This last week was a blur. After coming back from our travels, we immediately got into preparing for the final performance, with rehearsals and other preparations throughout each day for the whole week. It was definitely tiring, but extremely rewarding and fun. Words fail to express how proud I am of the students today, especially if I were to say so in Chinese.
On that note, I thought our performance was good! I haven’t yet had a chance to watch the whole thing, but from the inflections in students’ voices and laughter and clapping from the audience, it seemed like our performance went well! I hope the students enjoyed it too. I know our path getting there wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but I hope we all learned a lot along the way and enjoyed our final performance, a story of cultural misunderstandings with other bits that I think were both funny and meaningful.
So now that things are really coming to an end, I think it’s appropriate to ask now, what did we really do?
With our acting, our lighting wasn’t as showy as we would’ve liked. I don’t think we were able to give them the freedom previous years perhaps might have had because of issues I mentioned in a previous blog. However, the students dealt with unforeseen issues gracefully. When costumes arrived and one was much too big, students changed roles with few problems, and onstage, when bowls and utensils were placed during the wrong time, students improvised during the actual performance. I’m extremely proud of how well the students dealt with everything on the spot, even sometimes improvising onstage.
I do feel that I accomplished much more than teach conversational English in our classes. I grew closer to students and built relationships with them in class and outside, and I’m especially happy with having built relationships with those whose English abilities weren’t the best and those who weren’t as outgoing or confident at first.
I still don’t really know what I’ve really done here, though, because our impact is so intangible.
Wesley, Alexander, and I dropped by a milk tea place after dinner, where a high school student working there recognized our blue Duke shirts and helped us get a 5 yuan discount. He had graduated from No. 9 two years ago, and I assume he must have had a good experience because he didn’t expect anything from us. Wes did end up showing them some magic tricks though! I can only hope I gave some No. 9 students lasting memories and moving experiences as someone must have given him before. Maybe we are doing something meaningful here.
To be quite honest, I feel like there is little I have done that has felt more meaningful than this summer. I’ve grown a lot on this trip and understand much more about Chinese culture. I’ve made new friends across the globe and hopefully imparted much more than English conversational skills. Does it feel more meaningful than most things, maybe everything I’ve done? Honestly, I think so. If given the choice to do it over again, I would do so 10/10 times, and there’s no other way I would have rather spent this summer than in Zhuhai.
7/22/19 (one week since we left Zhuhai)
Since coming back from Zhuhai, I haven't stopped talking with friends and family about my experiences and continue to keep in touch with my host family and students.
I'd like to thank everyone who made this summer a memorable one.
Thank you, Hsiao-Mei and Yanan and every Duke Engage benefactor and staff member, for making this all possible, and Hsiao-Mei for granting me this wonderful opportunity when you chose me to be part of this group last winter. Thank you to all the administrators and teachers at No. 9, whose hard work really showed today, even if I didn't get the chance to get to know you well. Thank you to all the students who performed wonderfully and taught me how to be a better teacher along the way. Thank you to all the Duke students and their groups for doing an incredible job and setting the bar high for us, and everyone who guided us around and took care of everything in the back!
Again, thank you Jillian so much! Thank you for being so quick to format our backgrounds to make it work when we were told the morning of the performance that our existing one wouldn’t. Thank you for doing so much in our class despite not being able to speak Chinese. I learned a lot from you, and I wouldn’t rather have taught acting with anyone else.
As I move forward, I hope to find something at Duke that I love as much as I loved each and every day in Zhuhai.
