Alyza - The Real World DC

Two weeks ago I pulled up to a small house and unloaded my luggage into a 5 bedroom house which would house 8 strangers for an entire year. The living situation is one part of my year in Washington. I am a part of an intentional communal living situation. We have weekly house meeting, we do communal shopping, cleaning and cooking. It is a far cry from MTV’s Real World. I sleep in a room with two other girls (who are amazing). Unlike MTV’s Real World, where participants live a lavish life with dream jobs, in my house we all work in a variety of non-profits which dedicate their time, effort, heart and soul to helping those living in poverty. For many of my housemates, our jobs are our dream jobs. Many of us are working outside our comfort zone and within demographics we may never have encountered before. Some of my roommates work with battered women, other with the homeless, and some with those have been evicted. There are serious ups and downs to each of our days. It is a beautiful and challenging experience to live with like-minded people who spend their days doing really heart wrenching work. However, there are uplifting moments in each day and we try and hold onto those precious moments.

My organization is Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School. It is located in the poorest neighbourhood in Washington DC, Anacostia. It has a reputation of being dangerous and scary. This is true but a lot of it is a misconception and the belief is fueled by the fact that very few white people venture to that part of DC. My school (TMA) is amazing. It is a law themed school. Every single student who graduates is accepted into a University. This is much higher than the national average and ten time higher than the average of the area. The rate of people in Anacostia with a degree from a post-secondary institution is 8%. However, this is not like Glebe or any other High school we went too. The school is strict. Everyone wears a uniform, there is no chewing gum, there is no time in between classes, and lunch is 30 minutes. The school is 99% African American and 1% Hispanic. The faculty and staff are about 50-50 black and white. So far, all I can tell is that this school gives kids who may not have a future, a future with endless possibilities. I edited a student’s essay today about who she looks up to. The list was primarily about her family (specifically her mom). However, at the end of the essay, she wrote about how TMA pushed her to her limits. She wrote about how the school enabled her to recognize that she could accomplish her goals. My personal goal is to form relationships with these kids. Find out their life story and help them whatever that may mean. I have never been a teacher before. They call me Ms. Weinberg and that is strange. Institutionally there is distance between me and them and unlike any other role I’ve had with children in the past. For the first time in my professional career my job is not only about fun and games. I run educational programming including but not limited to homework help (you should see me attempt algebra), anti-defamation league club and law day. Law day is a program where we take the entire ninth grade to firms once a month. The students learn about a specific thing (discrimination, negligence, criminal law) and participate in mock trials and round table discussions. As preparation for these field trips, the permission forms give me insight into the lives of my students.
I work with four other people. All of whom are amazing and being in the office is fun. We have an endless supply of candy and the teachers come in and say hi and eat our food. All of the girls have curly hair and as one girl commented on my first day work. “You program girls all have curly hair, it is like you are taking over the world”. Another girl asked me if I knew Drake or was on Degrassi since I was from Canada. I am going to keep a running tab of how many different white actresses I will be told I look like (currently in 4 days of work- 2 different actresses). I can already tell my job will be both challenging and fulfilling. It is going to take time to win over the students and have them recognize that I’m in it for the long haul. Some days I get picked on by 10th graders. I am the new comer to a school where everyone is family.


