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Learning to Teach in China
by Jocelyn Cullity
Excerpts:
I knew nothing about teaching and nothing about China when my boyfriend Prakash and I accepted a one-year contract to teach English to 
university students in Dalian. My lack of knowledge about China didn’t bother me in the slightest -- in fact I found it exciting. My lack of teaching experience, however, worried me.
The Chinese-Canadian company that hired us considered the fact that English was our first language sufficient qualification for the job. And Prakash, who had done some teaching, wasn’t concerned that we possessed not the slightest idea of what we’d gotten ourselves into. To me, however, the mere thought of standing at the front of a class was terrifying . . .
“We are so glad to have three foreign experts this year,” Li said, looking at me. “Last year the Foreign Expert Bureau only assigned us one expert.”
By virtue of my native tongue, I was suddenly elevated to the lofty position of “expert.” Imposter, I was. . . . . . . Dean Yu sat back, drinking his tea, and told us about when he arrived in New York to teach literature in the
’70s. He’d had his suitcase stolen outside the airport. The suitcase held his two essential books, the names and addresses of his American contacts and three changes of clothes. In his wallet, he had 20 one-yuan notes, about a dollar. He laid the notes on the ground, pinning them down with stones, and sat behind them. He sold them as collector’s items, getting ten dollars for each. With $200, he had enough to get by until he could figure out who was waiting for him to arrive at which college. . .
