I left my job to teach English in China
<p>At the age of 55, Garry Greenwood found himself becoming disillusioned with the daily humdrum of work, paying endless bills and more. So what did he do? Together with his wife Wendy, he boarded a flight to China seeking better prospects and adventure. Ten years later upon his return Garry shares some of his life-changing experiences of both here in Australia and several overseas countries. His new e-book, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://retireesguidetolifeafterwork.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Retiree’s Guide To Life After Work</em></a></strong></span>, presents endless work, volunteer, retirement and play opportunities for the over-50s and others.</p><p>Now 66, Garry from Cairns, Queensland, shares with Over 60 his philosophy on retirement and an extract from his book.</p><p><strong>Why did you decide to retire early?</strong></p><p>Well, I am still confused whether it really was an early retirement or a career change. The big difference was that we would only work for as long or as short as we wished, then we would go off somewhere and play. Since we had sold up, cleared all our debts we were able to do this – plus working in Asia and other countries also made this easy.</p><p><strong>Do you think in this day and age it’s becoming increasingly harder to happily retire?</strong></p><p>I can only comment on the present really but I would say that it all depends upon your state of mind or attitude. I would also mention that I know some very materially blessed retirees who are very miserable and many more retirees simply living on pensions who are having the time of their lives. Of course, you need a reasonable degree of financial security but you would be surprised how many are out there living their dream with few resources available. </p><p><strong>What’s your secret to a fulfilling retirement?</strong></p><p>One is, you have to work at it, another is to be creative within your means and lastly is attitude.</p><p><strong>What prompted you to write down your experiences and create an eBook?</strong></p><p>Well after almost 10 years of working and playing and accumulating some amazing experiences I realised I had a wealth of contacts, links and more that perhaps others might like to draw upon.</p><p><strong>What’s your advice for people who are looking to make a big plunge but may be worried about finances, age or health?</strong></p><p>Prepare yourself beforehand. You will need reasonable health matched with the type of experiences you are planning on having. Be prepared to function outside your comfort zone on occasions. This won’t happen all the time but it can be a major challenge if you are not equipped emotionally. Finances shouldn't be a problem if you intend working, but you will need a cash safety net. Oh, and lastly common sense.</p><p><strong>The following is an extract from Garry Greenwood’s eBook <em>A Retiree’s Guide To Life After Work</em> detailing his adventures in teaching English in China.</strong></p><p>Life for us was now quickening and within a few days of our seamless arrival in China we were dispatched by our new Chinese employer to a large island off the southern coast of mainland China. It’s called Hainan Island.</p><p>Our new employer, who called himself Charlie, had just started the first and only English language school in the town and we were his first ever teachers – in fact we learnt that we were the only foreigners ever to have visited the town. This also meant that the inhabitants of Ding An had never before seen a westerner.</p><p>At that time Ding An was just how I had imagined the old China would be: few cars, traditional old buildings, motorized rickshaws, lots of commotion and lots of people on foot. As we drove into town, for a moment, I thought we were in a foreign movie – but we weren’t. Once the locals spotted us in the car they would all stop in their tracks and stare wide-eyed.</p><p>In case you might be wondering how non-Chinese speaking people like ourselves could ever possibly teach English to non-English speaking people: let me explain. In many non-English speaking countries all students learn English as part of the standard school curriculum often throughout their entire schooling years. Their grasp of English grammar is usually far more advanced than, say here in Australia, where English grammar is often not taught. This grammar is also taught by non-English speaking teachers from textbooks. This is where folk like us enter into the picture. We teach them how to use it on a practical speaking level versus the theoretical level that they have learnt up till now. We are really conversational English teachers. We just speak with them all the while encouraging them to overcome their shyness and reluctance to speak English.</p><p>Later in our China travels we were to meet so many other older westerners doing exactly what we were doing and for the same reasons. In fact I might even go so far to say that us older, grey and wrinkled ones were much more sought after than the younger versions of us, since they were all too often late for classes because of drunkenness or hangovers, not to mention their often disrespect for their Asian peers and womanizing. This also explains why you need little or no previous experience in teaching. You just need to be able to speak English as a native English speaker would, and the courage to try.</p><p><img width="708" height="451" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/3066/garry-photo2_708x451.jpg" alt="Garry Photo2"></p><p>Our somewhat basic and dilapidated Ding An apartment overlooked a beautiful river with rice paddies all about on the opposite side. Often children could be seen swimming in the river, and large water buffalos grazed its grassy banks.</p><p>Our school was about a kilometre away and our employer, Charlie, accompanied us on our first day. Firstly, he summonsed a motorized rickshaw, of which there seemed an oversupply. We all boarded, much to the obvious glee of its driver who had just raised himself a notch in the one-upmanship stakes amongst his fellow rickshaw drivers. Off we set amongst the madding crowd dodging other rickshaws, piles of rubbish, potholes, occasional cars and people standing wide-eyed and staring. “The foreigners are here” well no, I didn’t actually hear anyone proclaiming those words: it was just my over active imagination at work.