The China Experiment

When we left Thailand, we could not have been more excited. We had spent 5 years in Hat Yai and while we liked the school, the city was very isolating and lonely. There were no other expats, except teachers, to connect with. I'm not saying the teachers were not nice, but most were young and single and wanted to live the life of a young single person in Thailand. I can't blame them.

The school we were moving to was a top tier  British school with a great reputation. We felt very lucky that Charles had been offered a position. We planned to spend the next few years there, really settle down.

Before arriving we were told that there would be a few staples in the apartment for us, water, milk, cereal, coffee, just to help us settle in. After a long day of travel we arrived in the apartment hungry and thirsty to find none of the mentioned items were there. I immediately began crying. Both my son and I were desperate for water, but we could not drink the tap water and it was very late, so no shops were open. Many tears later and boiled and cooled water, we were able to get some sleep.

The apartment itself was nice, but reeked of cigarettes.  Every surface that had not been painted (doors, cupboards, trip, windows) were yellow with sticky nicotine residue.  The sofa was disgusting.  It smelled, had cigarette burns on it, spilled nail polish, and was gross.

When we asked about the food and water we were just told to come to the school and eat in the canteen. Great, but where was the school?!?! As it turns out the school was a short walk away, but we didn't know that since we arrived in the middle of the night.

All that sorted, we tried to enjoy our first time in China. It's a steep learning curve, a very different way of doing things and a very different culture. We began to figure out WeChat and Alipay, how to order in restaurants via WeChat, and how to order a Didi.

After a few weeks we learned that there was school on Saturdays.  Both my husband and son would be at school 6 days a week.  We were shook.

Not in my wildest dreams or my husband’s did he think to ask if school was open for classes on Saturday.  Nor did they mention that during the interview process.  What was mentioned was that this was boarding school and 1X a week my husband would have to do duty in the dorms. The primary hours were 8 to 4:30 of academic classes M-S.  Clubs were after that. In secondary the hours were 8-6:30 M-S.  

The long hours in primary were already taking a huge toll on my son and the mere thought of secondary was unthinkable.  I did ask for permission to be excused from Saturdays, but that fell on deaf ears.  Despite my very detailed explanation of Autism, the head of secondary didn’t care and very clearly had no education or experience with Autism, the harmful effects of masking for so long, or any interest in the wellbeing of my child.  

We really tried to come to a compromise.  We really did try to stay.

Teachers there also seemed to love yelling.  There were definitely a lot of behaviour problems that never seemed to get better.  Yelling was really the preferred method of information delivery.  I’m not saying teachers shouldn’t raise their voice when necessary, but this was SCREAMING/YELLING all day long. 

This prestigious British School was not at all a British School.  They are using the name, but for all intents and purposes, it is a Chinese school with some English speaking teachers that teach some classes in English.  When Chinese officials come to inspect the school, all English books, posters, signs must be hidden and all English teachers trade places with the Chinese TA.  They pretend the TA is the main teacher and the English teacher is the TA.  It’s all theater.

The teachers were mostly nice, but very cliquey and they seemed to really love the movie “Mean Girls” and used that as their rule book.  The school was disorganized and chaotic.  My husband wasn’t happy but would have stayed, but the well being of our son needed to be our priority. 

So we planned a move.

As my husband went through the interview process with prospective schools, he purposely asked each school “Do students go to school on Saturdays? Do I have to teach classes on Saturdays? And what are the hours?” Every single interviewer laughed and asked why he was asking that?

I have always wanted to live in Kazakhstan.  I don’t know why, but it has been a place of interest for me.  My husband, not so much.  So I submitted his CV to a promising school in KZ and he got an interview.  Not only did they interview him, but they wanted to interview my son to make sure that he would be a fit and they could support his level of Autism. (That was possibly the kindest thing any school has ever done)

We have now been here 5 days.  So far, I love the city, the food and the people.  We visited the school and it was beautiful.  We got a great vibe from it.  My husband is enjoying his induction days and it does seem organized. 

However, finding an apartment has proved to be a Sisyphean task.  That’s for the next post. 

Also in another post, the reality of living in the real China.