As a first-time teacher, integrating into my classrooms has been an exciting experience. My students are incredibly bright, curious and full of life. I’ve done my best at making them feel comfortable enough to ask questions and really engage with the information. I’ve had more classes with my sophomores than the freshmen. My relationship with the sophomores is great and I’m still working on building great rapport with the freshmen classes.
Food
The most fun aspect of integrating into the community has been food. Chinese food in China isn’t the same as our Panda Expresses or #1 Panda’s in the States. While both dishes consist of a lot of rice, noodles and sauced chicken, I found the difference in the spices. Food in the Dongbei region of China is known to be less spicy than in the southern region of China, but I still find it much spicier than your typical Chinese food dish in the States. Maybe it’s the amount of sauce. I’m a fan of spices so this is no heavy burden for me but it’s something to be aware of. Also, the serving sizes here are much smaller than in the States and the noodles are thinner on average. I think the quickest words I’ve picked up on China have food-related words, for survival reasons. Here’s two for you to try: Fried Rice is Chao Fan, and Apple is Pingguo.
Culture
The final and hardest aspect of integration has been the culture. From my obvious physical presence to social norms, I’m still navigating through the complicated social structures in China. As a homogenous group, the Chinese people are accustomed to seeing others that look similar to them. Anyone that doesn’t look Chinese, or from Asia, gets a curious glare.
