Teambuilding with Colleagues in the Mountains

Last weekend my school’s boss, 王广发,treated the staff to a weekend trip at a four star resort in the mountains called 云泽山庄  (Yún zé shānzhuāng or 'Cloud Villa'.  Here is their main site, and this link has a few more pictures) on the condition that we spent about nine hours of both days participating in team building activities.  It was a very Chinese experience in a gorgeous setting that’s begging to be climbed (I’m looking at you, Travis & Patrick).

Immediately upon arriving after our three-hour journey, all hundred-plus teachers and administrators were instructed, by the most cheerily militaristic person I’ve ever encountered, to assemble into six gender exclusive lines.  We turned left, we turned right, we shouted our enthusiasm for the forthcoming and yet-to-be named activities, we were separated into teams of about fifteen, and we were finally shuffled into a large meeting room where the long-winded Sergeant Speaks With Knowing Gusto gave us about two or three hours to devise team names, mottos, songs, flags baring logos pertinent to the names, and rosters.  These were all, of course, presented to the hungry but nonetheless loudly avid aggregate before we were allowed lunch.

My companions on this trip were two thirds female, a third over fifty, predominantly unable to speak English, relatively well educated, and hilariously/endearingly/frustratingly/fanatically exuberant in each and every activity.  Fortunately, there were five other foreign teachers along with me to share the Western perspective – one of who was in my group and was able to help me cope with the machinegun dialogue of our team.

Our teams, under the supervision of outdoorsily dressed guides, participated in a number of team building activities imitating Outward Bound’s far more credible programs.  I say imitating because even though we were told it was an Outward Bound program, and even though there was a signpost at the entrance of the activity field boldly displaying the name ‘Outward Bound’, and even though the guides were wearing what looked to be genuine Columbia brand rain jackets (there are some awfully good fakes here), the quality of the instruction we received (a person’s neck was injured in the Trust Fall activity) and the fact that Outward Bound doesn’t have operations in Beijing led me to believe that, like many things in China, a well known Western brand was being co-opted for the sake of legitimacy’s verisimilitude. I’m not saying that there wasn’t merit to what they put us through, just that they weren’t above lying about the associations of their extremely expensive program.

I think examining my own bias here has been good for my perspective on this experience.  Over half of the activities we did I had either done myself or led for others as a Boy Scout.  They do great things for building teamwork and confidence.  My group went from ceaseless yelling punctuated by impatient individuals trying and failing to make progress on their own to relatively lucid discussion followed by somewhat competent execution… kind of, the last activity involved enough insistent yelling to give 20 testosterone and Red Bull charged adolescent boys a run for their money; a good amount of it having been done by women older than my mother.  A few of these women also roped in for the first time in their aged lives to jump a gap thirty feet in the air.  For a lot of them, I think, it was exposure to a completely new kind of learning.

A hardly inconsiderable amount of the enthusiasm and willingness to try new things at this event was fueled by the stated goal of our school (stated by 王广发，of course) to be an American style private high school.  The whole idea of sending his staff out for team building exercises in the mountains was pitched to him as a very American thing to do.  So he naturally picked the most expensive one he could find and had it made clear that this was to help lead the school’s staff into the bright American future.  The fact that it felt like one of the most thoroughly Chinese experiences I’ve had so far is indicative of the larger contradiction I’ve been experiencing with this school all along.  They want to be the best Chinese high school in Beijing and to do that they know they need to adopt American style educational practices, but everything they know about running a business school is deeply rooted in the Chinese way of doing things.

Okay, that’s enough writing for tonight.  I’d love to discuss whatever with whomever in the comments.  Here are some pictures:

(Click for a higher resolution version)

Sunday was a coworker's birthday.  They didn't skimp on the cake budget.

When I first saw this I thought it had to be a mistranslation.  It's only a little off, though - it really says 'No Grappling on Boat'.

 

The same boat.  Looks pretty tippy!

They fed us well.  The dish with the open flame under it consists of mushrooms and tree fungi that were handpicked in the wild... at least that's what they told us.

This place is beautiful!

#1

I've been in Beijing for exactly one month, having arrived on September 4.  It's time to stop procrastinating on my communications.

The school at which I'm employed is called the Beijing Royal School or 北京王府学校 (for a few minutes of amusement check out the translations on the English version of their site).  It's a during-the-week boarding school for very rich kids.  Justifying my paycheck are 24 thirteen to eighteen year-old students who I teach for three periods of forty minutes five days a week.  Most of them have no siblings, thanks to the one child policy; all of them are wealthy - many of them are picked up by private drivers on the weekends; almost all of them have never done a household chore in their lives (I asked).  In exchange for my time I am provided with an apartment in the housing development adjacent to the school and compensated with an American salary in a place where the cost of living is a fraction of what it is back home.

