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From Magic City Morning Star R.P. BenDedek Part Fifteen in a series of articles about the experiences of an Australian Conversational English Teacher in Hong Hu, Hubei Province China. Self published author of 'The King's Calendar:The Secret of Qumran', (a study in the history and chronology of Ancient Israel), R.P. BenDedek is a pseudonym.
Chinese BS versus Australian BS.
My day started at 7:30 am. I got up, checked my emails, checked some online news sources, had some coffee, had a shower and even a shave, and headed off to the first of four classes that I was to teach. Today is my second day of the new semester. Yesterday I taught only one class, and how lucky I was to have had 'that' class as my first, for it paved the way for today's events. But to put my day into perspective, I have to take you back in time. If you have been following my stories, you will know that I was forced to teach the town's English Teachers during Summer, and that the experience left me wanting to flee China. They were hopeless people, generally speaking, and I finally understood why the students here are so difficult to get through to.
Following that camp, I went to PuQi, YiChang, and Wuhan. By the time I was finished travelling around, I was finally calmed down and really looking forward to the challenge of whipping the brand new students into shape (figuratively speaking � I think! - Maybe!). It had been agreed for a long time that I would teach the new Grade One students, and the new foreign teacher would take the new Grade Two students. I knew that the school had been making arrangements for a new foreign teacher, and equally that they had lost two opportunities by virtue of 'cultural mentality'. In other words, the foreigners didn't bother to wait around while the school administration made up its' mind. Before I left on vacation, I had given the administration the details of a Filipino man working in the South of China, and told them to grab him as quick as possible. This they did not do. So when I got back to Hong Hu, I discovered that there was no teacher for Grade Two. I'm not going to explain this comment right now, but I felt it appropriate that Grade Two students should be left without a foreign teacher. Then last weekend, when I asked my co-ordinator for my class schedule, he informed me that I would be teaching not Grade One, but Grade Two. What a disaster for me, and what a mistake by the school. On Monday I handed a three page letter to the Vice Principal in charge of the English Department, (copy at www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=154 and on Tuesday I had my written reply, and a meeting with her in her office.
So there you have it. The new school term commenced with the usual BS! On Wednesday September 1st, I taught my first class of the term, and the only class for the day, and that class was Class two. The first thing that happened when I walked into THEIR classroom, was that a half smart 'so & so' called out, 'Where's your brother?'. My brother had started out last school year as their Grade One teacher, but they were so undisciplined, (and remaining so for 12 weeks), that my brother continued to kick them all out of class, each and every week, the whole class at a time, and ultimately, this was the reason that he found an excuse to leave, rather than continue to the end of his contract. Knowing full well how they felt about him, �He was a BAD teacher!', that when this kid called out to me, I exploded. I fired both barrels at them, and spewed forth such a mixture of truth and BS, that I had their attention from the first moment I opened my mouth until the end of the period. I was utterly astounded by my success. So I went home and ruminated on what had happened, and planned the next day's strategy.
I took three classes before lunch today, and one afterward. I walked into each class room as soon as their previous teacher walked out, and during the 10-minute break wrote all over the black board. This is what I wrote. BAD NEWS: I'm your teacher. GOOD NEWS: I leave in 8 weeks. I was supposed to teach Grade One. The New Teacher was to teach you. There is no new teacher. Why? The money is too little, and Hong Hu is a nothing town that no foreigner wants to come to. I don't want to teach Grade two students, because I think that they are too badly behaved and two lazy to study, learn, or speak English. I have made a promise to the principal that I will stay for 8 weeks, to give the students a chance to prove that they are prepared to behave and to learn and to speak English. My BAD teacher brother is earning 8000 RMB a month, while I earn only 4000 RBM. I would rather be a BAD teacher and get more money and live in a better city.� The whole time I was writing they were congregating to read it. By the time class commenced, everyone was silent. You might not find this significant, but for those who teach in China, the hardest thing to do at the beginning of any class, let alone the first class of the year, is to get their attention. I had it. For the next thirty minutes in each class, I expounded a variety of issues such as; The Chinese Athlete 'He Ying' who was disqualified at the Athens Olympics because having failed to understand the English command given her by an official, a command that she was supposed to have learned, a command that could have saved her from disqualification, she was in fact disqualified.
