Lona Manning's Blog, page 32

The end of the adventure?

The Powers That Be in China have decided to enforce the regulation that they will not grant a work visa to persons over 60 years of age. So it appears -- unless there is some province where the authorities are still bending the rules a bit -- that my China adventure will come to an end in about six weeks. My current work visa will expire and I won't be able to get a new one because I turned 60 last November. I hope that there are still some exceptions to this rule --  I hope to find some university in the hinterlands that is willing and able to take a chance on hiring a decrepit old foreigner.  Around the campus here, I see dozens of janitorial and landscaping staff, hard at work all day, who appear to be older than 60. And I see hundreds of seniors working on other public landscaping projects around town. Mandatory retirement appears to apply only to government and white collar workers, who also enjoy better pension benefits. For Chinese nationals, the current retirement age is 60 years for men, and 55 for women. 
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There is a strong social expectation that the retired women will look after their grandchild, while their daughters and daughters-in-law go to work. The grandfathers pitch in with the babies, as well. That said, the Chinese government is planning to raise the retirement age, for obvious economic (as in economic realities) and demographic reasons.  At any rate, I predict that this no-foreigners-over-60 rule will be revised or withdrawn before long, the demand for native English teachers being what it is, but probably not in time to change things for me, or many others in the same boat. The reality of this hasn't really hit -- will I have to say goodbye to my students, colleagues and friends, and return to Canada and a very different lifestyle? Ross and I were planning to explore more of Asia -- we love the six weeks' winter vacation that comes working as a teacher at an institute of higher learning in China, and the low cost of roaming and flying wherever we pleased. 
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I'm not feeling particularly worried about not knowing where I will be come this September. September will come anyway. And meanwhile I want to cherish these last few weeks in Zibo, because the world that surrounds me here, which was once so alien and remarkable, is now familiar and routine and frankly, has become a second home.

How long should an ex-pat stay in China?

I started this post a long time ago, as a companion to an earlier post about -- what are the upsides of living abroad?

The question is -- what are the downsides? How long should an ex-pat stay and live in China?  I think the answer depends on a number of things: Number one: If you have a really cool, high status, well-paid job here -- as opposed to being an ESL teacher -- perhaps the main considerations are (a) the pollution and (b) what is the best for your family life and your children, supposing you have any. The career considerations I'll discuss below do not apply to you. There are also jobs for certified teachers -- people with a teaching degree, not an ESL certificate -- who can find work at a middle school or high school that is accredited by their home country. In other words, you could be from British Columbia and work at a BC-accredited high school in China. I think teachers should jump at this opportunity, because you will be able to live very modestly and bank most of your Canadian-sized paycheque. A husband-and-wife teaching duo could really sock the money away. You could come home with your student loans paid off or have enough saved for a down payment on a house, plus you'll have an amazing cultural experience which would really help you if you live and work in an area with many immigrant children. Frankly, I think it's a great opportunity.   ESL teachers tend to fall on two ends of a spectrum. There's people like me, older people, who are at the end of their career arc, or are retired and enjoying a second career. We don't have to think about which career move will help us climb the ladder back home, We might have to think about whether we have adequate medical coverage, or the fact that we are not going to be able to save a lot of money from our salaries in our final working year because while our Chinese salary gives us plenty of purchasing power here in China, it doesn't translate well to Western dollars. ​Then there are the young people, looking for an adventure, casting about for a career, or unable to find a decent job back home. For under-30's at the beginning of the career arc, and young and bright enough to learn some workable Mandarin, I think one year in China is plenty, two years at most. Here's why: Most of you are not planning to work as ESL teachers all your lives, The Chinese teaching job, for you, is just a job, like being a camp counselor, which makes it possible for you to go live abroad for a year.  Since most job postings today call for several years' experience doing whatever it is the job entails, you are not advancing yourself in your future career. You are not going to save money, as I've mentioned. In the best case scenario, you'll return home personally enriched, wiser, more mature, and with more knowledge of yourself and more confidence  and with many transferable skills, but not necessarily better off, career-wise or financially, then you'd be if you'd stayed home. And although the onset of adulthood keeps getting pushed back* there might be some negative consequences if you spend most of your twenties living abroad doing a low-paying job. 
And if you're here even longer, if your one year becomes, three or four and more, you'll face some serious economic consequences when you finally return home. Unless you have a separate source of wealth, you will have built up no assets and no retirement fund. When I was in my twenties, retirement was a distant abstraction, and saving up for old age was even more of a distant abstraction. Well.... where did the time go? The time will come for you, as well.

