| Teaching at middle school #47 was quite different than teaching at the two primary schools. The atmosphere was much more relaxed, and the students greeted me excitedly everyday with smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts. The students were all required to wear blue and white school uniforms that had long sleeves and pants, and they would gather together in front of the school gate on their bikes or on foot before the school would reopen in the afternoon when it was time for me to teach there. They understood enough English that it wasn't necessary to have a translator with me during class, so the regular classroom teachers let me teach without putting any pressure on me. Aside from the classroom teachers, there was a class monitor assigned to each class who had the honor of commanding the other students to make sure the class ran properly. There were between 40 and 50 students in each classroom. Some of the boy students loved using what English they knew to insult each other in front of me between classes. They would be standing around me in groups, and one student would point to another and say, "He is dog" or, "He is pig." But no one ever took it seriously. The classroom teachers at the middle school were always very kind to me and would offer me a cup of hot green tea and made sure I had a place to sit down in the teacher's office before class. Sometimes before class would begin, the students would have eye exercises where they would rub the area around their eyes in a certain way that was supposed to be healthy for their eyes while a recording broadcasted over the loudspeakers to give them instructions. The class monitor would walk around to make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing, and would bust the students into shape if they were slacking. Some of the boys liked to smile at me and make funny faces while they were doing their eye exercises, knowing that they would be punished if they were caught. Sometimes I couldn't help but smile back and turn my head away to keep from laughing because I wasn't trying to interfere with the class monitor's duties, but sometimes even the class monitors had to keep themselves from laughing when they saw me struggling to keep a straight face. When the students got caught fooling around during the exercises, the class monitor would make them stand up and finish the exercises while everyone else got to stay seated as a way of singling them out for shame. I think the class monitor would also give behavioral reports to the classroom teachers perhaps once a day. The students would be chastised by the classroom teachers in the office when they were disobedient. I made several friends among the students, one named Chris who was one of the most excellent students in the school, though he also had a sense of humor. Another boy who may have been the smallest boy in the school named Tony, who didn't have such a strong grasp of the English language, but he always tried to teach me some Chinese words when there was time, and another boy named He wen Cheng. The three of us would always try our best to keep life entertaining when we were at school. One late weekend afternoon, I was waiting for Chad and Rae on some stairs in front of KFC at San Xiao Kou, when something unusual happened. I saw a big and strong man in his mid to late twenties run up on a smaller, younger man and a boy about 13 years old. The big man grabbed the two as they were trying to get away from him down the stairs on the sidewalk in front of me. The big man looked very upset with a fixed and determined brow, and tried to put the other two into submission both at the same time. He kicked the little boy in the shins several times, releasing his anger on him, and then he made the little boy's older companion take off his belt. The big man made the young man kneel down on the street, and he put the belt around his arms and his waist preventing him from making any sudden actions, all the while still holding onto the small boy's jacket with a strong and solid grip. Then he made a phone call on his cell phone, and several minutes later, a police van rolled up on Changjiang Road in front of KFC and took the little boy and the young man away. I, along with several others, was staring at the occurrence, but I was probably the only one who didn't understand what happened. A little while after they had left, Chad showed up, and I asked him to ask an old woman who was still there who saw what happened. She told Chad that the two of them were thieves and had been caught by one of the shop assistants from a store nearby. Rae finally came and met us at the entrance to KFC, and we all went inside to have dinner. While we were eating, we noticed that many of the customers tried to push the front door open instead of pulling it, which caused them to crash into the door as they were leaving. Chad and I laughed and wondered how many people we would see do that before we left. Rae also laughed about it. But when it was time for us to leave, Rae tried to push the door open just as the other customers did, and she crashed into the door as well. Chad and I were both laughing hard at her because we were just talking with her about others who were doing that. Rae was a very serious student and a dear friend, but she was also one of the most gullible people I have ever met. Once when we went to an Internet bar, Rae fell for the old tap someone on their shoulder