</p><p>Everyone who spotted us would stop and stare as if aliens from outer space had just landed. Cars would even come to a complete standstill as we passed. Children would scream and run to their mothers’ bosoms for safety… well no, not really: they just stared like everyone else. I was becoming a little overwhelmed at the spectacle and the prospects of beginning my new life as an English teacher never having taught anyone anything.</p><p>Our first ever classes consisted of approximately eight students each around twelve years of age. As they gingerly took their seats we, just as gingerly, opened our text books and tried to look confident, experienced and professional. Firstly, we introduced ourselves in the most simplest of English that we could manage and they, in turn, responded by introducing themselves. It was a bit tense, I must confess, but as we got to know each other the atmosphere gradually became more relaxed – convivial even. And before we had reached the end of the ninety minute lesson we were all laughing and joking with each other. I was amazed at how fast we all settled in. They didn’t care for the text books. They wanted to know all about us and Australia. What kind of animals we had: what kind of food we ate; what was our favourite fruit and so on. We were taking English and they were responding well, and I was confident that they saw us as experienced and professional teachers. The ice had been broken and we were sailing.</p><p>Most evenings we took Charlie up on his offer for a free restaurant meal and to make ourselves available for any students who wanted, or could afford, to join us. One particular young adult student asked if he could sing a song for us during our meal. Well why not; we had all consumed a few bottles of beer and jumped at the chance for a bit of home-grown and spontaneous entertainment. Showing no signs of nervousness or embarrassment he immediately burst into a strong operatic voice singing arias that only Pavarotti could do justice to. In fact he sounded just like Pavarotti himself minus all the fat and ego. How delightful. How special. We were so taken aback and enjoyed his singing so much that we asked him to accompany us as often as he could on our evening dinners out. “I’ll pay”.</p><p>This was the beginning of a special and beautiful relationship between our very own Pavarotti and ourselves as he would appear often at our table and sing for us all.</p><p>The favourite dish of this region consisted of a pot of boiling water over a small flame into which you gradually placed all manner of animal offal and vegetables. We had to exercise great care and diplomacy when it was our turn to scoop out our share as often we would find a whole chicken head or chicken claw caught between our quivering chop sticks. Once you scoop it out you must eat it.</p><p>To break the monotony of chicken claws, too much white rice and plain boiled vegetables we would feel compelled on occasions to visit a new Mc Donald’s look-alike restaurant that had recently open nearby. Instead of having the large and familiar big M sign outside the restaurant, our newly discovered look alike had a big yellow W instead. Upon seeing us eating at his new establishment the proud new owner approached us and explained, through Pavarotti, that we could eat here as often as we liked, for free, since our mere presence in the restaurant was the best advertising or endorsement available. So we did.</p><p>Life in Ding An soon took on a comfortable routing for us. We gradually became accustomed to all the constant staring and pointing. Our rickshaw drivers were faithfully and diligently adhering to Charlie’s travel plan: our dilapidated old apartment began to look not so dilapidated and crouching low under our almost-useless shower began to seem almost normal whilst our nightly dinners and sing-alongs with Charlie, Pavarotti and other students never seemed to lose their appeal. Our lessons now seemed to roll by with both of us able to somehow switch into a cruise control, or automatic pilot mode. We were also able to save almost every Yuan (the Chinese currency) we earned which was a bit of a change for us as back home we constantly struggled to make ends meet and never considered eating out. We also had something very worthwhile to do, which in our eyes held a great value in itself.</p><p>In order to recruit more students for his school, Charlie decided that all three of us should attend a local high school and give a kind of English language demonstration to the students for a few hours. We happily agreed and upon our arrival at the school we found all the students were waiting, standing silently to attention in the parade ground. We were directed to mount a podium and address them, which we did by saying a few words of greetings and encouragement. We also spoke a little about our home country, etc. After the official side was over it was explained that shortly we would separately visit a few selected class rooms and participate in a more informal and relaxed fashion, so everyone was temporarily dismissed.</p><p>Once dismissed, and without any warning we were rushed by a student stampede - actually the whole school. We were all forced into a very tight and sweaty scrum formation unable to retreat or escape. It seemed they all wanted our autographs and which we were obliged to give thereof for well over an hour. During this hectic, sweaty and slightly dangerous period many asked in their broken English what films were we in. “None” I declared. This didn’t seem to dampen their enthusiasm for our autographs as they kept on repeating this same question, “What films are you in?”</p><p>It turns out that since the only westerners they had ever seen were in western movies, mainly American ones, by a weird sense of association they were all thinking that somehow we were film stars, too. How weird was that?</p>