So.... if you are mulling over whether to come to China for a year or two, take those financial and career considerations into account. No-one can guarantee you'll have a great experience teaching abroad, but I hope you do.  A lot depends on what attitude you bring to it, of course. 
One of my ground rules for this blog is that I don't snark and snipe behind people's backs. What I meant was, I am not going to use this blog to joke about, insult or criticize anyone that I worked for or with. Just because I have a blog, that doesn't give me a license to take to the internet to blast people whose foibles would otherwise go unexposed, but for their misfortune in rubbing shoulders with me. That said: if you are thinking about coming to China, and researching what it's like, you will more than likely visit the China forum at Dave's ESL Cafe. There you will encounter a lot of cynicism and negativity from a lot of people who claim to be Old China Hands. My feeling is, take any advice given on that forum with a grain of salt. Also, if you're a Millennial I'm sure you know how to Google information yourself, so please don't be one of those panicky, helpless types posting the same topic on the forum for the millionth time ("Moving to China -- help!!!!!!!") without reading previous posts or just searching out the answer for yourself. Seriously, don't do the thing with the exclamation marks. It's really irritating.

Dave's ESL Cafe isn't the only source of info, either.  Try Internations. Try YouTube. Austin Guidry, the vlogger I've linked to above, is a good place to start, and so is the Local Laowai series.  And of course, my blog. *When my parents were in their early twenties, they were teaching in war-torn Korea, raising three children and fostering war orphans. As a comedian (sorry I don't know who) said, at a comparable age, his biggest achievement was collecting all the "Planet of the Apes" movies.

"A Contrary Wind" chosen for Book of the Week (Blue Ink Review)

Very gratified by their approbation! A Contrary Wind is the featured Blue Ink Review book this week at No Shelf Required, a website for librarians and others involved with ebooks and other digital content!

Rising tensions in Asia

What a bland blog post title. I really wanted to title it, "What rising tensions in Asia mean for foreigners, specifically, me" but so far, the rising tensions haven't affected me at all. But for the first time, yesterday, I was standing at a bus stop with Ross and thinking, IF relations between Donald Trump and China's president Xi Jinping get any worse, than Ross and I might want to sew a some big, fat, Canadian flag decals on all of our clothing. Was it my imagination, but were some of the people at the bus stop looking at us in an unfriendly way? In case you haven't heard, President Trump recently threw out the, uh... observation, shall we call it, that if China didn't do something about North Korea, then the US would act alone in solving the problem of that aggressive hermit nightmare regime.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn [eyeroll] that President Trump knows nothing about the history of North and South Korea, or the "six party" talks . All of the nations living within nuclear-bomb striking distance of Pyongyang have a stake in the outcome of diplomatic talks with North Korea and that they should be a party to the talks. South Korea's capital city, Seoul, is the city that would be incinerated if the North Korean regime ever made good on its threats. So this "go it alone" talk is not helpful or respectful.
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​Not that I have any ideas or solutions, nor can I predict what will happen. Perhaps the Kim regime can only be toppled by force. Perhaps Kim Jong-Un's own generals, alarmed by his Caligula-like behavior, will deal with him themselves. But I'm old enough to remember when his father, Kim Jong-Il, came to power, and back then, the experts were asking if the regime could possibly survive. The misery continues, year after year. Some more random thoughts: I knew all along that the North Korean regime was not to be trusted when they said they would give up trying to make nuclear weapons.  If I, an ordinary citizen knew it, why didn't President Obama know it? Why did he take them at their word? Or did he know they were lying but just wanted to kick the problem down the road into the next administration?And don't forget the illegal and naive intervention by Jimmy Carter during the Clinton years. Naive? Carter literally hugged Kim Il Sung. That's like hugging Hitler or Stalin.Grassroots efforts to help the people of North Korea have been led by small groups of Christians. It saddens me that I see so little concern or compassion for the horrible plight of the ordinary North Korean, trapped in a nightmare regime. South Koreans are more afraid of the consequences should the Kim regime fall and millions of undernourished, unemployable, psychologically damaged refugees pour across the border. China is likewise on heightened alert.
Here's a country filled with starving, underemployed people (North Korea) in-between a country facing a collapsing birthrate (Japan) and a country with a shortage of women (China). Commerce and free association, left to themselves, would supply the solution to everyone's problems, but the Japanese and Chinese are bigoted about marrying outside of their ethnic group and are resistant to mass immigration.North and South Korea are the most striking exemplars of communism/socialism versus commerce. A living laboratory which ought to shut everybody (by "everybody" I mean Bernie Sanders) up on the subject forever. South Korea's patron was the United States; North Korea's was China. North Korea is arguably the worst nation on earth, not much of an advertisement for socialism or for China. The Chinese are so annoyed with the antics of the current leader that they have cut off purchases of coal from North Korea, thus depriving Kim of their most vital source of cash money.Meanwhile, South Korea's president was just removed from office because she was thoroughly corrupted by a Rasputin-like figure, so South Korea's politics are in turmoil at this critical juncture.As if that weren't enough, China and South Korean relations are very frosty just now -- so frosty that the government is boycotting all things Korean -- vacations, music and exports. This article gives more background . When the government takes the lead in the boycott, it's hard to know how genuine public feeling is at the grassroots, but I have heard anti-South-Korean sentiment from some colleagues and students. Remember "Freedom Fries," when Americans were angry with France for not supporting the move to oust Saddam Hussein? It's like that.  Trump got elected largely on the basis of his isolationist, pro-tariff, bring-American-jobs-back-home talk. (Anti-Chinese feeling is not confined to the Rust Belt, of course. Walmart-hating and condemnations of "cheap Chinese junk" also abound on the Left .) Now, add North Korea to the list of things that have caused tension with China. We should be watching the upcoming meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago closely. 

