Reflective Practice

International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives

ISSN: 1462-3943 (Print) 1470-1103 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crep20

Of Roses and Jasmine – Auto-ethnographic

reflections on my early bilingual life through
China’s Open-Door Policy

Jinjin Lu

To cite this article: Jinjin Lu (2018) Of Roses and Jasmine – Auto-ethnographic reflections on
my early bilingual life through China’s Open-Door Policy, Reflective Practice, 19:5, 690-706, DOI:
10.1080/14623943.2018.1538959

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2018.1538959

Published online: 06 Nov 2018.

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REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
2018, VOL. 19, NO. 5, 690–706
https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2018.1538959

Of Roses and Jasmine – Auto-ethnographic reflections on my

early bilingual life through China’s Open-Door Policy
Jinjin Lu
School of Foreign Languages, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan, The People’s Republic of
China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

China’s Open-Door Policy has brought significant changes in terms Received 5 October 2017
of economic, education and cultural development both inside and Accepted 8 August 2018
outside China, creating valuable opportunities for understanding KEYWORDS
the cultural stereotypes Asians and Westerners have about each Auto-ethnography;
other. In this paper, I interrogate my experiences as an English as a reflection writing; bilingual;
foreign language (EFL) learner and then as a lecturer in multi- identity; cultural shock
lingual and multicultural environments from the early 1990s until
a lecturer in a Chinese university in the twenty-first century. My
series of auto-ethnographic dialogues between a cast of charac-
ters, recalling experiences, perceptions and emotions provides
readers with opportunities to actively respond to the text.
Through this auto-ethnographic memoir and performance, I
hope to contribute to new directions for narrative research in
intercultural contexts.

Introduction
‘Jasmine Flower’ (茉莉花), one of the Chinese folk songs, is popular in the East and West.
The flower has become one of the best symbolizations for the nation among the artists
and writers in China and aboard for a long. For example, Giacomo Puccini used the
melody in his opera Turandot, where it is associated with ‘Turandot’s splendor’; and later
the song appeared in the Hollywood movie ‘The Good Earth’ which was based on Pearl
Buck’s novel. Compared with jasmines with white and small pedals, roses appear in
dazzlingly brilliant with representations of those in an open, democratic and multi-
cultural context. In the past, I have never thought of that one day I would end up
with comparisons and interrogations of my identity of being much like jasmines or roses.
To interpret the narrative study, I have drawn on theories and concepts relating to auto-
ethnography, identity, cultural shock, and memoir to shed light on my life stories
through China to Australia. My identity actually started before I moved to the West. I
shifted between host places and this provided me a good opportunity to reflect, revisit
and re-examine my identity in between.
I use flowers as a metaphor approach to auto-ethnographic conversation. Gibbon’s
(2012) auto-ethnographic piece, using metaphor, provides an opportunity for readers to

CONTACT Jinjin Lu helen820919@sina.com School of Foreign Languages, China University of Geosciences

(Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, The People’s Republic of China
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 691

relate to the purposeful dialogues with the unique language styles. I choose auto-ethno-
graphic writing as this method is believed as ‘close, personal identification – recognition of
difference – of the reader’s experiences, thoughts and emotions with those of the author’
(Spry, 2001, p. 713). My personal dialogues in this authethnographic writing could see my
identity shifted between Jasmine and Roses in different host places.
I was born in a big south central city located along the Yangze River in China, in an
area with over 70 million inhabitants. When I was a little girl, I was often told that I was
too small to be believed that I could survive in an average family with shortage of food
and money in the early1980s. As such, my family felt scared to take photos of me until I
was three years old. A typical average Chinese family at that time only could afford to
buy several wooden pieces of furniture and a bike named ‘Yongjiu’. Food was extremely
scarce as my family only could buy basic food, such as rice, cooking oil, and salt with
national food coupon (粮票) in a local food store. The food coupon was restricted in
numbers for individuals in a family so that for a small family, I was allowed to have meat
once a month. In my childhood, due to the one-child policy in China, I do not have any
siblings and most of my spare time I had to play with kids from my neighbourhood.
Influenced by the Chinese Culture Revolution, my father was sent to farms after com-
pleting basic middle school education. In this case, when my dad came back to the city
in 1977, he became a worker in a clothing factory with a night shift. Luckily my mum has
never been sent to work in rural areas, but her family was heavily influenced by the
Chinese Culture Revolution. This resulted that she could not be accepted into Chinese
universities in the 1970s. Although my parents had not completed higher education,
they taught me English slogans which translated from Maoism, such as ‘Serve the
people’ and ‘Humble makes progress’. Both of them are still popular in Chinese moral
education. As the Cultural Revolution led to nearly 10 years’ chaos and as a conse-
quence, industry and innovation were far more behind the West. However, the comple-
tion of the Yangze Bridge was regarded as showing our industrial skills to the West after
breaking up a good long-term relationship with Russia. This bridge has been the longest
and first bridge in the Chinese history with our nation’s intelligence. In 1979, as a slight
sign of opening to the rest of the world, English was promulgated and taught in
mainland China in junior middle schools. The closed door started to open. Unknown
to me, learning English was going to change my life. .

