When my boss first asked me to run his school for him, I didn’t think he was serious. Plus, we had just finished drinking a bottle of baijiu (Chinese liquor), which left me having doubts about his offer.
But the next day, he asked again and waited for my answer. I wasn’t really sure what running a school in Xinjiang, China, would be like, but after thinking about it, I decided to give it a shot.
It may seem strange that someone with no experience running a business or a school would have this kind of opportunity, but in China being a Westerner can have its advantages.
Since China first opened up, it has been changing its society and its working culture, in many cases trying to mirror Western standards. Places such as Beijing and Shanghai have very modern standards of professionalism. However, these reforms, which started in eastern China, are slowly working their way westward.
The region of Xinjiang is as far west as you can get in China, and businesses here are still waiting to transform. This was my boss’s thinking when he asked me to run the school: Hire a Westerner and become more developed. So I became a Chinese boss.
On some days, my biggest challenge is trying to figure out if my staff members actually understand me. I’ve learned that even if they don’t understand, they will always smile and say they do. This can be pretty frustrating, especially when it involves relatively simple things.
I once awarded an employee-of-the-month certificate. When I handed out the award, everyone smiled and nodded their heads saying they understood. I learned later however, that after the meeting, the employee of the month asked the others, “What’s this piece of paper for?” And she wondered if she was getting more money.
On other days, my problems can be pretty hard to solve, especially when juggling guanxi (the Chinese word for networking relationships) or dealing with racial problems. The racial problems are probably the hardest to solve, and there is usually no clear-cut solution to them.
For instance, I had just gotten to school one morning when one student’s mother, who is part of the Uyghur Muslim minority group, came to me threatening to pull her child out of school because she was getting made fun of by Han (the Chinese majority group) students.
I had to talk to her and explain the school didn’t condone that kind of behavior and that all students are equal. Right then, at the most inopportune moment, I had another parent barge in and tell me she wanted her child switched to another class because his teacher was Uyghur and she didn’t want him learning from a Uyghur. The rest of the morning was spent trying to convince one mother that my school wasn’t condoning racial discrimination and the other mother that the Uyghur teacher was one of our best teachers.
There are successes though that outweigh the stress of the problems and challenges, like seeing the kids get excited about their first Halloween party or having all the kids get along no matter their ethnicity. And, of course, after a while my staff members understand what I’m handing out to them.
David Scott, a 2008 Durango High School graduate, is teaching English in China’s far western province of Xinjiang (New Frontier) in the city of Korla. He can be reached at darysc24@gmail.com.