'A Dangerous Intimacy': Mansfield Park and Playing at Love

A group of young people, passing the rainy weeks of autumn together in “a dull country house,” decide to entertain themselves by staging a play. So what’s so wrong about that, as the critic Lionel Trilling asks rhetorically in his 1954 essay?
The characters in Jane Austen’s great novel, Mansfield Park, devote a great deal of time to debating the question. The play chosen, Lovers’ Vows, is a real play, and Austen could have relied on the fact that her contemporary readers would be familiar with this play. A greater understanding of the play, and of the social milieu of Mansfield Park, will help modern readers understand why the novel’s hero and heroine — Edmund Bertram and his meek cousin Fanny Price — thought that yes, there was plenty wrong about that.....

Read the rest of my article online at Jane Austen Magazine (sign-in required, but it will unlock a trove of good stuff about Austen by many writers and experts....)

In Vietnam

What I have to say about Vietnam is not new, or profound, I'm sure. But I'll say it nevertheless. I admit I haven't followed events in Vietnam closely in recent years, but obviously communism has been abandoned in favor of capitalism. You can see that within two minutes of landing here. ​

Thanks to our relative purchasing power, Ross and I can enjoy some luxuries in Asia. For a few dollars, we can arrange for a driver to pick us up at the airport to take us to our hotel in Hanoi. It was a nice car, too, though I forget what make and model. As I settled into the backseat, I immediately recognized the song playing -- an instrumental muzak version of The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel.  When that song was a hit, American soldiers were crawling though the jungle in Vietnam, and possibly the father of our driver belonged to the guerrilla forces they were trying to subdue. Now, in the blink of an eye, we Westerners and our tourist dollars are more than welcome. And our soundtrack is an anthem to youthful alienation, with a  pretentious little slap on capitalism thrown in: "and the people bowed and prayed, to the neon god they made." Ross and I have spent a week in Hanoi and a week in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. We are both old enough to remember the Vietnam War -- and in my case, my parents were very active on the anti-war front. It's been amazing just to be in the country whose place names I heard so much during my childhood -- Hanoi, Dien Bien Phu, the Mekong Delta.  And we are here during Tet, the Chinese New Year, the time when the Communist North launched the Tet Offensive. Right now, a lot of Facebook friends, and Hollywood celebrities, are tweeting and posting that they are feeling "terrified" of the Trump administration. Yeah, I get it -- extreme dismay, foreboding, chagrin, embarrassment, disbelief -- but "terror"? I've got some pictures that show what "terror" of an incoming government really looks like.