Auto-ethnography as a research method

In this study, I use auto-ethnography as a research method to show how my early EFL
learning and teaching experience in China and the West. By using this method, both
readers and I will obtain a deeper understanding of the unique Chinese culture and my
identity shifted between learning and working places. I use multiple forms of data to
inform an auto-ethnographic approach to analysing personal experience (Creswell, 2013;
Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011). Tensions arise whenever researchers use auto-ethno-
graphic approaches to representing selves and others. Indeed, Holt (2003) asserts:

Writing themselves into their own work as major characters, auto-ethnographers have
challenged accepted views about silent authorship, where the researcher’s voice is not
included in the presentation of findings (p. 2)
692 J. LU

Turner (2013) claims that auto-ethnographic writing can be used to pursue relationships
between researchers and participants. Denshire (2014) argues that the writing style resists
‘the grain of much academic discourse’(p. 832). Although auto-ethnographic approaches to
qualitative inquiry have not always been widely accepted (Chang, 2008), the personal
nuanced insights of auto-ethnographic researchers are now contributing to the literature
with an increasing number of auto-ethnographic publications in journals such as Qualitative
Inquiry, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Current Sociology, Higher Education
Research & Development (HERD) and Reflective Practice.
Digging into an individual’s story offers more opportunities for the researcher to
position themselves within larger socio-cultural contexts. Being a female, non-native
English speaker of the first Chinese-Australian migrate, used to working and living in
Westernised contexts, I consider that auto-ethnography is the most suitable method to
‘pursue relationships’ through my writing. Using auto-ethnography as a research
method could be beneficial for me as a researcher to perceive unexamined cultural
and social contexts (Chang, 2008; Ellis, 2004; Ellis et al., 2011). In her doctoral thesis, for
example, Neyman (2011) used auto-ethnography to explore the teaching experiences
and major problems she met in a public school in America as a Ukrainian native speaker
and teacher of English. Her study sheds light on her academic professional life inter-
woven with a personal story.

Identity
The research of complicated Chinese identity have been explored and discussed at
home and aboard. Ai (2015, 2016)) used his unique cross-cultural diaries to unravel his
identity shifted between China and Australia. His narrative stories reflected his journey
from being a Chinese country boy to be an international student with part-time jobs in
Australia and finally located in a Chinese big city after completion of his PhD study. A
similar study was undertaken by Ha (2009) in a Thai cultural context. Ha (2009) argued
that international students’ value of appropriation of English needs encouraging and
their voices must be heard, not assumed (p. 201). Besides these scholars, Yihong Gao
(2014) described four different identity prototypes for Chinese learners:

For a long time, the ideal learner was a faithful imitator whose L2 [second language] use
and cultural conduct were strictly modeled on the native speaker (NS). With postcolonial
changes around the world, a legitimate speaker was born, claiming equal language stan-
dards and rights with NSs. Growing under the increased influence of globalization and
postmodernism is a playful creator, who constructs unconventional hybrid language use for
distinct self-expression. A Bakhtinian dialogical communicator is also emerging, who con-
verses on the basis of respect and reflection (p. 59).

Although I am a L2 learner and later work and live in English native-speaking countries, I
believe my identity is like what Yang (2016) comment that Chinese characteristics are
not totally as what the ‘English book’ described for ensuring its authority. However, as
readers, we hope to obtain certain information from the ‘English book’ in terms of how
contemporary Chinese is changing. In this regard, my narrative stories with reflections
not only show my shifted identity that is not totally based on the Chinese identity
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 693

prototypes describe in the ‘English book’ but it can be traced by ‘roots’ in the rigours
‘foreign text’.

