| I first came to Hefei. I was very skilled at procrastination, so I would usually finish my teaching plans for the primary schools before I would leave the apartment in the morning instead of the night before. I would then walk out to the general store next to the police station and buy two pieces of bread with coconut butter and coconut shavings on top. I would also buy a bottle of artificial orange juice that I had been drinking since the first summer camp in Anqing. Some of the boys in Anqing used to call me "Orange Juice Superman" because I was always drinking that whenever they saw me, and I was a little stronger than the typical person since most people in China concentrate on exercising their minds much more than their muscles for reasons of survival. They joked that drinking so much orange juice gave me super powers. There was no cereal in any of the stores I had seen, so I had to adjust to eating breakfast without the sugary flavors that I had depended on my whole life until that point. After a while, the shopkeepers knew exactly what I wanted each morning without me trying to explain since I ordered the same thing every day. I felt a little sorry that there was no way for me to communicate with them since they were always so kind to me. I would walk from the general store after buying breakfast to the small bus stop that was just down the main road from my apartment. After going past the roundabout that was in front of my apartment heading south, there was another chain of two-story shops on the left side of the road with a wide sidewalk in front aside from the stores next to the police station. The stores looked old, and like they had been thrown together as quickly as possible, but the inside of the buildings were often a complete contrast. Among the stores were a couple of massage parlors, a small second floor Internet bar, a couple of restaurants, and some stores that sold small items like key chains, pens, art, and artificial flowers. There were many rows of apartment buildings on the other side of the road similar to my own that were behind a large gray wall. Near the bus stop, the road began to curve in a southeast direction, and there was a small children's park between some trees just in front of one of the two large ponds on either side. On the side of the park closest to the water, there was a dirt path that led to a couple of cement benches where the small forest stopped by a small bridge that separated both ponds. The ponds didn't appear to have any regular maintenance, and there was usually some manmade debris floating on top of the surface near the sides. My bus stop was just on the other side of the small bridge. Bus number 122 was the only bus that ran through Hu Po, and it would often be very crowded in the morning, especially if it was raining. At those times, people would stand waiting for the bus with their umbrellas open, and close them as soon as they stepped onto the already packed bus. People were always surprised to see me every time I got on the bus. Sometimes I would hear some other people around my age say, "Lao wai ting bu dong," which means, "The foreigner doesn't understand." I always felt slightly offended whenever I would hear people say that. And they never thought for a second that they couldn't understand me either, but at least they paid attention to me. During the bus ride, everyone was always respectful of older people, and offered to give up their seats for them if they had no place to sit. The bus would drive around the streets in Hu Po in a spiral like pattern since Hu Po wasn't completely even throughout the entire area, and finally the bus would drive out onto Changjiang Road with little concern for oncoming traffic as we pulled out since there were no stop signs or stop lights at that intersection. On the other side of Changjiang Road from Hu Po about half a mile away, there was a large apartment that was being constructed that must have had at least 40 floors. The frame had been mostly constructed, but there still must have been much work to do on the inside, and it looked rather fancy in appearance. I would take the bus either to Changjiang, or Yong Hong primary school in the morning. Yong Hong was about four or five stops away from my apartment, but not far from Hu Po itself just off of Changjiang Road. I would get off the bus and walk down Changjiang Road with everyone else that was going downtown to work in the morning. Many young women wore jean jackets of different colors, short dresses, and high-heeled boots, and sometimes they wore business suits. Most younger and middle-aged men wore black leather jackets or business suits, and they never wore boots. Usually they wore black dress shoes with or without laces. On the left side of me, the road was busy with traffic driving up and down the gently sloping hill to and from the center of the city and curved out of my sight past large office buildings. Sometimes the police would come through yelling on their mounted car megaphones for people to clear the way, at least that's what I thought they were hollering about. It wasn' like people made any effort to get out of the police's way when they had an emergency. Even the ambulance vans with blue emergency lights got little priority. The police cars and police vans were all white with blue trim and had police logos printed on them. They didn't appear to be built for high speed chases as their frames looked very frail in comparison to police vehicles in America. I think they were mostly for cruising and patrolling. While walking to Yong Hong School from the bus stop, I could see some middle-aged men on the green, red, and yellow colored sidewalk in front and behind