and blame it on someone else trick, even though I pointed at Chad, who was sitting so far away that he couldn't possibly have been the one who tapped her. About the third week of September, Rae moved to another city in central China called Xi An (She Anne) where she would be going to a university there. She invited Chad and I to visit her during the Chinese National Day holiday during the first week of October. On Chinese National Day, two of my middle school students invited me to go to a movie theater. The theater was closed that day, so we went to take pictures at a photo shop near the Walking Street instead. The streets were very crowded as many people were out in public places celebrating the national holiday. A lot of children celebrated the holiday by lighting off long strings of firecrackers that set off someone's car alarm almost every time they were lit. On an average day in Hefei, someone's car alarm would be set off almost once a minute, and people also light off firecrackers everyday to celebrate a marriage, or to signal someone's passing. In the photo shop we went to, there were many different backgrounds we could choose from inside of books from cartoon to realistic. Each of us would choose several backgrounds, and the background would load up on a screen in front of us that showed us whose turn it was. Sometimes we had individual photos taken, but also we had group pictures, and sometimes we would make silly faces together. We each got small wallet sized copies of our photos. It was common in China for teachers and their students to take part in extracurricular activities. My schedule had been rearranged because of the holiday. My boss David and Hillary wanted to have a special meeting in the office of Wongas downtown on Anqing Road. Aside from holidays or special events, Damian, Chad, and I were required to attend a meeting with Hillary every Thursday to give a status report on the schools. The building where our office was located was about seven stories tall, and there were many other companies located on each of the floors of the building. The interior of the building looked like it was in critical condition, but the individual offices looked quite nice and had that big business feel to them. I ended up teaching at Candy's home later than usual because of our meeting. I had a set time that I would go to learn Chinese with Summer's sister Amy after I finished teaching Candy and Angel, but I forgot to compensate for the time difference. When I finally realized what I forgot to do, I called Amy, and she was not happy. "What is wrong with you? I waited for you for 45 minutes at the bus stop near my home but you never came!" "I'm sorry Amy. Today I had to meet with my boss for a long time this afternoon, and I forgot to call and tell you that I would be late this time," I said to her apologetically. But my apology seemed to do little to comfort Amy because she had strong emotions that she kept suppressed most of the time in silence, but they were uncontrollable once released. I felt incredibly guilty for not showing up on time, so I went to a gift shop across from the university where Candy lived, and bought Amy a clear rectangular piece of glass with the white outline of a flower inside of it. It was getting late, but I had to get my mistake off of my conscience, so I decided to go to Amy's home to give her the gift I bought for her. I knocked on the front gate and Amy's mother was the one who responded. She recognized me easily even though I never really talked to her because a foreigner is not easy to forget in China. Amy looked a little sad when I came into their home, and she pointed out how late it was, but after I gave her the gift, she seemed to let my mistake slide past her and it became, "Yesterday's things" as Amy put it. We finished our lesson and I took the bus back to my apartment in Hu Po. Summer eventually called me and told me that her sister Amy called her crying and said that I didn't care about her. Summer reminded me that she was easy to forgive people, but it was harder for Amy to do the same. After the light scolding I received from Summer about hurting her sister, I was glad to be able to move forward past the dual repercussions I received from my one little mistake. A visit to Xi An Chad and I decided to go to Xi An in Shaanxi province in central China to visit Rae during our one-week vacation, which was an 18-hour bus ride west of Hefei. Right before we left, I started having stomach troubles, which was a common thing to have eating at the small family restaurants in Hefei. We got on a sleep bus with my stomach still in great turmoil as I desperately prevented the food in my stomach from coming back up using all of my willpower, since the bus was not equipped with bathroom facilities. I didn't want to miss out on going to Xi An, so I suffered for the entire trip as I struggled to hold myself together. The bus driver played several movies on the monitor, and also had played an endless stream of music from the European dance group 2 Unlimited. The music was motivational, but all I could do was continue to lie down in my sleeper-bus seat and endure through my stomach pains. I couldn't tell the bus driver to stop anywhere, and most of the pit stops we made were under-equipped to handle my problem anyways because there was usually only a small outdoor shelter with a hole in the ground with no wash facilities. That was the most