Cultural shock
Cultural shock is a common issue among immigrants, sojourners and international
students in a multicultural context. Winkelman (1994) described four primary stages
of cultural shock: ‘the tourist phrase’, ‘the cultural shock phrases’, ‘the adjustment,
reorientation and gradual recovery phrase’ and ‘the adaptation, resolution or accul-
turation phrase’ (p. 122). By using this theoretical framework, Ai and Wang (2017)
argued that a reverse culture shock (Gaw, 2000) should be added for those sojourners
returning to their home space. They believe that ‘sojourners are likely to suffer from
culture shock again when they return to their home culture, yet eventually many
sojourners will return to their previous views and behaviors’ (Ai & Wang, 2017, p. 3).
In their research, how to be accepted in a home country context for sojourners could
be tough and more difficult than adaption in another cultural context. Other research
studies, such as He (2002) described Chinese immigrants who might not have any
experience of the reverse cultural shock as they were likely not willing to return to
their home countries to work and study. Therefore, their cultural shock might be
more difficult to overcome at a cultural assimilation phrase. I am working in various
host places between the East and West, yet my cultural shock has still existed when I
revisited my memoirs of the written texts and pictures that kept from my childhood
till now. My cultural shock is combined with unique identity of a Chinese born female,
an international student in the USA, an immigrant in Australia and an academic in a
Chinese university.

Memoir
Inspired by Joy Denise Scott’s (2013) evocation of staff-room politics in ‘Memoir as a
form of auto-ethnographic research for exploring the practice of transnational higher
education in China’, and in particular the following excerpt, I felt like I was back with my
teaching colleagues in China:

Chin warned me to be wary of Professor Wu and Feng Hong. ‘I know Professor Wu and Feng
Hong. Keep your distance,’ humorously adding, ‘some people are like glue, everything sticks
to them’. I knew from personal experience to take his advice seriously. In this instance, as in
many others, Chin’s interpretation of people or the situation proved to be an accurate
assessment. That is, an accurate assessment from my limited and somewhat biased per-
spective. . . (Scott, 2013, p. 762).

Scott’s experiences and nuanced insights revealing her perceptions as a ‘foreign’ teacher
and her relationship between the Chinese protagonists in the college and herself as a
white female language teacher have stayed with me. I am left wondering how a
foreigner ought to be judged and by whom? Scott and I were born with different
cultural identities that were not apparent until we each found ourselves experiencing
foreignness in an unfamiliar cultural context.
694 J. LU

Scott (2013) summarises a key relationship between auto-ethnography and memoir

as follows:

. . .auto-ethnography is a reflexive research approach which creates informed knowledge: it

encompasses the remembering self plus the reflexive, researching self. Memoir writes the
personal story, without the theory. Memoir is used by auto-ethnographers to record their
memories of lived experience. Auto-ethnography is memoir refracted through the research-
ing, enquiring, conceptualising mind (p. 760).

Forms of narrative research such as this are not only to compare international educa-
tional systems but also to share and exchange stories. This story-telling process triggers
reflection for both researchers and participants, showing reflective practice about
moments in their life stories and generating a ‘thick description’ of an intercultural
context (Moloney & Oguro, 2015, p. 97). In particular, narrative inquiry offers transna-
tional learners’ and teachers’ opportunities for critical reflection and self-understanding.
Cultural variation may affect the way of storytelling and a person’s early childhood
cultural experience potentially influences their future learning (Cortazzi, 1993).
Just like many people who were born in Australia appear to be familiar with the
bright blooms of the wattle; roses and jasmine are my most favoured flowers. So I have
used these two much loved flowers to represent my unique ‘positions’ in this study as an
EFL learner and an English teacher in multicultural contexts. I have never been keen on
politics but I know that a contrast between roses and jasmine has been planted in me;
roses as embedded within capitalism and jasmine as representative of socialism
(Williams, 1974). In this way, each flower species has been used politically to symbolise
different socio-cultural values and contexts.
The key memoir fragments selected from my diary show several significant scenes
from my early experiences of learning, which bring out the challenges, excitement, and
struggles. Starting out by standing at the centre of the story, soon I became involved in
a series of dialogues with my protagonists. Being an EFL learner from mainland China
and becoming a researcher in Australia, the flashbacks I remembered zoomed in on
those challenges, excitement, and struggles in more detail. I used memoir to present
complex, layered concepts in the selected fragments that record my journey as I shifted
from one culture to another (Haraway, 1988; Scott, 2013; Sparkes, 2007) . Memoir
enabled me to research while writing, to synthesise my reflections with my critical
thoughts. Through memoir, I situated myself as both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ (Dyson,
2007, p. 39) within the culture I was depicting. Being active and aware of the research
while writing, made me more than a participant observer (Creswell, 2002).
I protected participants’ identity and confidentiality using pseudonyms, collapsed several
characters into one, and fictionalized parts of the narratives (Tullis, 2013). In my auto-
ethnographic research and performance, each individual named in my study was given a
pseudonym in either Chinese or English. In addition, for more vivid and authentic dialogue
between the cast of characters and myself, the scenes I have selected are performed using
dialogue that interweaves the protagonists’ struggles and joys with my own. In what follows
I reflect critically in three major scenes: Becoming ‘Helen’; We American post-grads sing of
roses and jasmine; Teaching English in China is like herding a sheep.
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 695