History records that the Viet Cong won the Vietnam War. They systematically culled the bourgeoisie and sent over a million people to re-education camps. They tortured and stole everything people had. Life was particularly horrible for the ethnic Chinese of Vietnam. This is what a re-education camp looks like. Many refugees were taken in by the United States (over the strenuous objections of many politicians, including Joe Biden.)  ​ "I have been a communist all my life, but now I've seen the realities of Communism, and it is a failure — mismanagement, corruption, privilege, repression. My ideals are gone."  -- Dương Quỳnh Hoa, a founding member of the Viet Cong THIS is what being terrified looks like. THIS is what being terrified looks like. An unknown number of Vietnamese people risked their lives rather than endure life under the Communists.  An unknown number perished at sea. Others languished for years in refugee camps. They became known as the "boat people." We actually bought our first property in Kelowna from boat people. They were moving to Edmonton so their son could go to medical school.  "In a May 1975 article in the New York Times, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) commented that "barmaids, prostitutes and criminals" should be screened out as "excludable categories." Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) "charged that the [Ford] Administration had not informed Congress adequately about the number of refugees" -- as if anyone actually knew during the chaotic evacuation. "I think the Vietnamese are better off in Vietnam," sniffed George McGovern [D- presidential candidate] in Newsweek." It's probably most unwise of me to say anything about politics, since I have a newly-published book I want to sell, and the temper of the times is to boycott any purveyor of goods or services whose views you disagree with. My view is that we should all calm down, lay off the name-calling and thank our lucky stars that we haven't had to live through what the Chinese and the Vietnamese have lived through.  Tet decoration adorned with corporate logos. Who won the war? Sony? ​Even in winter, it's pretty warm in Ho Chi Minh city, and most of us tourists are dressed casually. There are a lot of dreadlocked, backpacking hippie young folks. Typical tourist attire is shorts or frayed cut offs, sandals, t-shirts or tank tops. We certainly look like we eschew conspicuous consumption and materialism. I saw so many hippies in the streets it really took me back to the anti-war days, when we'd gather at the Unitarian church and sing "Where have all the flowers gone." At the time I never would have imagined that I might visit Vietnam myself one day!

Ross and I went to the Ho Chi Minh City museum. It's housed in a beautiful French colonial building and it hosts a few relics from the war. There is a big painted mural showing the residents of Saigon welcoming their liberators (What? No photos?)

​There are some incredibly pathetic-looking displays of the industrial manufactures of the collectivist era, prior to the reforms of the mid-eighties. This little display, seriously, is all that the museum can muster to show the glories of the years following liberation. For all the effort, and blood and toil and horror and misery..... It's some comfort that capitalism won in the end, and I hope democracy will follow. The communist experiment in Vietnam lasted only about ten years -- Saigon fell in 1975, and the government opened the economy up in 1986 -- and for that, so much blood and treasure was wasted, and the capital and effort of so many people was thrown away.

​Just because a small cadre of believers had the overwhelming urge to enforce Communism on their fellow Vietnamese. Behold the amazing products of the collective factories! Detail of French colonial building in Ho Chi Minh City
​"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the [American] Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

-- Daniel Webster, US diplomat, lawyer, orator, & politician (1782 - 1852)

"Forgive me, my dear Fanny, as soon as you can, for my long silence"

Said the sly and conniving Mary Crawford to  Fanny Price , and so I say to you, dear readers, forgive my long silence. Mary went on to say, "for you are so good, that I depend upon being treated better than I deserve."  

​And so say I to you, dear readers, thank you for treating me better than I deserve. And just as Mary broke her long silence because of self-interest, candour compels me to admit that I want to tell you something!

I have just published my debut novel, A Contrary Wind: a variation on Mansfield Park. More about that in a moment. So I am on vacation in Vietnam with my husband. Right now we're in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and it's Tet, or New Year. The locals have closed most of their shops and restaurants and are enjoying family activities like strolling along Flower Street in their New Year finery and taking pictures. This is our first trip to Vietnam and we're enjoying the people. country and culture very much. 
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​To recap events with me since my last blog post, I spent five months in Canada from late spring to August, then I was able to return to China in September to resume my teaching job at Zibo Vocational Institute. This semester is my 7th (!) semester at ZBVI. Sorry that I didn't resume blogging through the summer or fall, but I was busy writing a 130,000 plus word novel during the summer and, during the fall, I was feeling exhausted most of the time. When I wasn't teaching class or preparing for class, I was sleeping. I think I caught a bug on my return to China. So a lot of what I could say about China these past few months would not be exactly positive. And yet I'm happy to be back, and glad to be with my Chinese friends and students again. Just like last year's winter vacation, unfortunately. I brought my end-of-semester cold-which-turned-into-bronchitis with me and Ross and I have spent a lot of time resting (coughing, hacking, wheezing) in our various hotel rooms and taking short excursions to see Hanoi, Hoi An and now, Saigon.  I don't want to complain; it is what it is. However, I have got to think that the winter pollution has played a part in the way we're feeling now. It was so bad for a few weeks in December, I hesitate to even show you a picture. This is the way it looked, walking to class. I tried wearing a mask, but they always made my glasses fog over and I couldn't see where I was going! But I've had something diverting to think about while resting in my hotel room, blowing my nose, and that was -- publishing my novel! Whilst walking the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, I am agreeably diverted by seeing signs that say "Fanny" and I can remind myself that I now have a book with my name on it, which has been a goal or dream or, rather, an expectation of mine, since I was seven years old!  It is now available on Amazon and through Smashwords. If you like Jane Austen, I think you'll like this. If you read Mansfield Park and didn't like the heroine Fanny Price, why not give my variation a try. She's got a little bit more of a backbone. ​Download the free sample for your Kindle reader or read it online. 