uncomfortable road trip I had ever taken, suffering every moment of the 18 hours. When we arrived at the bus station in Xi An, the first place I went to was the bathroom as quickly as possible. After I got all of the sickness out of me, we went to the waiting area to wait for Rae. Her college campus was almost two hours outside the center of the city by train. Xi An had a different atmosphere from Hefei completely. There was much more beauty and tranquility that could be sensed in the air, and we temporarily felt like we were in paradise. The city was about twice as big as Hefei, with a population of eight million, but it still did not quite rank among the biggest cities in China. Xi An is one of the oldest cities in China, and was home to the emperor of the first dynasty in China, Shi Huangdi. However, due to the amount of attention the city had received over the years, Xi An became fully developed, and was more modernized than Hefei, though the traditional culture hadn't disappeared completely. The ancient quality of a city like that never disappears completely. Chad and I had two things we wanted to do before we left Xi An. First, we wanted to visit the Terra Cotta warriors, and second, we wanted to climb Hua Shan, the most dangerous mountain in China. I told Chad that we shouldn't let Rae come with us, because if it truly is the most dangerous mountain, I could see someone uncoordinated like her never coming back. Rae told us she had friends we could stay with while we were there, so we wouldn't have to worry about hotel costs. Chad decided to put his digital camera in Rae's purse, but while we were at an Internet bar, someone stole her purse with the camera inside. We later met up with a few of Rae's friends, and waited at a bus stop to go to another part of the city. Many of the buses were double-decker to support such a large city population. While we were waiting for the bus, I pulled out my wallet to get money for the bus, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that someone behind me was taking extreme interest in my wallet. He didn't look like what I imagined a pickpocket would look like. He wore some stylish leather clothes and had long fashionable hair. When I put my wallet back in my pocket, I gave my pocket a little slap to let him know that I was aware of him, but then Rae and her friends grabbed me and started running away frantically. "I saw him, I saw him! What are you worried about?" I said as they were dragging me away. "That man was going to take your money!" Rae said to me as we continued running down the street to another bus stop. I didn't know what they were so worried about. I thought it was funny that he thought he was going to get my money. Rae discovered that her friends we were supposed to stay with didn't have any room for us to stay there. It was still the National Day Holiday, so finding a hotel in the city seemed almost impossible. Rae, Chad, and I walked through the city streets until we found a sizable hotel. All of their rooms were booked, but they agreed to let us stay in one of their conference rooms, and pulled in two cots for us to sleep on. On our first full day in Xi An, Chad and I went to a bus station where there were many buses scattered randomly in a large parking area to find a bus to go to the Terra Cotta Warriors. The warriors were located in several indoor excavation sites far away from the downtown area. There were thousands of statues made in honor of soldiers who had been killed during a civil war in the early days of China, each one molded after a specific individual, and also a room with a panorama of screens that played a video showing the ancient history of Xi An and the Terra Cotta warriors. After we came back to the center of the city, Rae met us and took us to a museum where there were many exhibits of ancient Chinese arts and crafts. When evening came, she took us to a large park that was half surrounded by water, and the city lights in buildings could be seen on the other side while many people enjoyed the view from a waterside pavilion. In the park, there were some Buddha worshipping temples and pagodas, and there was a hill somewhere near the center of the park with many dimly lit pathways that spiraled around the hill going up and down. On the opposite side of the park from the entrance, There was a large open area next to the lake where there were many families crowded by a number of at least 1,000 people. They were all anticipating the water and light show that was going to take place moments later. Once the show began, a couple of water fountains close to the lake sprayed water to create a surface for the film projectors to cast an image onto. It was a children's story about time travel which I couldn't understand very well, but it was a very impressive way to show a film. It was similar to a holographic image. After we visited the park, Rae took Chad and I back to our hotel and then went back to her university by train. Inside of the conference room where we would go to sleep, there was a long table with many chairs for meetings, and then our two cots that the hotel staff had brought in for us. It wasn't much, but we were thankful that we had somewhere to stay during one of the busiest times of the year in a huge city. |
| China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling Learning more about China's past and present |
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