The Black Man and his Visa

8. The period of September 2006 to July 2007

65 8 8 The period of September 2006 to July 2007 had kept up with my few tutorial classes until September 2006 when luck stroke. That September, I picked up part time teaching jobs at the Taiyuan normal college, Taiyuan University and a middle school. All that in addition to my many private classes. This was already a lot of work. I could actually make and save some money this time. I was able to change my one-room apartment to a two-room apartment. As far as my love life, my girlfriend was a very traditional Chinese girl. Although I visited her family several times, she never hoped to marry a foreigner. She liked to assist me in whatever I wanted to do, but the idea of marrying a foreigner was not very strong in her mind. Because I was seriously thinking of finding a girl I could marry, naturally things had to die down somehow between us. This does not mean we were enemies. We still visited each other, as before, and went around together, but that zeal of thinking about marriage was not there. This naturally pushed me to fall in love with another girl called Zhao in November 2006. Zhao was completely different from me. She was so crazy. She could not do nor think of anything serious. Her mind was so unstable and inconsistent. She was not a serious student at school. Unfortunately, I was not that kind of a crazy person. We fell in love in November 2006 and by March 2007 the relationship was dying down almost completely. At first she withdrew from me. I relentlessly attempted to keep her by my side but to no avail. Then it reached a stage where I too I 66 started withdrawing. Then she attempted coming back to me, but I knew it was a waste of time, so I withdrew out of it completely. The final blow was in March 2007. Before she met me, she had another boyfriend, a German man. She kept that relationship going. He was financially better off than I was. Before meeting me, she expected all foreigners to be the same; that is all foreigners are rich and enjoy the high life. Then she realized I was not rich like the German. The German left China in March 2007, and she expected me to fill the gap he had left in her life, by taking her on trips from one city to another, going to expensive hotels and eating in very expensive restaurants. The German had already taught her luxury and high life. I preached untiringly that life was not all like that, but she would not listen. My preaching was useless. She saw in me a kind of philosophy of life that could not hold her. And I could not change to her kind of lifestyle. Even if I had the money, I would not go crazy the way she wanted. I was stubborn to change to her lifestyle, and she stubborn to change to mine. We were two extremes. If we continued to meet, there would be explosions. Therefore, I surrendered the relationship and despite the fact that she made a few attempts to meet me, I knew it was not for the better, so things finally died down by April 2007. Despite this break in my relationship with Zhao, I was still doing well for jobs. However, this was not without problems and resistance from the students I taught. It was somehow troublesome to teach English in China. We Africans pose as Americans and British to find work, but no matter how much you pretend, you shall never have the American or British accent of British and American natives. A clean accent, clear pronunciation and speaking tone are 67 very important to be able to teach English successfully in China. I was not an exception. The Chinese students protest against you, everything about you. They do not want you to teach them, they do not like you. I faced this resistance in my workplaces just as many other teachers of English in China did and still do. I stood my ground wherever I went for work, did my best. The students finally accepted me as their teacher. However, in one of the schools, the students protested to an extent that I could not stand it. Therefore, I told the woman who was in charge of...