From the Land of the Rising Sun….
The commute is tiring, especially as I fight a dragging cold, perpetuated by the many others coughing and sniffling around me. But in an odd way I relish the hour and a half of watching the city slide by, traveling along the outer curves of this massive body, tracing the canals to the river delta to the edge of the sea.
Line 3 is above ground all the way to Baoshan. Each afternoon at 4:00 I board the train home and sit on the north side of the car so I can watch the late sun glancing off the canals and the river barges. From the steel factories- curling steeples of smoke and steam silhouetted into a surprising beauty.
I have comfort in this routine. I’ve made a connection with most of my students now, if even just through a mutual understanding of how tedious the educational system here is. Lately we have been out in the sun most days playing games that I have pulled from my improv group as well as from my childhood. You’d be surprised what pleases them most… Duck duck goose is now exceedingly popular among the senior class- and I think it is because boys get to chase girls, girls get to chase boys, and they can run rather than sitting at a desk. They also love Red Rover. They have no idea that kindergarteners also play these games!
I’m teaching at least 50% in Chinese now because I just want to get through to my students, and I find that many of them really cannot understand most of what I say in English. It’s helping me feel closer to them and them to me, I believe, because I am giving a little too and acknowledging that understanding a foreign language is hard! Sometimes they teach me Chinese instead- not exactly my job description, but it engages them and we end up finding new words in both languages. Only 8 weeks left of making this commute and seeing these students. I’m ready for the change, but am also surprised at how I’ve become rather comfortable in the daily.
I’ve been piecing a lot together lately, filling my time with variety which has been both engaging and at times exhausting. I’m still teaching Art out of my home twice a week and have more local children joining my classes. It is a truly bilingual environment because some students don’t speak any English at all, while others speak 3 or 4 languages. I’m also leading an Improv class once a week now for adults, am in a One-Act play, and am taking Cello lessons. It makes for a lot of running around, but I’m feeling more and more alight from the creative projects and all of the great people I’ve been connecting with.
The improv group, which I initially joined as a participant, has led to so much unexpected opportunity very quickly. At first I was asked if I would like to lead the group, then invited to teach additional dance classes (starting in a few weeks), and now have been invited to be a core member of the company who started the group: Zuloo Theatre Productions.
The company is 5 years old and was based in the UK, but after a year and a half of working into the theatre community here in Shanghai, we are now opening a more permanent space to run a theatre/dance school and to base our theatre production company! I am overwhelmed by the creative outlet that has been opened to me, the great people I am now working with, and am so honored to have been asked to help captain this ship! I'm also organizing monthly guerrilla theatre happenings in the city (the next one hitting the Shanghai metros in a few weeks) and can't believe how many people are on board and excited about these projects! So so good.
When it rains it pours, right? I feel showered in goodness right now with so much opportunity entering my life.
I just landed the job that I have been wading through interviews and formalities for 3 weeks now! The job is with Shanghai United International School. The school targets both the local Chinese as well as expats (mostly from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan). It is an English speaking school and I have been asked to teach 2nd grade. It is an excellent school and it is only 15 minutes by metro from my home!
Now I feel that I have too much rather than not enough. I'm wondering how I'll continue with Zuloo and teach... and I'm still hoping to start on my Masters in the fall. I'd love to take this job because I want to know what it would be like to be a grade school teacher and to get so involved with one class over time. I want the stability. But I don't want to give up the creative elements of my life.
b a l a n c e .
Looking for a job I can see myself enjoying, and now getting the job, is a real personal commitment to staying in Shanghai another year. It’s been a challenge living here, but a worthwhile one. I’m still longing to return to a quieter, cleaner, more peaceful place- but right now Shanghai seems to be what I need. Strange. I never would have guessed it.
I’m making bounds with Chinese, now beginning to read and write Hanyu (characters)… slowly slowly, but I’m doing it. Who knows, maybe after another year I still won’t be ready to leave, but I doubt it ☺ I think after one more year of steadiness and planning for the future I will be ready to move forward. I’m thinking I will move to another country after this, potentially in Asia, but you never know! I think that working at SUIS and working on my Masters will open up a lot of opportunity for me to live and work abroad at good International schools. I’m also so excited to see where things go with Zuloo Theatre.
So that’s the long and the short of it! Life is gooood.
Spring is waking up the city. Peach and Cherry trees radiant with fragrant pearls of pink and white. Thick petalled Magolias hold cupfuls of sunlight. Green buds first peeked then quickly uncurled in the branches outside my window. It happens to fast. Sun pulling back winter curtains.
Adam is also doing well- Now playing in two excellent bands as well as producing electronic music, and teaching guitar lessons, music classes, and a rock-ensemble class. He is really putting his heart into his music and rocking out! It has been great to see his shows lately and see him having so much fun. He is planning to come to the states with me this summer- so hopefully you will be able to meet him! He’s never been to the Western US- only to a few east coast cities and parts of the south- so I’m looking forward to showing him our beauteous home!
Things are always changing, but I’m finding shifts in my internal landscape effect my days the most, and that would be true anywhere. So for now Shanghai it is! And I’m challenging myself to embrace life here as an interesting one-of-a-kind concoction. Humanity… ugly and beautiful here just as anywhere- Amplified times 30 million!
Salutations loved ones! I hope spring is bursting forth in your neck of the woods! Imagine a flock of pelicans pulling a blimp of love across the ocean from me to you… And WHAM! The beaks blast it open right over you! Love pours down. Love downpour! Ha.
No comments:
Post a Comment