Hey! Check the room number.  I think we are in the wrong place.  Maybe we have the wrong building. What is this?

This doesn’t look like a classroom, it looks like a teacher’s lunchroom. See Mr. KFC sitting over there?

Share your first day culture shock experience.

Would you like to go abroad?

Do you desire a cross-cultural experience?

While teaching in Shanghai, Tong ji University asked me to go to Urumqi (pronounced ooluumuchie) to teach 400 middle school teachers. I had never been to Urumqi before and thought this to be a great opportunity and a good way to spend the summer [...]]]> CROSS-CULTURAL EXPERIENCE

Would you like to go abroad?

Do you desire a cross-cultural experience?

While teaching in Shanghai, Tong ji University asked me to go to Urumqi (pronounced ooluumuchie) to teach 400 middle school teachers. I had never been to Urumqi before and thought this to be a great opportunity and a good way to spend the summer vacation.

I asked 10 of my students if they would like to join me and they were also excited. However, a university administrator informed me that I could not take the students even though it was during the summer and was not a school function or activity. Apparently the university would still be responsible for the students since they were with a teacher.

Such school responsibility would be absurd in the west.. When pressed further, the administrator explained that the people in Urumqi are dirty, backwards, criminals, uncivilized and do not speak good English. There was a genuine fear that harm would come to the students.

This made me think twice about my own safety.

During my time in Urumqi I found the people to be very clean, modern, very friendly and civilized and the middle school teachers English was better than that of my Shanghai University teachers. Plus, the people were not prejudiced and biased like the people in Shanghai.

I asked the host university in Urumqi if I could take ten of their students to Shanghai for 10 days. The response was simple and clear –  “Definitely NOT! The Shanghai people are criminals, they will beat and rob you on the street. Our students would be in danger.”

I traveled to Kashi (Kashgar) and visited the 2,000 year old free market, originally a part of the Silk Trail. People from many neighboring countries gather there to do business. It is like stepping back in time. People are still riding donkeys and camels and selling them in the market.

China, one country, one people, many misconceptions and misunderstandings within its borders.

You can have a cross-cultural experience without ever leaving China. Many students from around China gather at Sun Yat-sen University in southern China and find life very different. The culture and language of Guangzhou is Cantonese, not Mandarin.

Tell us how university life in Guangzhou is different from life in your hometown.

The beginning of any new academic semester is fraught with inevitable required adjustments. The post-graduate students (pgs) are no exception. They are required to take one semester of oral English with a foreign teacher. Most pgs have had prior undergraduate experiences with this inconsequential course where the grade does not count [...]]]>

The beginning of any new academic semester is fraught with inevitable required adjustments. The post-graduate students (pgs) are no exception. They are required to take one semester of oral English with a foreign teacher. Most pgs have had prior undergraduate experiences with this inconsequential course where the grade does not count and more often than not, the foreign teacher has a guitar and only knows how to teach English songs. The pgs have a very strong preconceived idea of what to expect from their oral English class.

As the pgs approach their 4^th floor oral English classroom they are confronted by a 200 cm x 200 cm banner.

They have no idea what “Chingland” means and “Chinglish Spoken Here” goes directly against and is directly opposed to their prior teaching that Chinglish is no good. This is the pgs first indication that something may be different.

As they approach the classroom door they look puzzled and double check the room number.

As the pgs open the door, their jaws drop, they freeze in position and get a “deer in the headlights” look. Again, they double check the assigned classroom number.

As they slowly enter the room there is a Chinese buzz. The foreign teacher actually looks like a real professor.  The professor loudly announces, “This is an English class and this is an English classroom. Why am I hearing Chinese? If you want to practice your Chinese leave.”

A hush falls over the room. The pgs ask permission to be seated. The professor advises that those pgs who have brought their books and a writing utensil may be seated. All others must leave and never return unprepared again. Those who did not bring their books or writing utensils are told to leave but they remain frozen in time and space. The professor explains that coming to a pg class at China’s #8 most famous university is intolerable kindergarten behavior and the guilty students are ordered to leave.

Sometimes an entire first class must be cancelled and rescheduled at a punitive time.

On the very first day of the semester the professor draws the line in the sand and demands that the pgs act like mature, responsible, serious students or get out. They have never had such an experience in their prior 16 years of education. They are in shock!

Fortunately, the professor knows how to bring the pgs out of shock and within minutes the classroom is filled with laughter as everyone settles down to begin their semester of fun with English acquisition.

Read the download page article  First Day Student Culture Shock