My job keeps me on my toes. However, another entirely different, but equally as fascinating part of my life is where I live. I live on the border of two neighbourhoods (Georgia Petworth and Columbia Heights). These are two gentrifying neighbourhoods. As my boss drove me home from our Volunteer Kick-Off (at a law firm with a terrace that just about made me want to join the corporate world), she encouragingly said, this is a very up and coming neighbourhood. I am in the heart of a political, social, and cultural revolution in these areas. I live on a block with a public housing complex but four blocks away are million dollar condos. In my two weeks, I’ve seen at least two people be arrested. There is a police station a block from me but I am somehow not comforted by their presence. I witnessed an eviction which is a heart breaking occurrence. My job and the jobs of my roommates inform us about how complicated living in poverty is. Every day we witness first-hand the structural injustices. We, one on hand, are against gentrification. We observe the condos being built and Target and box super stores moving in. These stores get rid of local business, and they displace local people and businesses. On the other hand, these stores employ lots of people who previously were unemployed. The trend in DC is that when a metro stop is built that brings in business and gentrification. We are conscious of the fact that the metro stop is crucial in connecting the different parts of the city. Ten years ago Columbia Heights was unheard of and what people had heard about was violence. Now, it is a budding area with a vibrant community including an organic market on Saturdays. My part of the neighbourhood is far less built up and we have been given instructions that being out by ourselves at night is not wise. Down the street there is a school that on one side has a liquor store and on the other side as a strip club. I have an internal struggle everyday about what I am doing and how I am contributing to the neighbourhood in which I live. I am not comfortable here yet. And I hate that I jump at the opportunity for a ride home because walking the ten blocks from the metro to my door makes me nervous.
I am really happy though and I know that two weeks in I cannot make any judgments. In my next post, I’ll have more to say I’m sure and will have different opinions.
Until Next Time
Alyza

Simon - "Virtue never stands alone. It is bound to have neighbours" (Confucius, Analects 4:25)

Well, I wanted to drink from the big red fire-hydrant, and it has not withheld itself for my favour.

How can I give you some sense of smell and taste in these short pages? I suppose I'll start at the beginning.

My travel only really began somewhere on the way onto the plane in Vancouver Airport. It's one thing to see throngs of Asian-Canadians in a city that has its own reputation and history, but it's quite another to be addressed in Chinese and expected to have some sort of experience for this, and to be given a meal of rice and chicken on board, and to read from a rather gaudy Chinese magazine while watching Jackie Chan flicks and a captivating story about some slaves in pink clothing, a landlord, a prostitute, and a rogue Qing soldier who kills them all. This was followed by a rather terrible propaganda film about some budding young red guards tasked with organizing cleaning and decorating work on the southern gate of the Forbidden City for Mao's infamous, and only, public speech. (The film was obviously a reflection of the party's new values since it did not think it important to suggest that the snappy young red guards probably lost about a good half of their closest friends to starvation, shellfire and execution.)

Speaking of the flight's video entertainment, I invite you to consider the following: You are a flight designer, and you are aware of course that many people have a paralysing fear of flying. Would it then be advisable to place a camera on the underside of the plane which stares down the nose of the behemoth as it taxis its way down to the runway to take off, and to broadcast this show on the personal video system of the plane for curious passengers? It's hard to consider, with our Canadian sensitivities, a Star-Aliant flight doing this. But on China Airlines, this is considered fair sport, and I must admit that it made my own flight one of the most beautiful if not surreal experiences I’ve had in an airplane. After take off, the camera switches to staring immediately downwards, eventually providing some beautiful views of the hills north of Korea. And I didn't even have a window seat.

...

I've had some time to explore a bit. I took a first trip to the Forbidden City, whose premisses are too big and too crowded to see in a single tourist-packed day. We also wandered around the square, which was very impressive, but looked as if some three thousand of its tiles had been cracked under the summer pressure.

I've also managed to make it out to the Confucian temple, which is down the road from the imposing Lama temple in the quiet hub of the old scholar’s corner of the city. This wonderful temple resembles the forbidden palace in that it is two courtyards capped by sitting halls and a gateway, but there are more trees and infinitely less people. You can go read a book all day without being disturbed, which is exactly what I did. For about 35 kuai, I picked up a copy of the Confucian Analects in English and Chinese and sailed my way through four books of the sage's advice.

