Culture Clashes

It has been a very windy day today- they say in windy days, anything can happen.... well, a lot of bizarre things have been happening! Last night I got a call from my Chinese boss. she informed me that I needed to provide my attendance, participation grades, and assignment grades to the Dean by this morning. Um, excuse me what?! Okay, number 1, I am no where near caught up in my grading, and number 2, there's no way I could provide all that by this morning! She mentioned in our phone conversation that if I was not up to date, I would be scolded (and so would she) by the administration! Talk about shaking in your boots!! Scolded in China! Yikes! And this is the second time this week that she has come to us asking for something by the next morning... earlier this week she informed us that she needed a semester outline of what we were using and omitting from our textbook lessons. Holy Cow... this is exactly how they treat the Chinese teachers. They push them very hard, have high expectations and they ask them to do things like this at a moment's notice. Well, that is a wonderful benefit of working with my program... we have team leaders that act on our behalf as the mediators between the university and us. So, a cultural aspect of the Chinese is they always "pass the buck"; meaning, there is always someone over you that you pass the responsibility over too. So when our Chinese boss comes to us, she apologizes because she says it is her bosses asking for these requirements. And we can play this card as well- Dan and Val are the ones we "pass the buck" off too. When situations like this arise, we simply respond with "we need to talk to our team leaders about this". So, last night I did just that. Dan and Val mediating between us and our department, yet we still had the expectation to turn in our grade books- so we did. Along with this small stressor and learning to encounter the Chinese culture with grace and patience, we had our lesson plans due this morning. There was much on my plate... yet, I still had class this morning and class this morning was literally a crack up! We did a lesson on family and during my presentation of the lesson, I caught one of my students drawing this picture... it caught my eye and then I did a double-take. The girl in the picture was wearing a scarf and jacket just like mine... I looked at the student, "Is this me?" He embarrassingly replied yes. I lit up! I told him how beautiful it was and so good- his face lit up as I complimented it... I asked if I could keep it and he enthusiastically agreed! I asked him to sign it as well- so now, I have a beautiful drawing of myself! Take a look at it and see just how CLOSELY it resembles me :)