Last summer we decided that rather than go on yet another vacation for three weeks to yet another wonderful place and engage in yet another series of interesting and engaging leisure activities, we would go someplace for an extended period and live there. We wanted to settle in to a life of working and engaging with the people that live there, learn their language and customs, eat their food, and generally get to know what it’s like to have a life in that place. We wanted to find a place that was different from our modern, western, technically mediated environment and life style.
The first item was to figure out what we would do in some other part of the world. We don’t have any special skills that 1) aren’t in sufficient supply in most parts of the world and 2) can be usefully applied in a place where we can’t speak the language and don’t understand the culture. Gina is a first grade teacher, which is a very useful talent, but it’s hard to teach six year olds if you can’t talk to or understand them. Lou is a high school teacher and former software engineer. He has the same problem with teaching in a language other than English, and most places in the world are either exporting programmers or their products, or have not yet gotten on the information highway. We’re both musicians, but there are plenty of those everywhere, who have an even harder time making a living at it than we do in the west.
There is, however, one skill that we posess that is in high and increasing demand in most of the world. There is nothing particularly special about it, and we didn't acquire through years of study. It is simply that we speak English. The non-English speaking world is desparate to learn English, and there is a large demand for native English speakers to teach English throughout the world. We found from a little research on the internet that we could have a job almost anywhere with little regard for qualifications and almost nothing by way of a vetting process. The fact that we are both certified, experienced teachers puts us at the very top of the field.
At first we thought we might want to go to Japan, partly because it’s very different from our home in the U.S., and partly because we have a friend who lived there for years and could provide a bit of an introduction to the culture. However, as we looked into it further, we ran into two problems. First, Japan is just as modern, technical, and materially driven as the U.S. It would be a very different life style, but not one that would challenge our basic assumptions very deeply, at least as far as we could tell. The second problem is that we are too old. Because they are a wealthy industrialized country, the Japanese pay comparatively high salaries. Therefore, Japan is a buyer’s market where English teachers are concerned, and they can afford to turn away anyone that doesn’t fit a well defined profile. We are ideal candidates for Japan except for one thing: we’re not under forty years old.
When it became clear that it was going to be difficult to find English teaching jobs in Japan, we started looking elsewhere. The first country we looked at was China, and it turned out to be a good fit. It would be much easier to find jobs in China because the demand is much higher and the supply is no greater. Partly this is because the salaries, even though they are very high by Chinese standards, are very low by western standards. Anyone who is trying to save some money can't affort to go to China. Another cause of the relatively lower level of interest is that it is much less developed and therefore less comfortable by western standards.
There are other reasons why China was a good choice for us. Its relative lack of development makes it attractive to us, since one of our goals is to get outside of western, technically oriented culture. Wildwood School, where Gina teaches, has a large population of students whose first language is Chinese. Spending a year learning about the Chinese language and culture could only have a positive effect on her job in the U.S.
Once we decided on China, our work began. We had to find jobs, arrange visas and transportation, take care of medical issues, rent our house, make arrangements for handling financial and legal issues in our absence, sell our cars, and take care of many other details. In addition, we thought it would be a good idea to try to learn at least a little of the language before arriving. Lou signed up for Chinese 101 during the spring semester at UMass, and Gina began going to the Chinese after-school program at Wildwood School.
We found tenants for our house, a family from the Basque region of Spain who will be in Amherst for a year. We also sold both of our cars, although it wasn’t until the last possible moment. Although we rented the housed furnished, we had to move quite a bit of our stuff out. (See the first blog entry.) Finally, the big day arrived. We took one last look around the house, rolled our large suitcases down the walk, and jumped off the cliff edge of our old comfortable life into the great Chinese unknown.