Becoming ‘Helen’
‘Helen’, this English name has been appeared neither in my Chinese ID card nor in my
passport. However, I gradually expose my identity to the audience through seeking for
‘Helen’ from the time I begin learning English. My memory flashes back to my first
English lesson with a number of students that went something like this:
(The) Class monitor: Stand up!
Mr Zhao: Good morning class!
Helen: Good morning teacher!
Mr Zhao: Sit down please! Today, it is our first English class. Do you know how
to greet others in English? Yin, I know your dad has taught you
English previously. Can you say some words?
Yin: Yep. How do you do?
Mr Zhao: All right. Follow me. How do you do? Anybody else? Wen?
Wen: Nice to meet you!
Mr Zhao: Nice to meet you too!

...
In our next class, Mr Zhao used cassette tapes and recorders as the main teaching
tools and asked us to follow the tape recordings. After class, I read English texts (see
Figure 1 and Figure 2) early in the morning and recited many new words, together with
substantial exercises in grammar. Learning English was no fun until a Canadian boy
joined our class. His parents led him to our school as they wanted him to learn basic
Chinese. My Chinese teacher named him ‘Fang Yong’, which means a brave boy in the
Oriental world. Fang Yong was active and had a sense of humour. He was once late for

Figure 1. English textbooks for junior schools in the 1990s.

696 J. LU

Figure 2. Dialogues in English textbooks.

school, but from his expression, he was happy, and I asked him to tell me the reason. We
shared a secret:
Fang Yong: Ha ha ha, do you know why I was late today? Helen: No, why?
Fang Yong: I am Laozi now. . .Ha ha ha!
Helen: What?
Fang Yong: My dad asked me whether I have improved my Chinese. Then, I said, ‘Laozi is
going to school’, and my dad answered, ‘Goodbye Laozi’. Ha ha ha!
Helen: Ah? Woooo! Ha ha ha. . .

In my language, ‘Laozi’ has various meanings applied in different contexts, but in our
secret, it was colloquial slang meaning ‘Dad’. Fang Yong’s mum and dad, Susan and
Robert, were a nice, helpful couple. They taught English at a university, but on week-
ends, they helped the students in the neighbourhood learn English. I was lucky to be
invited to join the English-reading activities on a Sunday morning in their home.
Susan: Hello Jin! Welcome to our home!
Helen: Hello.
Robert: Do you have an English name?
Helen: No. I was looking around and saw Fang Yong cooking rice. But the
rice is not the white one I have every day. I felt curious and ask what
it was.
Susan and Robert: This is rice. Don’t you have it?
Helen: Why is it red? My rice is white.
Susan and Robert: Ha ha, we have brown rice.
Helen: Ok. I see. This is interesting. Let’s start reading.

On that day, Susan and Robert guided me to finish reading Helen Keller’s story (see
Figure 3) in my book. They informed me how Helen went from being someone blind and
deaf to becoming a great educator. After reading her story, I buried my face into my
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 697

Figure 3. Picture of Helen Keller and her teacher.

hands with a miserable feeling. On the one hand, I felt so sad that Helen had few
opportunities to play in the garden. On the other hand, I felt excited just like I could feel
my own heartbeat. Her insistence and indomitable spirit inspired me to go further.
Before I left Susan and Robert’s home, I have made decision to give myself an English
name, that is, Helen, which I believe could provide me with encouragement and light in
my future studies and work. The story of Helen Keller opened my eyes and offered me a
voice.

