In 2004, the Ministry of Education of China disseminated a communicative language teaching-oriented new English curriculum (NEC) for secondary schools across the entire country. This study examines teacher orientations to the NEC and the forces influencing their orientations and practices. The extensive and in-depth teachers' accounts and the participant-observer field notes from a 15-month ethnographic study, along with the use of Pierre Bourdieu's sociological theory in assisting analysis, have shown that how some commonly discussed issues are personally and locally experienced by teachers and why these have impacted on teachers' new curriculum implementation. A number of issues which may need to be addressed in facilitating the new curriculum reform in China and beyond are also proposed.