me, some hacking up tar and spitting on the sidewalk as they walked to work. Most of them did it in the exact same way as though there was a specific way to clear their throats. I had to watch my step carefully if I wanted to avoid stepping in the phlegm. There were many shoe shiners sitting on small stools on the sidewalks with different colors of shoe polish and they had a stool small enough to place one's foot on when they were doing their business. As always, outside of the stores, the prices are negotiable. Many people in Hefei took great care to make sure their shoes looked like they were in good condition. The shoe shiners were far from rich, but they always had a dependable clientele to support their business. Yong Hong was about a quarter mile uphill from San Xiao Kou, the central bus station of the city, but far enough down the intersecting street off Changjiang Road that the traffic was not too noisy during class. I was interested to see on the other side of the street from Yong Hong that there was a large restaurant called, "The Madison Grill". It was a Brazilian style restaurant with a buffet inside. I had been there once before, and they had waiters that would bring over large chunks of meat from chicken, sausage, lamb, and just about every other kind of meat imaginable. Using a long steak knife, they would slice off pieces for the customer all throughout the meal at their tables. I thought it was strange that my hometown couldn't leave me alone while I was on the other side of the world. It is extremely rare that a restaurant in China would have an English name like that. Inside of the office at Yong Hong, there were primarily female teachers that each had their own assigned desks. Hillary would ride her electronic motor scooter and park it within the front gate and come to the office to discuss with the English teacher what she last taught the students so we could be sure about our teaching plan. Hillary always looked very serious with her fixed and penetrating stare, and she would rarely smile and almost never laugh. Sometimes, I would catch all the teachers talking about me, but they didn't think I knew enough Mandarin to be able to understand their words. And when I would call them on it, they would say things like, "Oh. We were talking about another foreigner, not you." "Yeah, I'm sure," I would think to myself. I didn't think they knew enough foreigners between them all to be talking about anyone else but me. While I was in the office, I never doubted the fact that I came from another country. My first class was always with more than 30 third graders with mixed English speaking abilities. Most of the students behaved themselves well, but there were a few cut-ups in the class. One boy named Dustin would always get up and wander around the class harassing the other students, but he always looked so innocent and oblivious when he did it. One time, he made a paper gun and crept up on another student and put it up against his head, and I couldn't help but laugh. My laughter in his direction attracted the attention of the other students, and they all laughed with me until Hillary blew up on him and put him back in his seat. Hillary was not afraid to use her voice to get the students back on track, and sometimes she would pull on their arms violently and put them back in their seats harshly, but not very often. Respect was very important to her, and she valued that much more than friendliness. It was obvious from her behavior. Sometimes I would make silly faces to the students while Hillary was translating, and they would laugh at me, causing Hillary to turn around and throw daggers at me with her eyes. I wasn't trying to disrespect her, but any chance I had to make the students laugh made everyone happy, except for Hillary, so eventually I stopped doing that. Whenever the classroom teacher would come into the class, the students all became very serious, and it became obvious why. She was extremely strict with the students, and she would get a little physical with them and yell very powerfully at them. She was also a little taller than me and slightly heavy, which helped her with the intimidation factor. Even though she had a beautiful appearance, she had a monster inside of her waiting for the children. Another student named Harry participated more than the other students, but he could not always control his energy. Several times, he got into fights with other students, which was something that didn't usually happen. One time, he tried punching me in the stomach as hard as he could. I had to let him know I wasn't going to tolerate that, but I didn't want to hurt him or scare him, so I picked him up and started spinning around in circles about 15 times, and then I put him back on the ground. His head and his eyes kept spinning around even though his body wasn't moving anywhere, and he was making silly dizzy sounds like a cartoon. Hillary came over to me quickly. "That's too dangerous to play with him like that," she said. "He shouldn't be punching me in the stomach then if I can't do that," I replied. Then Hillary went over to Harry and talked some sense into him since I was unable to do it myself, and from then on, it was nothing but respect from Harry, and even hugs at times. In between teaching the third and fourth graders, all students in the school had exercises in both of the school's courtyards. The school was built in such a way that there was space to walk underneath the school in the center, and on either side of the building was a courtyard. The students reminded me of military soldiers the way they would march single-file into position and follow the exercise routine to a loud recording while