Foreign Teacher 外国老师

Being a 外国老师(foreign teacher) gives you a lot of benefits. You get, as I mentioned in another blog, a nice apartment that comes with the job, free food, as well as insurance. However, there are other benefits as well. The people here tend to treat the 外国老师 extremely well. Sometimes we are treated even better than the other teachers are treated. At the school where I teach, I often feel as though the Chinese teachers, staff, and parents have a lot of respect for me. I don’t know how much I deserve all of that respect, considering most of the teachers have taught for much longer than I have and have actually studied teaching, whereas this is my first year teaching and I studied Spanish and psychology, but in any case, it is nice to feel respected. Besides being respected, we also get special treatment. For example, the apartments that we get are nicer than the apartments most of the Chinese teachers get. We also have to teach and work less than the Chinese teachers, even though we get paid the same or more than them.
But, once again, this is all background information. I wanted to explain that people give 外国老师 more respect and special treatment because then you will understand my story better. And once again, my story has to do with cake. So, it was the child’s birthday in the class I mentioned in the last blog and the teachers had just invited me to stay for a piece of cake. I wanted to, but I had to teach another class in about 10 minutes. So I said I would stay for 10 minutes and then come back after my next class. I stayed and watched the teachers put the 5 candle on the cake, light it, and let the girl blow it out while we all sang “Happy Birthday” first in Chinese and then in English. As the teacher went to cut the cake, though, the mother told her in Chinese to give the first piece to the 外国老师 (me!). She spoke very rapidly and since my Chinese is not very good, I didn’t understand what she was saying. When I asked Villa, the Chinese English teacher, she explained that the mother wanted me to have the first piece of cake. I was very honored, but confused – I’m not the birthday girl. Isn’t the birthday girl supposed to have the first piece of cake? I don’t know, maybe the customs are different here in China, but I do know that it was sweet of the mother to think of me and want me to have the first piece. As I explained before, I think I get special treatment because I am a 外国老师. So I accepted the first piece (kind of feeling like I was stealing from the birthday girl) and once people started eating, I ate as well. Of course, I had to leave most of it to go to my next class, but don’t worry – I got to finish the cake when I came back after class! So yes,in a nutshell, I think that we get treated specially and respected more just because we are 外国老师, because we are from another country. I just hope that this special treatment doesn’t spoil me for when I come back to the United States and I am not so special anymore!