Some of the Analects, like most pieces of holy drivel, are self-evident. Some of it is pedantic. Some of it evokes a whistle: “Barbarian tribes with their rulers are inferior to Chinese states without them” (3:5). But much of the Analects is profoundly ethical, a profound achievement for a time when there was very little space for contemplation. Confucius, is often thought of as a grumpy old man with his dogmatic commitments to the correct display of rites, but he was living in a time where emperors and officials used their power to shamelessly exploit the splendour of religious events for their own advancement, a crass populism based on who could pay for the most line-dancers. So, Confucius thinks that it is better to avoid obsequiousness when possible. He advises officials holding a rite, when in doubt, to choose frugality before extravagance; but in mourning, “it is better to err on the side of grief than on the side of indifference” (3:4). Think of this the next time a friend you don't know too well has a death in the family. That letter probably isn't as awkward as you think it is. There is also a democratic spirit in his pedagogy. Having come from poverty, though from a good family name, Confucius believed that theoretically anyone with the patience of mind and effort could become a good scholar, and thus a good official. He reasoned that the ability to cooperate with others and to avoid resorting to force were more effective measures of character than all the stupid myths of blood and heredity. Also, I was delighted to find that God's not so accurate claim to Adam and Eve about the nutritional value of apples (Genesis 2:17) is, by number, a sister-passage to the Analects' earlier phrasing of the essential Socratic definition of education: “To say you know when you know, and to say you do not when you do not, that is knowledge.” I think I can easily say which passage is the more honest.

The temple's own walk-thru exhibit on the life of Confucius puts much of this into perspective (though it also helps to illustrate how Confucianism became more like a state religion than a philosophy of governance. We learn of the myths of the sage's birth which, though he had an iconic father, is slightly unexpected and has the familiar traits of a parthenogenesis). There is also an odd moment in the gallery where a page of text is displayed with a caption proclaiming in Hegelian certainty that Confucius predicted that the great “Harmonious Society” would be preceded by a period of “relative prosperity”. The party's own investment in this revelation is evident enough.

...

The TEFL training consisted of a three group split which rotates throughout the day between three teachers. They're all wonderfully nice and helpful people, but you could tell this was as arduous and stressful for them as it was for us.

My favourite thus far however has been Chuck (doesn't give a fuck). Indeed, Chuck does not give a fuck about protocols and the silliness of the usual TEFL business words like “content” or “personalization”. Chick would much rather impart useful advice gleamed from his time on the mainland, like how to use google.cn to download legal and free music that the Chinese will never buy. This spark-plug from Cleveland moved to Beijing to teach English classes and has been doing it for thirteen years. His hair has flattened into a longish grey silk sheet barely covering his crown, and his moustache is stained with nicotine around the nostrils. This is the stuff novels are made of...

...

In part, I came to experience something like the real living contradictions of capitalism. Consequently, I have not been able to avoid dealing with the vulgar topic of money. Some observations:

First, Lenin once said that “money has no smell”, but I have to admit that I can definitely distinguish my fresh crisp kuais from the dirty market pomegranate ones. Bills are still very much common use for even small purchases, and they're hard to stuff into a machine to recharge your subway card. There are single kuai coins, but they're rare. In general, if it's a piece of metal, it's probably worthless.

Second, you can't understand the use value of money without using it. This is especially true in the case of bargaining. Nothing above the price of a meal has a set-price. You must bargain for your clothes, bag, bicycle, mobile phone, tea set, stationary, etc. This is a lot to learn, especially with a minimal grasp of Chinese. Most salespeople keep a calculator for their encounters with the silly “laowai” so they can type their price bids in for one another (meaner fruit vendors will simply flash a one handed number sign). They can be quite shrill when it come to the process. I submit to you my own experience for your moral refinement.

Walking around the third floor of the Pearl Market, I wandered helplessly around the clothing and leather-goods section. Rounding a far corner, a seemingly sensible young lady asked if my hair was real, “and please can I touch it?”

uh oh. I know what comes next, I thought.

