noodles to the westerners) which had soy sauce or vinegar for toppings. There was always coffee, tea, orange juice, and milk.
Around this table gathered the teachers who fared from the four corners of the world: Australia, England, New Zealand, France, Germany, USA, as well as Japan, and China. I was the new teacher at the school and generally the other teachers had already established their own circles of friends. How would I fit in?
The second meeting of staff came at lunchtime. The cafeteria was huge and in each of the four corners were separate serving areas with a variety of foods. In one corner was a sandwich counter where people could concoct their own sandwiches in the way that one could at a "Subway" restaurant, in another corner was the Italian counter where each day pizza, and some sort of pasta were served, in another corner was a Japanese counter with mizo soup, and a daily change of menu in Japanese foods, finally in the fourth corner was the Chinese counter where Chinese food was served strangely in combination with British cuisine. How those two were combined is beyond my comprehension. And at each corner display was a smaller salad counter, so vegetables could be added or be the mainstay for someone's lunch. Whatever lunch might be chosen was priced at 11 rmb or slightly under 2 dollars US.
As I entered this place for the first time I somehow found myself gravitating to a table of Chinese workers. I suppose I had been a bit turned off by the teachers who had invaded the school where I'd worked in Guam and I was now carrying this into this new work place. It's a bit strange to have had this reaction, especially since I was now one of these teachers myself, an expat. But, another factor that was in my mind was that I had had a whole lifetime living and working with English speaking peoples and now I found myself in a situation where I could learn about a culture from the inside out. I didn't really know the full length of time that I would be in China so I wanted to soak up as much knowledge, culture, and atmosphere as I could. So, here I was sitting at a table where the occupants were English as a second language and that actually attracted me to them; being different than me.
After lunch I returned to my music room and took on the afternoon classes. The schedule for school would take me and all teachers to 3:30 when all the students would get on their particular bus and make their way home. This was followed by a wave of teachers who could elect to take the 4 PM bus (there were three buses for this trip), with a second bus caravan (this time five buses) leaving at 5 PM which included the Chinese workers who had a longer working day. This was the daily work schedule at SSIS.
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