We American post-grads sang of roses and jasmine

As a postgraduate student at an American university, the academic staff did not treat me
as a kid or with the obvious guidance of Chinese teachers, who told us what to do or
what not to do. I had to learn how to be more independent in academic study and daily
life. For example, when I was an undergraduate student at a Chinese university, the
number of students was fixed in each class, and over four years, all of my classmates
enrolled in identical compulsory courses. The only opportunity for us to enrol in an
elective course was the final year at university. In our daily lives, the university provided
us with shared dormitories on campus and most of the time we studied and played
together. However, not many students live on campus at American universities and most
students rent apartments with school friends, professionals or friends outside of campus.
One of the challenges I faced was in the classroom:
698 J. LU

Academic staff member: Can you explain it more? What does that mean?
Chinese students: < Kept silent at first. Then, we looked around and buried our
heads. I tried not to look into the staff’s eyes.>
Academic staff member: Do not be shy! The classroom participation will count as 10
percent of your final score.
< Once hearing this information, we put up our hands and
competed to answer the questions as no one wanted to lose
points on the final grade.>

In the postgraduate programme, I had more than 10 classmates from China. Although
we had learnt English for more than 10 years, our minimal communication skills
hindered our academic studies. Particularly, I felt it was difficult to be involved in the
discussion sessions with western classmates. Once noticing this issue, the academic staff
intentionally placed Chinese students into different groups instead of the Chinese
gathering together. I was assigned to a discussion group with five students with
different backgrounds, including Middle Eastern, African, and American. At the begin-
ning, I often got lost in their conversations with their strong local accents.
Group members: Can you introduce yourself first?
Helen: En? My name is Jin, but you can call me Helen for short.
African group member: Which part? < From his pronunciation, I hear it likes ‘tfich bart’>
Helen: En? What bart?
African group member: Ok, which part of China do you live? South or north?
Helen: Oh, I see. You mean the location.
African group member: Yes! Yes!

In the second semester, I could understand their English better with their own
accents, and the number of our misunderstandings decreased. It appeared that I was
gradually immersing myself into this new learning environment. However, not every
Chinese student in my class had this feeling. Lily, one of my close friends, struggled in
this new environment.
Lily: Hey, Helen, did you finish your assignment?
Helen: Which one?
Lily: The 5000 word essay for that fatty German lady < This lady is the lecturer of the
unit ‘Cross-cultural Studies’> .
Helen: Do not say like this!/Don’t call her that/‘fatty’!
Lily: She is fat and she often shows how good she was in her PhD study. And she talked
a lot about her personal things. I do not think this is related to the textbook at all.
Helen: I think she is ok. All her experiences were helpful for me.
Lily: She did not tell me exactly what to do after class. How can I write this essay?
Helen: Go to the library more and do some reading.
Lily: The reference list is too long! She never noted the key one!
Helen: You can select something that you think you are interested in to read.
Lily: Not interested. Just wanna get a pass. Bring your essay for me to have a look!
Helen: Ok. Do not copy mine!
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 699

Lily’s struggle was observed not only in her study but also in her communication with
the other students. Once we decided to fetch some dinner from a local pizza takeaway
near the university, but as we were leaving, she received a call from her parents. I
decided to go first and she could go by herself later when she finished the phone call.
When I got to the takeaway, I noticed that the customers were nearby university
students. I did not realise that Lily had arrived until I heard the chaos at the back of
the queue about Lily ‘pushing in’.
Lily: She is my friend! We are together!
A male student: You should stand in the queue! Everybody is in the queue.
Lily: I did not jump. We are together!! Helen! Helen!
Helen: I looked around! It is Lily. < I came to the back and explained this to the male
student and I also apologised on her behalf. However, she insisted she was not
wrong. She thought this was unfair.>
Lily: This is the U.S.A? Oh, my God! I do not like it at all!