But really, I had no idea. The lady had barely taken time to register my unwillingness to visit her little stall before she grabbed hold of my wrist and began to pull. Between sliding behind me and draping her breasts all over my back, this dragon lady asked about my nationality, my time in China, and then moved on to simple flattery. I said that I knew very well what came next, and once again had no idea. I don't remember how the subject came up, but my wrist-guardian playfully insisted that I must buy something or else she would have to kill me. When I gave my equally playful “ok”, she drew her palm across my throat in a mix of eros, thanatos, and commerce. With another pull (and what a pull at that!) I was staring at a few nice knock-off belts. I circled in on the white one, just to get a price and get out of there, but at the instance of 280 kuai, I had my out. I started my goodbye and wandered round the corner. No sooner was I a few pace away when I was grabbed by the other wrist by yet another girl and pulled back in by the two of them, fully clothes-lining another western shopper in the process (goodness knows what happened to him). Despite my best efforts, I was routinely failing to get the price bellow the one hundred line. My saving grace you ask? I only had a miserable 25 kuai in my wallet (about five bucks). They literally searched my wallet to prove this. Well my inquisitive readers, that's how you get a bargain. Don't have money. I walked away with the belt, an odd feeling of arousal, and just enough cents to buy a bottle of green tea.

...

On the subject of children and teaching, I will only say a few things since many of you have already written excellent accounts of both already.

First of all, it is impossible to speak about China's children without talking about the notorious “one child policy”. Much has been said about the resulting “xiao huanli” or “little emperors”, often describing how much they are coddled and spoiled, while simultaneously receiving gigantic expectations from their parents and family. What I never thought of, however, came brilliantly to hand in class one day. “Ji-ji” (let's call him) got into a fighting mood and started a kicking fit before being hauled away into another room. A coworker shook her head in an unconcerned manner and explained to me, “he has trouble learning to play nice with others. He doesn't have any siblings at home, you see?” I'm often annoyed how little my favourite political authors had to say about China, but there was something compelling in Hitchens' claim that the party might be the first to succeed in making fraternal love literally impossible...

Given this, the children come to school and have a little trouble being weened off the comforts of home. I am in the first trench of this awkward moment, the first year of kindergarten for some very well-off 2-year-olds at a prestigious and expensive kindergarten (see what I mean about the combination of privilege and demand?). Their mothers or grandmothers are often there, either helpfully or unhelpfully, to help their children ease into what will become the normal rhythms of school life. This puts an odd sort of pressure on me at least and I have more patience for some than others. Like those mothers in the US who show up at their son's law firm interviews, these ladies can insist in a manner that lets their children forget their normal courage; and I'm also somewhat annoyed by how many of them tug on my arm and point while demanding their child to go speak with “the foreigner”.

On a similar subject, I've lost some of my confidence in that euphemism we were all brought up on that “racism is not engrained, but learned”. While this may still be true, it is nonsense to suppose that children “do not see race” before they are given the appropriate spectacles to see differences in skin colour, face shapes, hair (for which I receive daily compliments), etc. They notice pretty damn early, and lacking any relevant experiences of the world, it is natural for them to treat the new with suspicion and fear, like green things on a plate one has never eaten from before. To make matters worse, I'm also one of the only boys my age many of the girls have ever seen (besides their fathers or policemen of course). For the first two days, and finally thawing as of the date I am writing this sentence, girls would literally sink into corners and burst into tears if I so much as waved hello. Giving away treats was an opportunity for a meltdown. Vina, my coworker, anticipated all of this and our first lessons are essentially Welcome to School! Free play until children are not scared of the foreigner. Oh sky!

...

I've run out of space and of time. I will write again, I'm sure, but must breath a little first. I hope you all keep writing and remind me that I'm not the only one well off my usual track. Keep well, keep writing, keep arguing, and continue to keep the harmonious society alive, the only one I believe in. And spare a though for me this Wednesday when I shall be taken to a banquet by my school, on the accidental date of my birthday, and asked to take a toast from everyone at the table, one at a time, draining my glass for each of theirs. The firehouse, alas, is a formidable pressure.

-Simon-