STUDENTS GO TO CHINA TO TEACH, RETURN WITH LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Darin and Michele Long went to China to teach but ended up learning lessons from their students.

Darin Long, a 1984 graduate of Cape Girardeau Central High School, and his wife, Michele, are in Cape Girardeau this week visiting Long's parents and preparing to return to Brigham Young University, where they are students.

The couple returned July 4 from a year-long teaching assignment in China.

Darin, 25, and Michele, 21, will speak about their experiences in China and answer questions at a public forum Friday at 7 p.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1048 West Cape Rock Drive.

Darin said: "I always felt you could learn about a culture by reading books and talking with people who used to live in a country. Now I know there is no learning like the living."

Brigham Young University offers a program to place English teachers in China for a year.

"Most of the people who go are elderly, retired school teachers," Darin said. "But the program was set up for younger individuals like Michele and me."

The Longs applied and were accepted for teaching positions at a Chinese university called the Nan~jing Aeronautical Institute.

Neither Darin nor Michele are studying to be teachers. Darin plans a career in international sales and Michele in financial planning.

"My major is Chinese," Darin said. "This was a good opportunity for me to rub elbows with the Chinese and learn their customs."

In the past six years, Darin has spent more time in the Orient than in the United States.

He spent two years in Taiwan on a mission for the Mormon church. He also spent one college semester studying in China.

Michele said, "Ever since I was a little girl I said I want to go to China or Russia."

The teaching program made it possible to make the journey even for a young couple with limited money. The university paid for their plane tickets and the Chinese university paid their salary and provided a place to live.

Darin said, "We earned $120 a month, U.S. dollars. But that was more, four or five times more, than the average salary."

Michele taught English primarily to students of international business. Darin taught English for special purposes, like United Nations volunteers or employees of China Eastern Airlines.

The Longs left for the Orient from Las Vegas, where they both had been working. Three weeks from the time they learned they would be going, the couple landed in China.

"It was a culture shock to come from a city that is always open to a place where everything closes at 6:30 p.m.," Darin said.

Michele said, "There are bicycles and people everywhere. Nobody has their own car. There are only taxis and government vehicles."

They said 6 million people live in a small city, about the geographic size of Cape Girardeau.

Darin added that resources Americans take for granted, like water and electricity, are stringently conserved.

Darin said, "America affects the daily life of the Chinese much more than I think Americans understand."

But the Chinese understand.

Michele said, "Every day my students spent time talking about the United States and other world events."

Darin added, "They are more concerned about the policies of the United States than of their own country."

Michele said, "Here in America, we focus on our daily lives, going to school, going to work, what we need. But almost everywhere else in the world, people have a much more international view of life. What happens around the world is of importance to them every day."

Darin said, "I learned a lot about the `system.' Relationships, next to the family, are the most important part of Chinese life. To achieve anything in China, you must have friends in the proper places and you must learn to work the system."

For example, to buy a train ticket, it's necessary know someone at the train station.

"Mobility is based on relationships," he said. "Success is based on relationships.

"I also learned that very few people are really happy with their situation, but they have learned to make the best of it.

"I think the Chinese are much more content with their lives even though they have so much less than Americans."

The Chinese operate under a 5,000-year-old system of traditions and history.

"To us their human rights are being violated," Michele said. "But to them it is not a violation. I think a lot of decisions on how to deal with the Chinese are based on our perceptions rather than theirs."

Darin said he made a point to ask the people he met about Tiananmen Square. In May 1989, some 100,000 Chinese workers and students camped out in Tiananmen Square demanding reform. Army troops rolled tanks into the square and quashed a student demonstration, killing as many as 7,000 protesters and injuring as many as 10,000 more.

Darin said: "Most people don't really know what happened in Tiananmen Square. The Chinese call it the 6-4 Incident. Most people have an understanding of the way the world perceives what happened. But most don't know what really happened. And some people deny that it ever happened at all."

The Chinese experience a rather large generation gap, Darin said.

"The younger generation, their ideas are molded by the Voice of America. The older generation is more inclined to believe that the party feeds them."

Michele said the thing Chinese had difficulty understanding about Americans was individualism.

"They wanted to know what the average American thought about issues. I tried to explain that there really isn't an average American. Everybody has their own beliefs, which are very individual."

Darin said individualism in China is not promoted. In fact, "it is shunned and controlled until it flows back to the norm," he said.

Chinese have an initial distrust of Americans.

Darin said, "They have been brought up to believe capitalism is a sin, just like we were brought up to think communism was a great evil."

To break that barrier takes time.

Darin said: "I feel there is extreme potential for trade with China. It is just beginning to be tapped primarily by the Japanese.

"It is kind of sad for us to watch. America does a lot of legislating and very little promoting. Japan does a lot of promoting and very little legislating.

"The Chinese are very interested in second-hand machinery. What is old and out-of-date technology to us is cutting edge technology to them."

Both Darin and Michele have about a semester to finish at college.

"We will spend a lot of time maintaining our friendships in China. For any future success, those relationships have to be constantly nurtured," Darin said.

After they finish college, the couple hopes to work in Hong Kong.

Darin said, "We want to live in Hong Kong during the transition year when Hong Kong is returned to China, in 1997."