Chonx

as awesome as it is being in Chongqing, I'm not quite penetrating into the language and culture as much as I'd like to be. Chongqing is one of the biggest cities in the world. It's modernized and westernized. As such, it's almost indistinguishable from any other big city in the west or east, jettisoning traditional culture to adopt a universal metropolitan one.

Part of it is urban culture, and part of it is my own debilitating shyness, but it's difficult striking up conversations with the local fauna. They're about what you'd expect from city folk: busy, pushy, disinterested, and completely disenchanted by the novelty of the presence of foreigners. Of course, it's not that I expect some special treatment because I'm American, but it makes things a bit more difficult to get to know people.

My students are also at such a high English proficiency level that I sometimes wonder what I really have to offer them. I provide them with an environment in which they can practice conversation. But in order for them to really learn something new, I feel they would need a real professional TEFL instrutor.

As a result, i feel caught in this kind of no man's land. I'm neither contributing a great service nor being immersed in the culture. I'm somewhat of a curiosity, but largely left alone.

I may have mentioned before that I'm considering extending already (and I'm not even a quarter through my 2 years) and spending a year in a more rural site like in Gansu. The way things are going, it just doesn't seem like I'll experience as much as I want to experience during the 2 years I'm in Chongqing. I don't know if I'll really get another chance to do something like that unless I do it with Peace Corps.