When we returned to the university, she continued to complain about this incident to
me. From her angry face, I felt that anger, sorrow and homesickness were mixed in her
mind. Fortunately, the postgraduate programme was not long, and I nearly heard the
bell of our graduation. At the graduation party, all Chinese girls agreed to sing the
typical traditional Chinese song ‘Jasmine Flowers’.
Before the party, I suggested that we also sing another song, ‘Rose Rose I Love You’,
because this song was originally from a Chinese movie but was interpreted by an
American in the 1950s. Subsequently, it became one of the most popular songs in
both China and America. Among the group members, some were against my proposal,
as they believed the music was jazz and we did not have enough time to learn the
accompanying dance, whereas others were thrilled to have two songs to show our
culture and ourselves. The final decision was determined by raising hands for ‘yes’, and
most girls were for this idea at the last moment.
On the day of the show, we were all dressed in Chinese traditional cheongsam, and
each of us held a small sandalwood fan to represent the oriental style of Chinese women
along with the lyrics. Although we made several minor mistakes in our dance steps on
stage, our show won warm applause and some whistles from boys. On that day, I
realised that my postgraduate study was complete, and I also knew I was closer to my
dream, which had been in my mind for a long time.

Teaching English is like herding (a) sheep

‘My dream came true!’ I could not wait to telephone my family that I was offered a
tenured job as an EFL lecturer at a south coastal university in China. This was the first
time they felt proud of me. Shifting from an American to a Chinese university, my
parents, friends and colleagues thought that I should be familiar with the environment
because prior to my undergraduate education, I had been in China for more than
20 years. However, my unease was obvious when I entered the classroom.
A boy: Stand up!
Students: Good morning teacher!
700 J. LU

Figure 4. A picture of the classroom at the university.

Helen: < I was stunned. Suddenly I realised this form of address was what the students’
were accustomed to > Please sit down, you do not need to do this. Now, you are
university students. < I smiled at the students when I was saying this to them>

My English name is Helen. If you like, you can call me Helen in and out of class. < After
introducing myself, I looked around and found this was a really large theatre (see Figure 4)
that held approximately 100 students. As I was not sure how to interact with so many
students simultaneously, I had to ask them to stand up to introduce themselves one by one.
> Can you introduce yourself to your classmates in English? From the left in the first row
please.
Suddenly, the entire class was dead silent as if no one was intending to say anything.
To break the embarrassment, I motivated the students by asking them how their military
training was as I knew every freshman had training on campus.
A couple of students started to whisper. I realised this was a valuable opportunity for
us to begin our communication. So, I walked to their seats and gently invited one of
them to stand up to share their experiences with us. In the beginning, she was shy and
murmured ‘Well, I do not like it’. I further asked her ‘What didn’t you like?’ She looked at
me, biting her lips and desperately tried to think how to answer my question. I
continued to guide her with the question, ‘You did not like the military training?’ Then,
she nodded her head. At the end, I had to interpret her words to the entire class: ‘Ok, she
said she did not like military training. Does anybody have a different idea?’ There was dead
silence again after asking this question. At that moment, I felt frustrated and disap-
pointed with these freshmen, what you would call in Australia ‘first years’. I wondered
how they were accepted into the university without any communication skills in English.
Two days later, I got the answer from an initial conversation with my teaching mentor,
Professor Wang.
Professor Wang: Helen, I am your mentor in the first semester, and I think the dean told
you I would come to your class twice to observe your teaching practices
and then finish your teaching report.
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 701

Helen: Yes. I know.

Professor Wang: How was your teaching this week? Is it your first week?
Helen: Yes. All my students were first year students, non-English majors. I had
some doubts about the class size being so large. How can I commu-
nicate with them?
Professor Wang: < She smiled and turned her back to me to fetch a cup of tea. Once
finishing her hot tea, she pondered:>
Do you know the old Chinese saying related to teaching?
Helen: What is it?
Professor Wang: There is no difference between herding a crowd of sheep and herding a
sheep!
Helen: Ha ha, I see. Do not waste money and resources! However, how can I
manage a big class?
Professor Wang: They are not English majors. Students do care about 1College English
Test Band 4 and College English Test Band 6 examinations but there will
be no oral test required by the committee.
Helen: There is a significant difference in class size between my postgraduate
study and my students in China.
Professor Wang: Yes, the context is different! You need to get used to it.

Professor Wang’s point assisted me in understanding my current role, responsibilities

and the EFL situation at the Chinese university. She informed me that my teaching
practices would be observed twice without notice by her during the first semester.
When she observed my class the first time, I was explaining a critical writing structure to
my students. I saw her enter the class from the back door and then she found an empty
seat. I could not stop lecturing as I wanted my students to behave genuinely. I showed
all the writing samples and examples to the students, and I noted the disadvantages and
advantages of each sample. During the one-hour lecture, most students enjoyed the
class. When I thought my teaching practice was coming to an end, a boy’s mobile phone
rang loudly with a love song. Suddenly, all the students laughed and turned around
trying to locate this boy. I noticed this boy was uneasy. Obviously, this was not an
intentional action on his part. In this case, to manage the incident, I pretended not to
see the boy, but both of us knew what had happened. I stared at him and made a joke
before the lecture ended:
Helen: I know you are richer than me. See, most of you can afford to buy Apple. Do
not worry! Your girlfriends can wait for the bell.
My students: No, we are poor too! Ha ha ha.

