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“In your cover letter you claim to be fluent in Mandarin Chinese,” Jim Scofield from Latos Management Consultants abruptly interrupts me seconds after I begin my self-introduction. 

“NiweishenmelikaidaluhuilaiTaiwan?” (Why did you leave the mainland and return to Taiwan?) he asks in Mandarin real fast ignoring all the rules of pronunciation for the language.

“Li e kong-oe jin hom-mang. Kua thia bo.” (Your pronunciation is terrible. I can’t understand you). A little irked, I answer him in Taiwanese, the true language of the island as it seems he is testing me on my Mandarin.

Mr. Scofield doesn’t reply. Most expats here are unable to speak or understand even a word of Taiwanese. And with the whole competitiveness thing between Westerners when it comes to fluency in Mandarin—this most likely being the reason for his rapid question—he is possibly a little miffed if he didn’t understand my answer.

“Six years in China altogether…,” Jim jams a finger into my resume. “I hear a lot of foreign teachers over there are wastoids first and teachers second. Drinking till dawn and regularly not showing up for class. And showing up without a lesson plan when they *do* go to class… Latos is a very professional company. Can you assure us that there won’t be any sort of behavior like this if we decide to bring you on as a Latos Foreign Language Liaison?”

“I’ve never missed even one class because of a hangover.”

“So does that mean you teach hungover regularly?”

“No…, hangovers are very rare for me.”

“Have you ever taught hungover?”

“Ahh…, Yeah…,” I admit. “A couple times.”

“Mr. Sturm, can you tell me what you know about our organization?”

“Well…, I know that it’s a language school which provides English training to business professionals in Taipei.”

He just sits silently now appearing to be pondering. And I’m thinking by looking at the guy, that he’s the type that might like to go out to a bar from time to time and have a drink with other expats. I’m sitting opposite Mr. Scofield, a large oak desk between us. He’s kind of big. Tall and beefy, wearing a dark-blue double breasted suit with a white shirt and a medium-blue tie. He is completely bald with a bland face neither handsome nor ugly. 

Jim seems to be one of those guys who enjoy putting people on edge in these kinds of situations. He also, with his overall demeanor, has this arrogant thing about him which is a quality that many foreign dudes here are gifted with. It appears to only kick in when they come into contact with expat males they don’t know. Possibly a defense mechanism of sorts for these guys, some of whom, like myself, are damaged goods. 

“Can you talk about why you left Zhengzhou in China and came back to Taiwan?”

“Well…, ah…,” I redirect my thoughts, “I had lived in China for five years before…, and when my friend invited me to go back there, because my friend, I had worked with him in Hunan before and then he invited me to go back to China to work for a real high salary by Chinese standards.”

“Right,” Jim goes sounding bored.

“And I thought that my five years in Hunan would have prepared me for livin’ in Henan but I was wrong I hated it there an’ couldn’t wait to come back to Taiwan also I had applied to a master’s program at the national art university in Ban Qiao and I thought that they had forgot about me and then just before I left to go to Henan I got an acceptance letter from them and I didn’t wanna go to China.” Nervous, I’m talking fast in long sentences spouting out anything that pops into my head related to my relocation. “But I didn’t wanna break my word to my friend cuz ‘e stuck ‘is neck out for me for a job like this once before in Wuhan and I changed my mind at the last second…”

“Right…, ah, Mr. Sturm…,” Jim jumps in, “could you talk about what makes your classroom special?”

“Ah, well…, when I’m up there in front of the class I feel that I am in a special position to help better my students’ lives. I use the recast method. The recast method’s real good cuz it doesn’t put a whole lot of pressure on students when they make mistakes. Also, I learned a lot about communicative competence when I was doin’ my master’s—”

“Can you comment a little on how you define communicative competence?”

I am already sick of this interview at this point. I have been dropping back into my old school white-trash vernacular. I’m bad enough in an interview with a local, but I am ten times worse with a native English speaker and can’t quite put my finger on why. 

I decide to drop the communicative competence bullshit in an effort at lashing out at the dude, to a certain extent, in response to his arrogance.

“Well…,” I begin, switching gears, “can we back up just a little and refocus on how my classroom is special?” I don’t wait for an answer. “What makes my classroom special is the fact that I hate teaching English *so much*, that when I’m standing in front of the classroom, I often have the desire to burst into laughter out of the blue. I’ve been told to just let it out. To just start laughing. But my question is, ‘When will that laughing stop?!’ When I’ve been dragged out of the classroom later…? Or even later than that? And as the last school year rolled by, deep in the middle of China, those desires to break out into laughter turned into desires to start shaking. To go into convulsions. To fall to the floor in a full blown fit!” I can see from the guy’s countenance that this job opportunity is out the window, but I just can’t stop. Jim is still reeling from those precious words of truth not quite able to tell me to hit the road yet and I keep going, “Then as the end of the school year drew near, I was frequently seized with a desire to do that Dr. Strangelove thing and strangle myself in front of the whole class with my own right hand. That passed and was replaced with an overwhelming need, as I stood in front of the class, to rip the textbook that was in my hands to shreds with my teeth then shake its remains back and forth like a dog might do with the carcass of a dead squirrel. And there were a few times in which I came dangerously close to biting the book—which was right in front of my face—and begin gnawing on it a little.”

“OK, Mr. Sturm…,” he is ready to wind things down.

“BUT I HAVEN’T EVEN TOLD YOU WHAT MAKES MY CLASSROOM SPECIAL YET!” I don’t let him in and go, “What makes my classroom special is the only way I can escape my disdain for teaching English to people who don’t give a fuck about the language is by teaching the hell out of whatever lesson I’m on! Whatever it takes to entertain these kids whose rich parents are paying my wages! You want me to incorporate some tap dancing into a Lady Gaga song to get the ‘present continuous’ into some eighteen-year-old’s head who is half asleep cuz he’s been up till four in the morning click-clacking away playin’ an online game?! No problem! I’m your foreign monkey! And I’ll do a fuckin’ jig, backwards, all the way across the front of the classroom pantomiming the actions of whatever happens to be taking place in the particular construct of the ‘present continuous’ we’re working on! 

“And how about the ‘pluperfect subjunctive’ Mr. Scofield?!” I dig in. “I practically go into a full-on trance for that one! Yelling in a face here, ‘If-I-had-gone-to-Japan-instead-of-China!’ screaming into an ear there, ‘I-could-have-continued-playing-rock-n-roll-and-people-would-have-actually-appreciated-it!’ Shimmy-shammying about the classroom I slide in, around and through the seating arrangement—A MOTHERFUCKIN’ SHAMAN IMPARTING ENGLISH GRAMMAR KNOWLEDGE!”



  *

My back is against the wall. I have to get some kind of a shit job or whatever. Forget about holding out for a gig teaching adults. I have to find work so I can get a residence permit and stay in Taipei. 

I’ve been back in Taipei for an entire month now. I’ve had *three* interviews. Fucking nightmare! I don’t think I could even get a job teaching at a kids’ language school if I tried. I just can’t pull off the energetic, ‘I’m a happy English teacher!’ thing anymore. I could pull that off when I had originally come to Asia, but things were new and exciting then.