Huangying Guanglin!

When you enter a store in China you'll be greeted with Huangying Guanglin!  When I first got to China, this greeting sounded like a badly pronounced "good morning" to me, and in my vanity I thought everyone was saying a mangled 'good morning' just for me, the foreigner -- I realized the staff greet everyone that way. Huangying Guanglin means "welcome to our store" or literally, "welcome, brightness draws near!" We customers bring the brightness. Even if there isn't a special greeting just for us, it's not easy to avoid getting a swelled head when you're a foreigner in China.

In a third tier city, a foreigner is a rarity and a celebrity. We are, in the words of  Ron Burgundy , "kind of a big deal." ​We are treated well! The other day I was riding the bus, and a young lady gave up her seat to me and told me that she had seen me downtown before and that it was "her dream" (her words) to talk with me and she was so happy her dream came true! While many Chinese people are too shy to speak English with a foreigner, others, like this girl, are anxious for every opportunity they get!
"What was it I liked about being in China? I knew our relationship was a selfish one. I enjoyed the way being in China made me feel. There was a sense of independence there, a lightheartedness, a liberation from anything other than immediate needs, and an escape from the worries that preoccupied me at home."            --  Liam D'Arcy-Brown Yes, Liam D'Arcy-Brown, you really hit the nail on the head. There is this sense of freedom I have, living away from the expectations and roles that surround me at home. So in the near future I'm going to post a few meditations about the downsides of staying in China, but I'll start with the great things about living in a third-tier city in Shandong Province.I've had the opportunity to do things I would not have qualified to do back home. Like teach Medical English, and appear on a television show.We've had the vacation time and the savings to travel all over Asia -- six weeks every winter to go where we want and do what we like.We've had lots of adventures with food and been invited to more lavish banquets than we can count.We've met members of China's accomplished, hard-working, aspirational and inspirational middle class. Their fathers and grandfathers were farmers, (or as we call them for some reason and just think about how condescending it sounds, "peasants,") but they made it to university and they dream of sending their children to university in North America.We have only to mention a problem or perplexity we're having, and somebody will drop everything to help us. We TRY not to abuse this!We've had the opportunity to encourage and help deserving, hard-working young people. It's been a privilege to meet them.We've formed friendships for a lifetime.The lifestyle is very affordable. Let me put that another way. We can actually afford to have a lifestyle. For us, that means not working a forty-hour plus week, and we eat out a lot.Living in a new environment tests you. I think it's especially an especially good thing for young people. Who are you, and what are you made of, and how do you behave when things get difficult? Okay, that was some good stuff. Next meditation: the downsides of staying in China, particularly for young people.

Leaving China -- for now

"You are like a piece of chocolate -- you will always be at the bottom of my heart."   -- farewell note from a student.
Hi, blog followers. It's just halfway through the spring semester and I'm in a Beijing hotel room, getting ready to go to the airport to go back home to China. I had to break my teaching contract, owing to the serious illness of a close family member.

​Leaving commitments unfinished is an uncomfortable feeling, but the administration was very understanding, and they allowed me to leave behind box after box of stuff which I've bought in the two years I've been here (linen, kettle, curling iron, printer, etc.), in the expectation that I'll be able to return one day.  So for now, the adventure is over. I will miss my new 'home town' Zibo, so much, especially just looking at the bustling world go by through the windows of a rickety bus, or exploring a new street on our bicycles, and (sigh) the food. Ah, the food. And the friendly people. And my students. And my new friends. It  wasn't fun telling everybody 'good-bye.' I'll be living on Vancouver Island for the time being. The blog will remain in place, and..... we'll see what the future brings.