INTERVIEW: Why I chose to teach English in China, Taiwan

Rachel Drake is an African-American who migrated to China and then to Taiwan, where she teaches English. She shares her experience in this interview.

Excerpts:

PREMIUM TIMES: Tell us more about yourself.

Ms Drake: My name is Rachel Drake. I was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I have a Bachelor of Arts in English Education and a Master’s degree in English Literature and Teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages certificate (TESOL). My first love is my mother, and my second love is reading, which was taught to me by Mrs Rohani, an Iranian immigrant to the United States.

Vicksburg, my hometown, is absolutely beautiful and consists of rolling hills, berry trees, wild garlic sprouting up randomly in fields and Spanish moss that hangs over almost every tree, inviting passersby to sit in its shade with mason jars of lemonade and a plateful of teacakes.

When I was young, our house was at the end of a red dirt road that is now paved, but I still have an affiliation for those old rustic, rocky roads that speak of simpler times and secret places.

PREMIUM TIMES: Why did you want to be a teacher?

Ms Drake: I felt inclined to be a teacher because I love children and I love reading. That explains my degree in English Education. I got the chance to read a lot of amazing novels, short stories and poetry in college, while also fostering the belief in what should be a societal commitment to turning out children who are attentive to the world’s greater good.

Also, my father, a Vietnam veteran, thought it wise for his children, especially his female children, to obtain degrees that would allow them to earn a salary upon graduating, thus making his daughters self-sufficient and not reliant on the exploitation of men. My grandfather, his father, was the same. He made sure all of his daughters had degrees, even over his sons.

One of my sisters wanted to choose a different route that would require a second degree in computer programming, but my father urged her to go into nursing instead because he wanted all of his daughters to be financially self-sufficient and not ever be under the full control of a man.

PREMIUM TIMES: What was your first job?

Ms Drake: My first job was as a tutor in college, and then I worked at Walmart for a few months to save money for moving to Georgia to live with one of my older sisters studying for the bar exam. The job market was not so good the year I graduated because it was 2009, and the country was going through a recession. So I went to Georgia to work as a substitute teacher.

I also worked at the mall part-time. A year later, I went back to school to earn my Master’s degree, after which I got my first official job teaching at a high school. I got my Master’s degree from Jackson State University in Mississippi because of family history.

The college was founded in 1877, and it’s a Historically Black University – HBCU. My grandfather on my mother’s side attended the college but couldn’t finish his degree because he was drafted into the Korean War and so I chose to complete his legacy.

PREMIUM TIMES: At what point did you decide to go to China?

Ms Drake: When I was 16, I had a feeling China had something for me. I took Mandarin at Alcorn State University when I was an undergraduate, which is also an HBCU. My first Mandarin teacher was from mainland China, and the second one was from Taiwan.

The Taiwanese teacher had more of an impact. I had the opportunity to go to China as an undergraduate, but I didn’t go because it felt too intimidating. But when I was getting my Master’s degree, our Taiwanese teacher of Mandarin encouraged me more.

She recommended I and the three other black American girls go to Taiwan as it was more westernised and more used to foreigners, thus making it easier for black American girls to acclimate themselves. I have since discovered that Taiwanese people are very accommodating, highly intelligent, soft and friendly. Even when they are unkind, there is a limit to it, unlike America, where there is no defined limit to cruelty, especially to black Americans.

PREMIUM TIMES: Could this be because of the legacy of slavery in America?

Ms Drake: The legacy of slavery in America definitely played and still plays an essential role in the ill treatment of black Americans.

PREMIUM TIMES: Tell us about the first trip to Taiwan.

Ms Drake: I went with my sister and two other girls. It was the summer of 2012. The four of us lived in Tainan, in the southern part of Taiwan. We stayed at the dormitory of the National Cheng Kung University. Many people were still on campus because lots of programmes were going on. It was a beautiful campus. We stayed for five weeks. We took courses in Chinese language, culture, and calligraphy. It was absolutely amazing.

PREMIUM TIMES: How did you decide to go to China to teach after this?

Ms Drake: After teaching for two years at the high school in Mississippi, I felt restless watching seniors graduate and go off to fulfil their dreams, and that is when I decided to go teach abroad in China. While I had opportunities to get married, I didn’t want my dreams to take a backseat.

I couldn’t see myself living in a small town like some of my female relatives. You have your house, your garden and chickens, and raise your children. That was not what I wanted.

Some of my female relatives tried to persuade me to settle down and marry, but you can’t let yourself become a part of other people’s dreams or plans. My aunt, who was the head of the department of English, refused to write me a letter of recommendation when I was applying for jobs in China because she didn’t want me to go. But my parents have always encouraged us to be proactive and have always actively fostered our academic and non-academic pursuits.

PREMIUM TIMES: How did you get your job in China?

Ms Drake: I got my job in China because the assistant to my Taiwanese teacher recommended Dalian Medical University in China, and I applied to their programme to teach English. I got accepted. I was very excited. I had been saving my money.

