Tomorrow's my last day in Dalian. As I write this, my bags are fully-packed, awaiting the last 12 hours before we fly off to Seoul, then to Singapore.

I did my last round of shopping, my final goodbyes (via SMS - thank god for some semblance of informality via technology) and my final meals.

It's like being on a cloud. Not as in happy, but as in feeling unreal. Suddenly, in a rather twisted moment, I didn't feel like going back. I felt like staying, shopping at the local hypermart, Trustmart, buying mutton shish kebabs from the Xinjiang guys and then savouring it while braving the cold, eating braised tofu at my regular store at Heishijiao. In fact, while in Trustmart just now to buy chewing gum, I nearly bought some groceries, because it's so second nature for me.

But I've to face up to it - I'm leaving freezing-cold Dalian and coming back to sunny Singapore (although I hear it's quite cloudy and rainy nowadays), and another chapter of my life will start from tomorrow onwards.

How scary.

I remember two years ago, when my plans to go to China finally became concrete, and I had to go to Changi airport to take a plane to Dalian to carry out my promise to be an educator. Only my mom and my friend were at the airport. I felt cold and very very uneasy. China was a cold, unfriendly place that was also a land of opportunities that could make me grow up much. It was either China or bust. It was either go, or be stuck in Singapore.

And tomorrow, I'll be back, wiser, with more grey hairs, and definitely more matured. Then we'll see what else I can pull out of my magic hat. But goodbye Dalian, Singapore, here I come.

Tomorrow's the last lesson I will teach in a formal setting. After tomorrow, it's time to think about what is ahead of me. A new life, a new perspective and new people to meet. It sounds like I'm under a witness protection program, but I'm just moving back to my homeland.

And I'll be stopping by Seoul on my way home. Oh man. How pleasant. It turns out stopping by Seoul would be cheaper than stopping by HK (again), and it is as cheap as stopping by Beijing (no way - the spitting, general lack of hygiene and generally 'nua' or shrill-voiced staff). So Seoul it is.

However, I can't venture out of the airport - I'll need a visa if I want to. Shucks. To get out and walk around for an hour or so would be REALLY REALLY nice. *sigh* I have watched and marvelled at so many South Korean movies during my time here, it would be a great injustice if I don't visit Seoul properly sometime in the near future. Oh, to visit Kangwon province, to eat a BBQ meal at one of the tent restaurants, or to down many bottles of soju in Seoul itself!

Well, I think its time to learn some basic Korean in addition to those basic functions I picked up from watching Korean movies! Annyeong haseyo!

In our school, there are 5 foreign teachers, including me. 4 of them come from western countries like Australia and the US. I am the only one from an Asian country. In most schools in China, foreign teachers are a cloistered lot – they have many perks and benefits that local teachers would never have, unless they have worked their way up to the professor level.

For starters, free housing. We get a fully-furnished apartment, with water, heating, electricity and internet connection bills fully paid every month. The bathroom is western-style, and nowadays, the school provides a broadband internet connection for every foreign teacher’s apartment. The single Chinese teachers, however, have to live in dormitories that pack in 6 people for each room. They do not even have a common bathroom, and utility bills will be deducted from their pay every month. For Internet access, they can choose from any of the ubiquitous Internet bars in Dalian.

There is a wide gulf in pay. Foreign teachers earn a pay of around 3,500 yuan to 5,000 yuan, depending on the number of hours they teach in a month. Chinese teachers usually get paid around 1,000 to 2,000 yuan a month, although they teach less classes. However, the administrative work and responsibilities of the Chinese teachers far outweigh the (rather) rigorous teaching schedule of the foreign teachers. Student discipline, homeroom teaching, extra-curricular activities, marking and grading of papers and counseling are usually areas that foreign teachers keep clear of.

Even in the assignment of schoolbuses - foreign teachers get to sit in a comfortable mini-bus with reclinable chairs that is reserved only for foreign teachers and senior teachers. The bus has air-conditioning in summer and heating during the colder seasons. The Chinese teachers just sit in big buses that do not have air-conditioning or heating. They open the windows during summer, and have to endure the cold wind seeping through the little window cracks in winter and spring. However, this semester, the hierarchy has changed a bit. Foreign teachers now sit with Chinese teachers in a spanking new bus that promises no heating or air-conditioning. The senior Chinese teachers still sit in the old mini-bus – maybe this is the school administration trying to make some old disgruntled Chinese teachers happy.

Damn I miss the comfy mini-bus.

The foreign teachers also used to have an office for themselves, but it has changed this semester – we now sit together with the Chinese teachers in a big office. It is noisier and offers less privacy, but the activity and (rather loud) bantering of the Chinese teachers give us a better feeling of being in a real school, instead of being shut in a bubble all by ourselves. Space partitioning, however, is a must. We occupy one quarter of the big office space, and our waiban has shrewdly set up a screen on one side. I am not sure how much of our supposed privacy it will protect, or whether it is just a shabby makeshift wall to separate us from the locals, but it is quite comforting to see a blue screen sometimes instead of a human face. Humans can be a bit too much sometimes.

The senior Chinese teachers and some younger ones want to get to know the foreign teachers better, but we are never sure of their intentions. The masks the people wear in this country are just too numerous, and they are certainly more complex than most of the people I have met. One good thing is that after sharing an office with them, I can observe how these people go about their daily business. They teach less hours, so they do not always do work in the office. Some of them read, others gossip, and the office computers are a good time-wasting device – I see QQ, the definitive chatting program in China, being installed in every office computer.

The Chinese teachers in our college are also notorious for being too easy on their students, sometimes letting them pass when they should not have. The teaching management and staff discipline in our college is also very uneven. Teaching managers do not enforce strict standards of teaching. ‘Guanxi’ and a deferential attitude to authority prevent the senior teachers from being castigated when they are in the wrong. I have heard about senior teachers who sing to their students in class, or teaching dancing so as to liven up class and make themselves more popular with the students…all to ensure that when the period of teacher evaluation comes, the students will grade them favourably. But I really have to ask - what about teaching?

In some people’s opinion, foreign teachers should be kept sheltered. If the insidious hordes of Chinese teachers get close to them, they will compare salaries, teaching standards and opinions, all of which are very different from local norms. It is comparable to opening a can of worms. I will see how many worms will crawl out after a few months. But I can already see a few trickling out.

During the past one and a half years I have been here, the foreign teachers had been kept in an office, and did not enjoy/had to endure much talk with the other Chinese teachers. We entertain them if they approach us, and strike up a few conversations here and there, but communication is still very futile and rare. Now, we see them daily, and we inadvertently observe their movements and mannerisms. Maybe we will understand them better, albeit superficially. But a surface understanding is still better than nothing.

Maybe the gulf can be closed, maybe the differences can be resolved through daily interaction, maybe the worms will just trickle out of the can at most, but I hope this new arrangement will be a good stage for my leaving in 4 months’ time. Like a senior teacher remarked after hearing I have been in Dalian for 2 years already, “So long…2 years is long enough.”

This is an effort to moderate myself.

I will not spew bile or rant or be full of rage here.

This is an attempt to grow up, to be a moderate, and yes, quite boring person.

Just like a line from Operation Ivy's Knowledge: "All I know is I don't know",

with a nod to Socrates - "I, as one who does not know, do not think that I do."

To be a man, not just a temperamental and raging boy anymore.