| The morning after we danced at 2001, Summer saw Nathan and I off at the Hefei bus station as we went back to Xuan Cheng to visit our students on the 10th and final day of the summer camp. We were both wondering what everyone's reaction was going to be when we showed up after leaving so abruptly because of the police. Once we arrived at the school, we proceeded directly towards the teacher's office to meet Daler. Daler, Willimas, and Betty lit up with pleasant emotion as we returned to them after being away for several days. When Daler saw me, he said, "Oh! Andrew!" Because he was surprised that I came with Nathan since I never mentioned that I would be coming back with him. Some of the children rushed into the teacher's office from their classrooms to see us. We took a group picture, and some of the students sat on my lap and around me like we were family. Daler said to me, "You are not the Godfather! You are the father of ALL children!" (I thought he should be careful about saying things like that, or I might have to pay child support to a lot of people.) Franklin and Caro were still safe and hadn't been detained by the police for continuing to trespass against the law. The school had run a steady course towards its objectives without the help of Nathan or I. Around 8:00 that evening, just after daylight had moved past us, it was time again for the students to compete in the final performances of the summer camp to show their parents their English speaking progress. The judges sat at tables in front of the stage, and the parents and students who were not performing sat in at least 150 chairs that had been set up next to the running track. Franklin was always very critical of the students, and he would often joke with us about giving the students lower marks than they deserved while we were judging them during their daily performances, and at last here at the final competition. But many of the students did score low marks compared to the first summer camp, including big Jim, who had worked so hard with me to improve his English during the earlier days of the camp. I wasn't sure if Nathan and I were part of the blame since we did not stay there to help them when the threat of the police became too intense. The students became very upset about failing to reach certain standards of speaking English, and about 30 of them followed Daler into the teacher's office after the performances were all finished. One student punched Daler, and I ran into the teacher's office just in time to see another student throw a chair at him and yell something in Mandarin at him while Daler held up a defensive posture. Daler looked around the room with his eyes as he slowly released his guard, while several of the students continued shouting at him. After the violence was over, Nathan and I stood on the running track in the middle of the school grounds trying to sum up words for the situation, when Betty approached us quickly with a worried look on her face that was partially hidden by the darkness of night. She told us that we should hide behind the classroom buildings immediately. Just then, we turned around and looked across the field towards the entrance of the school, and saw a lone police car parked inside of the school gate. We knew then that Daler for sure had been lying to us about the police, and we were glad that we had left the summer camp over trusting his word that we could stay. Nathan sarcastically said, "Who was right about the police? Oh that's right. We were!" After the police left, and the crowd of students began to break up, Nathan and I went to investigate deeper into the situation. It turns out that Jim was the student who punched Daler, and I walked into a classroom to see him pacing back and forth yelling very violently in Mandarin with powerful emotions and crying to his father, who could say very little to comfort his son. Jim worked so hard, and was terribly disappointed by the low marks he received during the competition. I walked up to Jim with arms outstretched and gave him a hug of support to help calm him down, and he looked down at me and said, "Daler is a bad man!" I had no argument to defend Daler's position. Jim's father thanked me for showing concern over his son's well being. The few students that were not running around with thoughts of shame and vengeance against Daler thanked us for what we did for them and wished us well in our lives. Nathan was surprised that none of the students were angry with us since we left the summer camp early, but I told him that I didn't think they would be. They knew who was responsible for the problems at the summer camp. I had volunteered to help Daler's driver Mr. Wang clean up some of Daler's materials that he brought from camp to camp in the four-story building that housed the cafeteria on the bottom floor, and the room where all students would assemble daily for practicing with Daler and class performances on the fourth floor. Among his materials, Daler had a giant roll-up poster of himself holding a microphone saying, "You can make it!" with an artificial sun rising in the background that he used to help build confidence in the students. Mr. Wang had the plan for cleanup, but he couldn't give me any directions in English, so he would say, "Andrew!" with a smile on his face, and then summon me with his hand, and point to whatever he needed help with. He couldn't understand me verbally, nor could I understand him, but we knew each other's characters well by the services we provided to others during the summer camps. Those were my final moments with the patient driver who had loyally taken us wherever we needed to go since we entered into Daler's service. Daler normally slept in the boy's dormitory along with the teachers and students, but that night, he decided it was safer to stay at a hotel outside of the school because he didn't want to get jumped by the students. One of the classroom teachers said that some of the boys were standing there waiting for him to come into the dormitory to go to sleep. On his way out, Daler dropped Nathan and I off at the hotel we stayed on the first night we left the summer camp. Despite all of his dishonesty and lies, I thanked Daler for what he did for me, and then got out of what I once thought of as the family van, and walked out of Daler's orb of influence permanently. My last memory of Xuan Cheng was of waving goodbye to Nathan and his girlfriend Ke Yan as I boarded a bus going to Hefei one morning in the end of July. Nathan decided to spend his last few days in China with Ke Yan in Beijing and other cities, so I was left alone for the