Nevertheless, by the end of the decade, it was time to cover new ground yet again, and this time she found herself in Beijing, a globalized mega-city a world away from quaint, sometimes backwards Zhengzhou. It was here that she first seriously delved into teaching, securing a position amongst an otherwise all-foreign staff teaching English to Korean businessmen.

Despite this having been her most legitimate professional job to that point, it, too, was marked by the awkwardness that had characterized the translation gig and to a far lesser extent, her time at Target.

“The staff was required to ‘look fashionable’ for the students at all times on the job,” she recalls, touching on the very visual requirements that often influence hiring policies in East Asia. “I worked there between four and five months until the students started hitting on me, and then I quit.” For a short time, she occupied herself with the multitude of part-time jobs in Beijing, before chancing into what most Chinese would agree was her most desirable job.

Kristin became the private English tutor of award-winning Chinese mega-star singer/actress Fan Bingbing. Though she speaks fondly of their time together, it’s a topic she generally tries to downplay, wishing to avoid new waves of the star-crazed questions that often come when her countrymen learn of her brush with celebrity. It’s only after she’s assured that the information will be used for an American publication that will go largely unread by Chinese locals that she explains her brief time as Bingbing’s tutor.

“My agent set up a meeting with Fan Bingbing and we just talked for a while. I didn’t even expect to get the job because another person who interviewed that day really wanted it,” she says.

Nevertheless, Yao got the job. It was ultimately yet another job doomed to a short tenure, despite the positive experience. “Fan Bingbing is a really nice person, but she was too busy to really study. She’s smart and we’d travel together sometimes, but she likes to set her own schedule rather than be on call, so it couldn’t last.”

With her time as celebrity tutor concluded, Yao again found herself free to roam and left Beijing. On the subject of the Chinese capital, she is of two minds. She praises the fact that it “has everything” — cultural diversity, a thriving art scene, culinary variety, and no shortage of bars to watch concerts and sip gin and tonics in.

Yet, on the downside, the same largeness that allows those things to find their place in the city also hurts it for her. “It’s so big that it’s hard to make real friends there. Drinking friends, sure, but not much more,” she says, adding that, “Beijing can change people. Whether foreign or Chinese, they either learn a lot or just get really cocky and develop superiority complexes.”

Last year she surprised herself by returning to Zhengzhou (“When I’m away, I miss it. When I’m here it drives me crazy”), in large part to pursue her relationship with American teacher Pablo Rivera. She’s spent the year since teaching preparatory classes for students wishing to take the IELTS and TOEFL tests to certify them for studies abroad. Typically, she is already looking to try something different in the near future, apparently having devoted enough time to teaching English.

Still, her experiences as both a student and teacher of the language have provided her with considerable insight into the Chinese education system. Times have changed in China since her school days — whereas she described the West as “still very exotic” when she was young, English is now practically forced on Chinese students by both parents and schools. It’s a practice that she feels turns many off from the language by the time they reach their late teens.

“I think a lot of these kids do like English; they just don’t know how to go about pursuing it. If the schools gave them more language choices that there’s some interest in — Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean — then students might appreciate English more,” Yao says.

While schools in China offer courses in a multitude of languages, English is given such priority that little time remains to devote to other choices. The College English Test (CET) is a national test that university students not majoring in English are required to pass to obtain a bachelor’s degree. It leaves little choice other than to study English from grade school onward. This, combined with generally rigorous schooling schedules and expectations, has created a near epidemic of burnt-out students.

Yao is quick to point out another educational obstacle caused by the domineering parents of China — a lack of common practical knowledge among their children. “A lot of parents take care of everything for their kids well into adulthood,” she says. She cites college students that are half-way through accounting programs thinking they can become lawyers or doctors as being a result of this. “For a lot of youths there’s a real naivety about how things work.”

Fortunately for her, Yao represents the flip side of that equation — someone who has made a point of trying everything first-hand and seeing how it works. She’s also had the good fortune of coming of age just a few steps ahead of the seismic cultural shift in her country, and the past decade’s changes are not lost on her.

Aside from the more obvious changes within China — the prevalence of English writing, foreign entertainment and a growing sense of individualism among the youth, she’s seen the cultural exchange begin to come full circle. “A lot of my foreign friends here have been here long enough that I’ve seen them go from speaking no Chinese to being fluent,” she observes, noting one particularly small but symbolic change. “For years everyone called me Kristin, but lately they’ve been using my Chinese name.”

Even as her friends there begin to close the gap between nationalities, Yao’s time in China is fast winding down, as she finds herself with any number of new paths open for the future.

“I’ve thought about going to the States — to visit friends, maybe go back to school there,” she says, though she’s aware that getting there can be an expensive process. Naturally, she’s not without other, more practical plans until that opportunity presents itself. Her eyes are currently fixed on Southeast Asia, with its massive cultural diversity and opportunity for someone fluent in both Chinese and English. Either way, it looks as though all roads now lead out of her homeland, as even its massive borders seem ill-equipped to satisfy her exploratory nature.

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