wearing their red school uniforms with red scarves around their necks. Every day, it was the same thing. Sometimes my students would look up and see me watching them from the third floor balcony, and pretend to be shooting at me in a playful way. The fourth grade class was much smaller than the class of third graders. There were only about 25 students. Most of them were glad to see me every day, but there were a few students who would stick out their tongues at me or make rude and twisted faces. But it still wasn't so bad compared to what happens in other places I sometimes hear about. The students were actually very respectful to the teachers most of the time because of the school's way of dealing with disobedience. The only trouble Hillary and I would have with them was keeping their young minds focused on the subjects. After school was over, many of the children's parents would wait at the front gate which was now open, to receive their children. It was a big congestion that I would have to work my way through every time. Everyone would eventually scatter in different directions, and I would either take the bus or walk back to my apartment in Hu Po. Everything in the city seemed to be changing at a very fast pace, much faster than I had ever seen anywhere before. Construction was happening everywhere. Walls were being built, roads were being fixed, and entire neighborhoods were rising up from the ground in many places. Shops that seemed to be flourishing with business one day would suddenly be empty and in the process of renovation the next day. Our friends, the father and son with the big smiles and the daughter had suddenly moved out of their restaurant and disappeared without notice, so I had to choose another restaurant close to my apartment in Hu Po to have my lunch and dinner at. I chose the other family restaurant next to the general store where I bought my breakfast. The restaurant was very small, and the floors and walls were made of old cement. I had eaten there several times before with Jackie and Summer, and the mother who cooked there said I was very good at using the chopsticks for a foreigner. But I was still very unskilled compared to most people who had been using them their whole lives. After going to the restaurant many times, I became sort of a regular there, and I made several friends. One friend I made there was named Raymond. He was a businessman in his late 30s and was thin and wore glasses. He always dressed professionally, but I could still joke with him and he had a light sense of humor. He also lived in an apartment somewhere in Hu Po. Another friend I made at the restaurant was named Jerim Phoenix. He was about 22, had longer hair than most young men, and liked to wear stylish clothes. He and his friends sat with me one day at the restaurant and we talked about leisure life. His English speaking skills were the most advanced out of his group of friends. Jerim liked to dance at the club 2001, the same place that Summer took Nathan and I after we escaped from Daler's ambitious grasp when we left Xuan Cheng. Jerim invited me to come out sometime in the future, and I agreed to the invitation. After many attempts to communicate with the owners of the restaurant by pointing and repeating many times, I came to know them as Mei Qing Ke and Gong Zha Feng. Chinese names are impossible to differentiate between male and female genders because the first name is almost always the family name shared by everyone in the family. Mei Qing Ke was a large and old fashioned kind of man who always wore a white cook's uniform. He and his wife Gong would take turns cooking food on a pan over a small grill that was just outside of the restaurant. Since the inside of the restaurant was so small that they could only fit two small tables inside with not much space to move, they also had three tables set up outside next to where they cooked. They had an outdoor shelf with different vegetables such as mushrooms, eggplant, peppers, lotus root, carrots, and several other things I don't know the names of. They would try to say to me what I ordered using English, but it was clear that they were from a time when English learning was not quite as important as it is now. I would often order soup noodles with a fried egg on top, and Mei would point to it and say, "Egga" and smile because he knew his pronunciation must have been less than accurate. When I ordered fish, Gong would point to it and say, "Feesh" and smile for the same reason. They also taught me how to say several of the food items that I would often order from them, and then it was their turn to laugh at me. One time, I tried to teach Gong how to say "Thank you very much" after I ate lunch and was preparing to leave. She already knew how to say thank you, "Sanka you." So I said to her, "Thank you very much" and she said to me, "Thank you, shenme?" which means "What?" in Mandarin. She started laughing with one of her friends that was there after she realized she couldn't follow me. Even though we couldn' understand each other very well, Gong Zha Feng and Mei Qing Ke became like my Chinese mother and father. They always cooked for me and had a place I would always feel welcome in at China. |
| China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling Teaching in Hefei |
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| After returning from Xi An, my life in Hefei began to settle into a regular routine, though everything that was happening around me was still far from regular as I knew the word to be. It was fall now, so the air had become cool, forcing me to buy warmer clothes than what I brought with me from America, and what Summer had bought for me when |