Dalian is in Northern China, two hours’ flight from Beijing. I was 27 years old. That was probably one of the best years of my life. When I got there, I had the feeling that I was exactly where I was meant to be, and every single day was an adventure. It was exactly what I wanted. I’m glad I didn’t let my aunt veer me from my path.

PREMIUM TIMES: Who were your students?

Ms Drake: My students were between 18 and 21 years old. They came from all over China. They were students in the health professions learning English and preparing for their exams in English. I learned later that my students performed the best in their English performance exams, which I was very proud of.

PREMIUM TIMES: Why did you leave?

Ms Drake: I left because the climate was far too cold for my warm Mississippi blood, and then I also felt unsupported by white colleagues when I was unfairly treated. The incident where my students outperformed their students was also an issue, as I was never told by our white American supervisor, but instead told by a semi-friendly Canadian co-worker.

This led to my desire to leave and the awkward fact that mid-school year, my supervisor chose to take half of my classes and to give me half of hers. That was very awkward because I’d worked hard to bring them out of their shells, and I suppose she wanted some credit for my hard work as her classes were among the ones that scored the lowest.

PREMIUM TIMES: Tell us about your experience here in Taiwan.

Ms Drake: My second experience in Taiwan was less exciting than my first because I was in Taipei instead of beautiful, historic Tainan.

Tainan also has the most delicious food to be had and so I was a little disappointed until I met my school and wonderful Taiwanese coworkers. China is also more international as it is so large, and Taiwan’s foreign population was somewhat more limited to white expats with substitute teacher licenses instead of fully accredited teacher’s licenses.

I didn’t drink or smoke, and that is a major pastime for many such expats, and so we didn’t get on so well, but I found a few solid friends who embraced me, and we made a strange bunch. Our chic Italian social butterfly group included a pretty Nigerian-American Muslim in full hijab, a model Esque Gambian and me myself with my boyish figure in short shorts and tank tops.

I also met my husband, who was studying for his PhD at the top university here, and that was absolutely magical because we had a definite vibe even though he is Tamil Indian and I am of course, of black American descent.

PREMIUM TIMES: Does it matter that you are a black teacher in China and Taiwan?

Ms Drake: Definitely. Everything matters. If you are ever a teacher in Asia, your colour, age, gender, how you dress, how you do your hair, how you put on your make-up, and so on, matter.

These determine whether or not you’ll get accepted as a renter in apartment complexes, or get a job, or make friends, or sometimes even the type of friends you end up having. I didn’t like the food in Dalian, so I wasn’t eating much and lost a lot of weight. I was super skinny. I worried about my weight loss, but Chinese people thought I looked amazing, being so thin with my typical black female hourglass shape. I was also 27 then.

Being skinny, young and cute is a highly valued aesthetic in China and Taiwan. Colour can be an issue, but I’ve since discovered it is less of an issue if you have other attributes. I once heard a Chinese woman say as I passed, “She’s so pretty, but then she’s so dark.” My Chinese friend and I burst out laughing. Not even many Chinese women meet the stringent standard of beauty imposed on them by society, so I didn’t take offence.

PREMIUM TIMES: What are the similarities and differences between the American education system and the Chinese and Taiwanese education systems?

Ms Drake: From my observations, there is more of a community and societal effort in Taiwan to support children so that they can succeed. The children here are encouraged to study very hard and are expected to do very well. It’s the same in China, even though I taught at a higher level there.

Here in Taiwan, I teach younger students. It made a big impression on me on how teachers strategise about children’s education, about how to meet the goals and expectations. Teachers are very careful about how they get certain results. It’s not like that in the US, where the opposite seems to happen.

There is a lot of experimentation on the curriculum in black schools that doesn’t happen in white schools in America. Certain ethnic groups are targeted for failure to maintain a permanent underclass, while other non-white ethnic groups that immigrate with more wealth are still relegated to positions of submission to the dominant white supremacist system.

They are forced into being overseers of the targeted minority groups and encouraged to condemn programmes like DEI that actually help all minority groups, even white women. These model minorities are made into lapdogs, which is quite an embarrassment, and while some may reject those roles, it leaves them isolated for attack from a system that requires submission to all who are not purely white.

PREMIUM TIMES: What are your future goals?

Ms Drake: In terms of my personal goals, I would like to write some books on the African American experience in the United States. I am also working on a collection of reflections on the experience of African American women in Asia.

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Meanwhile, at my current occupation here in Taiwan, I am very happy to be helping students acquire English in a natural way while also exposing them to the positives of diversity, which should be a worldwide goal: global love and unity.

PREMIUM TIMES: Thank you so much. We wish you all the best in Taiwan.

Ms Drake: Thank you.

Bunmi Fatoye-Matory conducted this interview. She currently lives in Taipei, Taiwan. She can be reached at [email protected]