At the end of Silvester’s Peace Corps term, she came home briefly to see her parents — but the culture called her back. Now she’s teaching English under a one-year contract at a small private university in Beijing. "My students are in a two-year program that prepares them to matriculate into a foreign university," she said. These students have a much higher level of English speech and comprehension than those she taught in the Peace Corps. "The most rewarding thing is working one-on-one with the people here and constantly being surprised by how sincere they are," said Silvester, whose teaching contract ends in July 2008.
China RPCV Katie Silvester returns to China to teach English at a private Chinese university
Peace Corps leads to teaching job in China for Winchester native
By Teresa Dunham
The Winchester Star
Caption: Katie Silvester is shown visiting the Great Wall of China. The 1998 Handley High School graduate is teaching English at a private Chinese university following a two-year Peace Corps stint in China. (Photo from the Silvester Family)
Winchester — When Katie Silvester first moved to China, people wanted to touch her hair.
"The reaction was total curiosity," said Silvester, 27, the first non-Chinese person many of her college-aged English as a Second Language students had ever met.
The Winchester native just finished serving two years in the Peace Corps — and she enjoyed it so much that she’s staying in China for another year to teach English at a private university.
"It’s hard to leave a culture behind that you’ve adopted as your own for the past two years," said Silvester in a telephone interview from Beijing.
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A lot of people think the Peace Corps is a vacation for two years, Silvester said — but the experience won’t make a carefree postcard.
"You don’t figure out your life in the Peace Corps," she said. "You end up with more questions than you had before you left."
Silvester, a 1998 Handley High School graduate, received her master’s degree in English from West Virginia University and then started teaching there before she decided to go abroad.
"I’ve always been really interested in how people relate cross-culturally," said Silvester, whose Peace Corps assignment took her to the Gansu Province of China from 2005 until 2007.
Her task: to teach English literature, writing, and communication skills to university students.
"The students here have studied [English] for 10 years or more but couldn’t use it," she said.
They knew basic grammar structure and vocabulary, but couldn’t speak it because they had learned through textbooks and from teachers with heavy Chinese accents.
"They’d never heard the natural cadence of the language," Silvester said.
Teaching was the enjoyable part of her assignment — but she was also supposed to share Western teaching methods with the professors.
"It was really difficult to relate to some of the teachers," she said, noting that some of the educators felt embarrassed by their lack of fluency and became defensive.
At the same time, speaking Chinese was a daily challenge for Silvester.
"It’s not as easy for me to communicate in Chinese. One word will have so many different meanings," she said.
For example, the Chinese word "ma" means mother, horse, or the sound a person makes before asking a question.
In a truly collaborative effort, Silvester led her students through a community literacy project, sending them to area restaurants and businesses to translate menus and signs into English.
That way the businesses could offer English-speaking travelers a menu in their language, and the area’s signs would be more tourist-friendly.
One of their bilingual signs is still hanging up at a hair salon, and many restaurants continue to offer the English menu.
"When I saw my students’ work, I was so proud of them," she said.
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Three things Silvester misses most about Winchester are friends, family, and the food.
She’s still a little shocked by some of the Chinese cuisine, such as cow’s stomach and frog — and there are days when she longs to hear her native language and accent spoken around her.
Yet she’s constantly caught up in the charm of China.
She loves the juxtaposition of opposites — skyscrapers, Tibetan relics, Wal-Marts, open vegetable markets, Mao-style work unit uniforms, and Prada handbags.
"I enjoy the nonsense Chinglish [Chinese English] signs on trash cans that read ‘protect the circumstances begins with me’ but really mean ‘do not litter,’" she said.
She also loves it that "Caution!" or "xiao xin" in Chinese means "little heart."
"I like how curious the people here seem to be about Americans despite being subjected to decades of anti-Western propaganda, especially during the ’60s and ’70s," she said.
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At the end of Silvester’s Peace Corps term, she came home briefly to see her parents — but the culture called her back.
Now she’s teaching English under a one-year contract at a small private university in Beijing.
"My students are in a two-year program that prepares them to matriculate into a foreign university," she said.
These students have a much higher level of English speech and comprehension than those she taught in the Peace Corps.
"The most rewarding thing is working one-on-one with the people here and constantly being surprised by how sincere they are," said Silvester, whose teaching contract ends in July 2008.
Her parents, Jim and Debbie Silvester of Stephens City, do worry about having their first-born daughter 12,000 miles from home.
"Of course, there are many prayers lifted up out of our house," Debbie said. "But parents do not have the right to hold those little hands forever."
Above all, they’re proud of the strong and capable person Katie has become.
"We raised Katie to be tough and independent-minded," Jim said, "and to cut her own path in life."