first time to make my way through China without someone else who could speak both English and Mandarin. After arriving at the Hefei bus station, I looked around for a telephone so I could contact Jackie. Some of the taxi drivers parked in front of the station, noticing that I was walking past them, signaled me to get into their taxis, but I didn't know what to tell them or even where I was going, so I just waved my hand in polite refusal. Many stores have red or orange public phones that charge by the minute sitting on the counter that people can use. The regular pay phones all required some kind of calling card to use, and there are no coin slots. I found a public phone at a small shop next to the bus station and called Jackie to come meet me there. The small shops don't have air conditioners since the front wall is completely open to the public during business hours, so many of the shop owners use small retractable fans to cool themselves off. Jackie arrived at the bus station after about 20 minutes, and we both took a motorcycle taxi to his college campus. The driver gave both of us protective helmets, and the three of us squeezed onto his motorcycle and drove off. The motorcycle taxis don't use meters, and if the price isn't negotiated first, the drivers may try to overcharge. Along the way to Jackie's college, we drove through a half-mile strip of road surrounded by dense forest on both sides that blocked out much of the daylight next to a small river downhill from us. There was no traffic, so the driver had free reign to drive as fast as he was comfortable with since no one paid much attention to the traffic laws. The wind blew in our unprotected faces as we sped past the trees, which at brief moments revealed tall buildings far away in the downtown area. The motorcycle driver dropped us off on a busy street at the front gate of the Anhui Medical University. The university was protected by 10-foot concrete walls, with large red Chinese characters written on them that spanned the length of the entire campus, and a security checkpoint with guards monitoring all activity at the open gate. During the daytime, people are allowed to walk freely through the gate, but all vehicles must stop and check in with the guards before proceeding forward into the campus. We walked down the main walkway until we reached a crossroads near the center of the campus. Jackie's dormitory was to the left, just in front of some basketball courts and a running track where many students were playing. Inside Jackie's dorm room were 12 bunk beds covered by mosquito nets lined in opposition to each other with six beds per wall, three on top of three. They had no air conditioning, so most of the time, the students try to get out of their dorms to go to places that did have air conditioning. There was only one public bathroom down the hallway made mostly of concrete where students would bring large transparent plastic washbowls of different colors filled with hot water to wash themselves. Jackie's roommates were all outside somewhere, so we both rested peacefully in his dorm. Later, we walked to an internet bar just down the street from Anhui Medical University to play some computer games and check and send e-mails. Before we arrived at the Internet bar, Jackie told me, "You should try not to speak English as much as possible, because I think the Internet bar is not a good place." We walked inside and Jackie purchased two usage cards. The Internet bar was full of rows of college students who had come to use the computers, most of whom had come to play computer games. A lot of them looked very comfortable and relaxed as they smoked their cigarettes and hollered at each other at times when someone would get killed in their network games. Someone told me that women who smoke in China are heavily looked down upon, so I didn't see too many of them smoking. Many men smoked cigarettes not only as though it were cool, but almost as though it were a custom. It was very common for people to offer cigarettes to each other without asking, and it was rude on some level to refuse it. Some of the internet bar workers would walk around from aisle to aisle briefly monitoring what the customers were plugged into, and changing ashtrays and throwing away garbage that people left behind with diligence. Jackie and I played against each other in a very popular weapons combat game called Counter Strike for about one hour, or I should say Jackie murdered me for one hour, and then I checked my e-mail. I discovered in a message from my father that my family was no longer on talking terms with our friends in Italy, so the option of going there to find work had been taken away from me. Jackie offered to help me find a teaching job in Hefei since I was still determined not to go back to the U.S. Later that evening, Summer came to the Anhui Medical University and met us at the front gate. I gave her a hug and said to her, "I'm glad to see you." "I'm glad to see you too," she said, though she seemed less enthusiastic than I was and a little nervous about something. We walked through Jackie's campus past the basketball courts until we exited through the south gate on the other side, and walked down a concrete ramp out onto a quiet street that ran behind the university. Most of the time they were speaking to each other in Mandarin. I didn't know where we were going or what we were doing, so I just followed them. They led me to a hotel that was tucked away on a very small dead-end street just behind the Medical University where I could stay. It was 80 yuan a night, slightly expensive in China, but still only 10 U.S. dollars. Someone from the U.S. might spend much more than they have to just because they think so much about what something would cost them in their own currency, and it wasn't uncommon for ignorant foreigners to get cheated out of some money. After Summer went home, she called me on the home phone at her parents' house to make sure that I was all right. There were times when she had to hang the phone up quickly when her parents came into the room because she didn't want them to know who she was talking to that late. She said her parents would kill her if they ever found out that she was romantically involved with a foreigner. She said to me, "You remember what you said in Anqing that I couldn't say to you? Well, same thing to you too." She still didn't have the courage to say those words to me, but at least I knew how she really felt. |
| China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling To Xuan Cheng and back |
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