The first thing to know about this situation is that it is all made possible by one 王广发 (pronounced Wáng Guǎngfā, surnames are the single character before the two-character given name in Chinese).  He owns our school, the neighboring ginormous housing development, a nearby hospital, and more that I'm not aware of.  As best I can tell, he is the archetypal self-made Chinese businessman who's (thankfully) altruistic intentions manifest themselves through a process entirely mediated by an intractable sense of proper Chinese business conduct and adroit business savvy.  To my testosterone-deranged Caucasian brain (I'll have to get to current Chinese myths about genetic difference in another post) the result is a seemingly incongruous work environment.  An adequate treatment of this will require an entire post sometime in the future so a wee example will have to do for now: the facade of our school has a screen that's about the size of my classroom that displays pictures to the outside world of various school events, and yet to make copies I have to get an approving signature from a man who is never in his office and is very concerned that no one waste money on frivolous copying.

That's enough about the school for the time being.  I'm now living in one of the largest, most rapidly changing, and historically significant cities in the world.

Upon my arrival the first thing I learned about this city is that the level of chaos on its streets is not something that can be conveyed on any kind of satisfactory level.  Here's my best futile shot:

Were it not for the small side streets running adjacent to nearly all main roads (a particularly large one in a very nice part of town is visible here) there would be no relative safety.  Traffic laws are simply not enforced so running red lights, driving on the wrong side of the street, driving on the sidewalk, and driving the wrong way on the side street at high speed while holding down the horn so that pedestrians know to get out of the way are all regularly observed practices far from being worthy of condemnation or anger on anyone's part.  Nobody wears seat belts; taxis do not have seat belts in the back; it is not common for onlookers to call an ambulance when an accident is witnessed.  All traffic accident statistics are meticulously recorded state secrets.

Here's a couple pictures I took of an accident involving one upside down Mercedes in the middle of the road and a taxi ending up on top of a parked Volkswagen. This happened in a densely developed part of town on a small two lane street.  I asked around and according to a few folks nobody had died and it was a relatively unimpressive accident. 

(click for a higher resolution version)

Despite the horrendous dangers on the road and the feeling that just crossing the street requires all of one's concentration, one of my first purchases here was a motorcycle.  Justification: I live very far away from downtown and getting to the subway station by bus is unnecessarily time consuming, I only drive on the small side streets like the one pictured in the link above, without personal transportation getting out to the mountains for climbing or camping is prohibitively difficult, I never drive into the busy part of the city and I don't drive during the day's four rush hours.

Once one is connected to the subway system public transportation is convenient, but a little crowded.  Depending on the time of day one can find themselves in a situation like this:

I had to pull my arm out of a mess of people to hold it above me for this one - after I snapped it I had as much trouble getting it back down to my side.

When the trains get so crowded that there is not space for people to step on, the newcomers push; they literally compress the passengers already on the train until there is enough space for them to squeeze on.  What amazes me is that nobody gets angry or visibly bothered.  It is just tacitly understood that everybody needs to get somewhere and will do what they need to do to get there - it's nothing personal.

Taken on my first ride out to the mountains.  Stumbled upon numerous ancient stone shrines, objects, walls.

The entire Beijing area is incredibly polluted.  This is the river about three miles north of where I live.  You can smell it well before you see it.

Turtles, fish, and scorpions selling for a fraction of a dollar each at a local market.

A pallet of maggots at the same market.

Xenophilia: American fast food costs about as much as it does in the U.S. which means that it is a conspicuously expensive indulgence in China.  I've been told that eating at Pizza Hut is considered a flashy joint at which to treat your date to dinner.  Also, KFC delivers.

English is a fashionable language in Beijing.  Expensive t-shirts with nonsensical or poorly translated English phrases are common on trendy youth.  Businesses, particularly bars, also demonstrate this.

A friend pointing out that something seems to have been lost in translation with this title.

This picture wasn't taken in a rough neighborhood.  I was actually in 七九八 (QīJiǔBā), the most pretentious district of town renowned for its art galleries and expensive coffee shops.  The only aesthetically motivated graffiti I've seen in Beijing has been here.

Click here for much higher quality pictures taken by my brother-in-law, Stuart.

I'd love to get some questions & comments from my friends & family!