So far, I have been back in China for more than a month. What I have experienced during this period of time is exactly opposite to what I had imagined.

While I was still in Australia, I pictured the bright future ahead of me. At that time, I believed that after I came back to China, I would land a decent job, earn good money and visit different places. Now when I recall it, I suppose I was just too na?ve. Also, what I cannot deny is that I have become a bit unfamiliar with Chinese society and the Chinese job market in particular after one and a half years abroad. Of course, I failed to realize this before coming back. Therefore, no wonder I found life back in China very difficult during the first two weeks.

Honestly, the first days were almost like a nightmare as I prepared myself for the promising future I had dreamed of while what awaited me was only harsh reality. The stark differences between these two were almost like heaven and hell. To me, the most miserable thing was that no one seemed to know that I needed time to readapt to China’s society. So, I had to fight the battle on my own. Worse still was that people around me, especially my parents, kept judging me because they didn’t know what I was going through. I was disappointed and depressed even more because that I found out that people who know me thought it natural for me to secure a well-paid job, which exerted tremendous pressure on me.

Being a person who is terrible at dealing with pressure, there were times I nearly broke down. The initial interviews I had were disasters. In fact, I had my first interview four or five days after I was back. It was the weirdest interview I have ever had in my life, partly because they wanted to reschedule the interview while I was only steps away from the location of the interview and partly because the interviewer showed absolutely no respect to me. So I wasn’t all that surprised when I found out I was declined. This didn’t really make me disappointed as I wasn’t prepared to work for a boss like that guy. The following interviews didn’t go well either. Most of the offers didn’t quite meet my expectations. Gradually, I felt like the stress was piling up in my mind and it started overwhelming me. This wasn’t the worst part, as afterwards I had an interview which destroyed the last bit of confidence I had. It was a demonstration class that I was required to do. Without giving it much thought, I did it like the lessons I had given at the language school in Australia. This apparently failed to meet the requirements set by that company. The woman who interviewed me criticized virtually everything involved in my teaching demonstration, ranging from my methodology to my speed of English to my professional training in Australia. She told me in a pretty straightforward manner that the teaching methodology I had learned in Australia was never going to be applicable in China due to the specialty of Chinese education system. Also she made it clear that I would let students down if I taught them in that way.