I love it here but....

     Our bus makes the wide turn out of the school driveway. There are two uniformed men a hundred yards away, and a police vehicle blocking the main road. Jeanette, our 23 year old host, stands up and addresses the bus, “they are blocking our road; I don’t know what it is about though.” Her voice sounds suspicious, and her eyes wander out of the bus to the flashing red light. Her twin sister, Jesse, stands up and quickly turns, her long stick straight black hair rises off her shoulders, “Welcome to China!” she says cheerily.
     It was nothing major, there was a government official coming by and the road had been blocked for him, but the effects of the Chinese government can definitely be felt here. In our school there are air conditioning units, and fans in just about every room. It is really hot here, if I haven’t mentioned that before. Not only is it hot, it is humid. And you can’t really sea the sky. It looks just like a light bluish gray color. This weekend we had a clear day where we could see brilliant blue behind puffy white clouds at we all got excited. Anyway, because China doesn’t have enough power for a full time supply for the whole country, they rotate though areas cutting off the power. If your area goes over it’s allowed power usage, it will be cut off as well (typically unexpectedly). The power has only gone out once since we have been at the school. It went out in a restaurant we were in this weekend too.
     One day a few other teachers and I were outside talking to Jesse. One of the two boys here said, “Hey Jesse, I am kind of embarrassed to ask this, especially since I was a government major, but what is the difference between China and Taiwan? Because there is a handful of kid here from Taiwan.” Jesse went through an informative talk on political strife between China and Taiwan. I came away with the very simplified and basic understanding that the Chinese people who are in Taiwan were members of a fallen political group from China who had been sent away by the new regime. We got into a discussion about the school system in China, and she told us that the government comes a few times a year to examine the text books the school is using, and regulate what is being taught. The visits are schedules, and Jesse told us that any textbooks that are not manufactured in China have to be hidden.
     I asked about church services in China. Jesse didn’t know of any local Christian services, and said that the government heavily infiltrates a lot of the religious activity that goes on. Because the government would rather that people not be religious they put their own men into the churches as monks and leaders, and a lot of the time they run the practice very poorly as to discourage religious activity. Last year the teaching group went to Nepal, and they saw a lot of corruption, and said that a lot of the government trained monks go home at the end of the day to wives and children. When I asked more about Christian groups in China she said that when they exist they are very low key, because they are making a huge effort to stay under the government’s radar. The TA for my class today asked me about God in the west, because she is writing a research paper about God in the west, and heaven in China. I am really interested to talk to her about how those differ. 
     One of the teachers here did some research with a professors from Harvard before this, where she worked in a Chinese cell phone factory gathering information from the workers etc.. She told us a little bit about the working conditions: employees work 13 hour days; getting a half hour lunch break which is unpaid, and food is not provided. They receive only 7 days off a year. She recounted that many of them don’t keep track of the day of the week because it is pointless. They live in dorms on the factory grounds, and usually can’t leave within a year. A lot of the workers came from the country side, are trying to find a way out of it, will only be at the factory for a year to 2 years, and send a lot of the money they make home to relatives. The workers are really smart, and try to study while they are working. She talked about one girl who wanted to be a translator, so she brought vocab sheets to the factory every day and studied while she worked. The company puts out half a million cell phones a day. It was really interesting to hear what she had seen while she was there, and get a glimpse of another side of China.
    Most of my experience here thus far has been overwhelmingly positive. I love the kids I am teaching, and the school is great. This weekend we went to an incredible spa, and I have been lively pretty luxuriously, but I wanted to note the aspects of China that aren’t as tranquil and comforting as herbal baths, and the outbursts of “Teacher! Teacher!”