This joke was not only to relieve the tension but also to call off the students’ attention
from the boy. After class, Professor Wang walked to the front stage to greet me and
noted my weak points in the lecture.
Professor Wang: Well performed! You did not look so anxious and nervous.
Helen: No. Why should I be nervous?
Professor Wang: Having confidence is good, but I suggest that you should have more eye
contact with students although the class size is large. You should have
702 J. LU

more communication with them. For example, asking students to read

sentences and paragraphs.
Helen: Although I did not totally agree with her, I nodded my head as disagree-
ing with my mentor would be regarded as impolite at Chinese
universities.

Auto-ethnographic reflections on these formative scenes

As mentioned previously, my identity started before I moved to the West. My given
name is金金in Chinese but this was seldom used between my friends and colleagues.
Instead, an English name ‘Helen’ that never appears on my passport officially has been
called for many years in my life. After immigration to Australia, I have reflected that my
identity as a student and child is varied from being a researcher in Australia in many
ways. Particularly, during Chinese New Year, the kids in the big family were on new
cloths, played with fireworks, grabbling the Red Pocket money and bowed to the old
generations. These memories were kept in my old albums with pictures of my childhood
with parents and my student life with classmates. Like the experience Ai (2015)
described in his life story:
“In fact I do not have any special feeling on this Chinese festival, and I do not want to
celebrate it. Is it because I have already formatted a hybrid identity? Or is it because I am
living away from Chinese culture? I am not sure, but I am sure that today I will go to an
Australian supermarket but not a Chinese one” (p. 9).

Similar to him, though I tried my best to keep my Chinese identity and am proud of my
ethnics, I found the changes were gradually expanded in the host place. My Australian
colleagues would like to call my English name than my Chinese given name in Chinese
pinying. Gradually, I got used to signing my English name officially in Australia.
My bilingual journey started when I was 12 years old. At the beginning of learning
English, most of the time I imitated from my English teacher, Mr. Zhao, and he taught us
in a similar way. Following his steps and pace were the major tasks we performed in the
classroom. He used recorders and cassettes as major teaching tools to require us to
follow the native speakers’ voice. This was like what Gao (2014) believed that a faithful
imitator learner modelled strictly what native speakers did in the target cultural context.
Although I learnt English hard with imitation, I did not feel joy in the process. At that
time, some of my classmates, such as Yin and Wen, had been paid a lot attention by Mr.
Zhao as their parents were in an upper social class in my city. Their parents employed
private tutors to assist them in English learning after class so that they acquired more
information than others. As my parents were plain workers without receiving higher
education, I was not accepted by classmates like Yin and Wen who felt privileged. This
unprivileged identity was revealed in Ai’s study (2016), who felt stressed that his rural-
born Chinese identity could hinder his progress to receive further higher education in
big cities in China.
Although I was not accepted by the privileged classmates, I did not give up any
chance to learn English better. Once the Canadian boy ‘Fang Yong’ turned up, we
became friends and shared secretes. I did not know any other cultural habits prior to
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 703

