The Midwest Side Minyan

Yesterday, the meeting with Jay I'd been dreading since my last observation finally came. And, as suspected, I was told Shane could not offer me full-time position. Too much had been wrong with that lesson, although he did seem to indicate that it had improved in some respects since my last one.

I was faced with the decision of going home or staying here in Taiwan and seeking another EFL job. I have decided on the former--though I have not ruled out the possibility of coming back to Taiwan, if I can come back to a better position and set of circumstances.

Simply put, I lack the resources to wage a real job hunt in Taiwan. I don't have internet in my apartment; my blog posts come to you from the local internet cafe, where I can't produce a resume in Microsoft Word. My laptop (really more of an overly expensive DVD player at this point) can't access Word, because I didn't get it properly registered before I left the States. So for the time being, home it is.

I also feel that, whatever I decide to do about my future, going home to recharge for a while would be best. I want to spend some time seriously looking into master's in TESOL programs, with the aim of eventually getting certified to teach in American public schools. Long term, I think that's a better fit than teaching bushiban in Asia. At the very least, I will use my time at home productively to gather information about different TESOL programs and about taking the GRE.

But there is a strong possibility I will be back in the Far East soon. I met with Mitch Gordon, the recruiter who got me the job at Shane, today. He said there was very little available at the moment that he knew of, but expected there would be more in February--I expect after Chinese New Year. He could probably easily fit me into a slot at Kojen, one of Shane's competitors.

Then there's always the possibility of opting for Russia, Brazil, or some other spot on the globe where I could teach. The possibilites really are endless in ESL/EFL. Someone I spoke to at the school where I did cover work today strongly recommended I apply for the JET program, which brings native English speakers to work as classroom assistants in Japanese schools. He told me that, with a CELTA, I would be a shoo-in, and that Japan was really a great place to learn teaching.

Oddly, I find myself philoosophical about this course of events. Despite all the problems, I think Taiwan has been a valuable experience for me. I've gotten a better sense of what it must be like to be an immigrant to the United States--not speaking a word of the language, not being able to give directions to a cab driver or get across clearly to a store clerk what you're looking for--or, worse, not being able to communicate with a doctor.

I got a bit of the last experience yesterday, when I ended up going on a wild goose chase all over Taipei trying to obtain some Paxil. I suffer from clinical depression, and Paxil is the only thing I've taken that I know works for it. First, Jay from Head Office took me to a local pharmacy, which didn't have it. In Taiwan, this apparently is often your first recourse in trying to get medicine, as a lot of things that are prescription-only back home can be dispensed by a pharmacist in Taiwan. The pharmacist sent me on to one hospital, which sent me on to another, where I waited over an hour and a half for what I thought was a set appointment much earlier.

The doctor, luckily, did speak English. But the English of most of the hospital staff I encountered was very bad. It took a lot of repetition to get through what it was I was trying to find. And then a bit of pushing to get the doctor's staff to understand that I needed to run to a class--amazingly, they just assumed I was an English teacher, because what else would a white man be doing in Taiwan?

I say that I understand what immigrants in the United States go through after this, but in many ways, I've had it easy compared to what, say, a Chinese person coming to Los Angeles must experience. Here in Taiwan, all of the bus and road signage is in both Chinese and English. Many people have had at least some English in high school or bushiban, though their speech is somewhat broken. And people are generally friendly towards foreigners who come to teach the language of international business.

An immigrant to the States, on the other hand, may have a much harder time finding anything in his or her native language. It's far easier to get lost if you can't read street signs. Medical personnel and McDonald's employees alike are unlikely to speak your language--in Taiwan, doctors have to learn English to keep up with medical journals. American doctors are under no similar pressure to learn any other language.

More to the point, immigrants to the States have to face a bewildering hostility to people who don't speak English or speak English less than perfectly. Many Americans treat it as almost a personal affront when someone they encounter either doesn't speak English or speaks it haltingly.

I can't understand where this hostility comes from. I can understand that Americans may not be as conversant in other languages as people in other country are in English. After all, people come to the United States from everywhere. You can't possibly learn every language that someone from another country might speak, because there are just too many. But Americans, unlike Taiwanese, pride themselves on being a nation of immigrants.

Even as I have gained a deeper appreciation of this aspect of being an immigrant in the United States, I have also gained a perspective on my own country that I could never have gotten back home. My friend Jacky, with his admiration of all things American, has made me see a lot of my own country's ways in a less cynical light. For instance, I used to think Americans were slothful compared to, say, the Japanese or the Taiwanese. But I've come to see that the frantic way many Taiwanese feel compelled to live--a life where the unhappiness of overpressured schoolchildren is starting to be seen as a serious social problem--doesn't really make many people very happy. Perhaps it really is better that Americans are able to step back and chill a little more.

I've also gotten a new perspective on my native language. Many of the quirks of English that we native speakers find charming cause endless problems for EFL students. For instance, I always considered it a great strength of English that it had so many synonyms and near synonyms--that a woman who sells herself for money could be a courtesan, a prostitute, a call girl, or a streetwalker, depending on the circumstances. But do we really need so many words for the same thing? Is it really important to distinguish prostitution at, say, the French court from prostitution in the backseat of a Ford Bronco?

Similarly, I've come to realize how few of the niceties of "good English" have anything to do with communication of meaning or ideas. I may still wince at "tomorrow I shopping", but do I ever doubt what a speaker means when he says this? Do we really need several different ways of making requests with relatively little difference in meaning or level of politeness? Admittedly, some of this distinction is eroding; even many EFL teachers no longer bother trying to teach the difference between May I go to the movies, Can I go to the movies, and Could I go to the movies, unless they are teaching specifically for the TOEFL, which tests it.

So in a couple of days, I get on a plane, very early in the morning, and return to America. But I go back a changed and, in some ways, a more experienced and a wiser person.