being invited to Susan and Robert’s. This is the first phase of Winkelman (1994)
described that I entered other cultures for ‘honeymoon’ (p. 122). Everything in the
tourist place- Susan and Robert’s, was fresh and interesting to me and I felt excited to
know what they told me. When I became a postgraduate student in the USA, this ‘tourist
phrase’ (Winkelman, 1994, p. 122) gives way to crises quickly after I was involved in the
American academic context. The previous excitement at Susan and Robert’s became
anxiety and stress as I was just exposed to a new learning and teaching environment.
Negative experience and reactions were obviously found on my friend, Lily, who had
escalating problems. Although we acted differently towards issues and social cultural
habitats, we featured cultural shock definitely. For Lily, things started to go wrong and
gradually became irritating. For me, at the beginning I felt it was difficult to be involved
in other international students, but I realised that life does not make sense if I feel
isolated and dislike by others (Winkelman, 1994). Therefore, I made effort to adjust and
adapt myself to a new environment.
At the graduation party, we wanted to symbolize us with the song ‘Jasmine Flower’
but roses’ beauty is under the horns. In an across-cultural context after two years’
learning, I, as an international student from the beginning of ‘honeymoon phrase’ to
‘the crises phases’ and to fight cognitively (Winkelman, 1994). I experienced the several
phases of the cultural shock but I usually told myself of being a Chinese-that is my
identity. According to Taft (1977), international students could manage cultural shock
without making major changes if they were able to tolerant of the local culture. They do
not need to give up one’s identity, value or culture. Hence, wearing Cheongsams, 旗袍
in Chinese, is the best way to show my identity aboard as it is widely regarded as a
national consume of the Chinese nation (Tsui, 2013). To echo the song ‘Jasmine Flower’,
the song ‘rose, rose, I love you’ was to show our gratitude to the beloved staff and
helpful students in the American university.
When I came back to teach in a Chinese university after two years’ postgraduate
study in the USA, I became a sojourner. My reverse cultural shock is as Ai and Wang
(2017) described in the research: ‘one’s identity (re)construction in the home space may
not be entirely successful, and it may not naturally calm down and describe a
U-shape’(p. 3). When I found that my dream came true and could make significant
contributions to teaching in China, ‘I suspected my reverse culture shock was a reaction
to more than Chinese culture and that it was related to the current university system’ (Ai
& Wang, 2017, p. 3). Compared with the small class size in American universities, Chinese
university class need to locate 100–200 students in a theatre. Though I knew that it
could result in less ineffectiveness in teaching, I could not be against what Professor
Wang told me as I wanted to reintegrate into the home place.
Compared with the simple teaching methods that Mr. Zhao used in the English
classroom, I, as an English lecturer in the twenty-first century, assisted students in
completing various tasks in the classroom so as to improve their communicative
language skills. I used a range of teaching strategies such as task-based teaching
method, role – plays, groups discussions and seminars. Just like what Susan and
Robert assisted me in reading bilingual stories with more explanations and led me to
revoke. To me, instead of being a commander, like Mr. Zhao, on the stage, teachers
should act as a guide in the classroom. By changing the roles of students and teachers,
students might reduce anxiety and worries of making mistakes in the class.
704 J. LU

Conclusion
This article is the first half of an auto-ethnographic writing project reflecting on the
trajectory of my early life in China, USA and Australia. This writing has provided me an
opportunity to reflect from being a bilingual learner to an international student and
finally a sojourner returning to teach in a Chinese university.
Though I am a Chinese immigrant who has worked and lived in Australia for years, I still
prefer roses and jasmine to wattle (a popular flower in Australia). Roses are often viewed as
symbols of romance, love, and beauty. But many people are afraid to pick them because
they have thorns. This thorny imperfection is likely to hinder people from imagining and
pursuing roses to symbolise the most beautiful lovers in the world. Compared to roses,
jasmine petals are smaller, without the luminous colours roses have. Because the petals are
smaller and the colours sweet and pure, jasmine blossoms are more easily ignored in their
surroundings. These rose and jasmine metaphors do not only apply to the flowers; their
identities and respective uniquenesses can also be symbols of human interactions with the
natural world. Just like human beings, our movement, identity, and culture are related to
social development. From birth to death, our perceptions and understandings will link with
how society is now and in the future. However, as an ‘agent’ in society, how the individual
perceives knowledge, transmits information and constructs social rules is critical in our
correlation to cultural, education and economic development.
Now, looking out of the window, I gaze at the beautiful vapour trails left by a plane
crossing the sky. This plane might be riddled with many stories and secrets. In the same
way, however, without researching and extracting fragments of memories, I might never
know what was happening, is happening and will happen in my life. My story has not
come to an end, nor does my bilingual journey. My journey to Australia is not so much
an endpoint to my Chineseness (Luke, 2016) as an Australian and Chinese betweener. I
will keep writing my story. . .

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr Sally Denshire for her valuable advice on multiple drafts of this article. She
enlightened me in thinking of many ways to take this work further. Also, I appreciate the
anonymous reviewer´s helpful comments and valuable suggestions.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Dr Jinjin Lu completed her PhD in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania in
Australia. She was a full-time research fellow in Charles Sturt University between 2015–2017 in
Australia. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Languages at China
University of Geosciences (Wuhan), China.
 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 705

ORCID
Jinjin Lu http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8193-4160

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