The three possible reasons why Chinese Students can study English for 10 years and yet still not be able to speak it, namely, Stupidity, Laziness and Chinese Culture. Rejecting the first two, the students were forced to recognise that it is only Chinese Culture that stops them. For example:
From this we moved on to discussing the fact that I only taught 200 of the 1100 students in Grade Two last year, and to the fact that as long as I teach only one student in each class, I can received my usual monthly salary. I rammed home to them that they are only guaranteed 8 weeks of Oral English, and that even if I complete the semester, I will be leaving the school in January. From this I went on to discuss what the International English Language Testing Service Examination is, and that it is currently being introduced to China (and in some universities, already in place) and that there are 6 universities in Shanghai that will now not take any student who can't actually speak English.
I explained to them that I actually TEACH, something called 'The Mechanics of Conversation'; a subject that exists nowhere, for it is not necessary to teach it anywhere except in China, because the mechanics of conversation are learned through conversation, but in China the students never converse. I then picked out one student from each class, and did a practical demonstration of what I would teach; things like anticipating questions, speaking in complete sentences, and providing informative answers. This is how it worked. I make a student stand at the front of the class and tell him/her to pay close attention to what I will say. Then I went around the class asking different questions to different students, questions like, What is your name, how old are you, where do you come from, where do you live, who do you live with, do you like living there, what grade are you in, which school do you go to, which university will you go to, what will you 'major' be, what work will you do when you graduate from university.... With this done, I returned to the front of the class and told the student that I would ask JUST ONE QUESTION. Whew! They were relieved. �But I expect you to give me answers to 6 questions!� First I asked their name. Generally they just spoke their name and I had to state it within the context of a complete sentence, which was then written on the board. Then I asked them to GUESS what my next question would be. This was a little harder. As each new answer was given, it was written on the blackboard, and then they were made to use conjunctions to join multiple answers to form an informative answer such as: 'My name is Li Wei and I'm 16 years old. I come from Hong Hu and I am in Grade Two at Hong Hu No. 1 Middle School. I live in Xin Di with my parents and I like living there because they love me very much.
So that was how each lesson went. They were rapt. I told them not to come to my class room next week if they wanted 'fun' or to have an interesting time. 'Don't come if you won't speak English. Don't come if you don't bother to bring two writing books, a pen, a dictionary and your grammar book. Of course it remains to be seen what happens in the coming weeks. (That story will appear here next week.) THE AFTERNOON: Now at the time that this article was written, the Australian Government had just called an election, and as I made sure to keep my electoral enrollment valid, I have a duty to vote. After spending three days trying to find out how to vote, I eventually downloaded a 'request for a ballot paper'. Having organised a copy of my passport, resident's visa, a declaration that I have no authorised person to witness my signature, I needed to send everything 'Special Delivery' to the Australian Consulate in Shanghai. For this I would need some help.
Apologising for the delay, I woofed down my food, ran to the bedroom and dressed, and when I re-emerged and said 'Let's go!' he said, 'But we shouldn't go now, everybody will be having lunch and so we will have to go this afternoon! Brilliant! I could have taken my time eating my left overs. Agreeing to go with me to the post office after period six (4:15pm), he went off to have a lunchtime sleep. At the appointed hour (despite the fact that I was expecting a telephone call), we set off for the post office up the road. There was a bus leaving from the school at that moment, and we took it. When we entered the post office, before I could say anything, Xiang Jun began to talk to the lady. They discussed back and forth for five minutes before XJ told me that we must go to another post office. 'Why?' I asked. 'They don't have any envelopes here!' he counselled me. Mmmmmmm!
We grabbed another bus, but not before XJ inquired of the conductor (correct term/wrong imagery) if this bus would take us there. Yes it would! At the right place, the conductor told us to get off, and XJ was lost. We could not find a post office, but a passerby did point us in the right direction. Finally I said, 'Look, there is a stationary shop up the street, we can get an envelope from them!' OK XJ, what do you mean by Special Envelopes? I mean International Envelopes so that you can send letters to Australia. I'm not sending this letter to Australia� I shouted, �It's going to Shanghai! Oh! You didn't tell me that! YOU didn't tell me that the other Post Office had no Special Envelopes, you said they had NO envelopes! Oy oy oy oy oy oy oy! The problem here is that the better someone speaks English, the less care you take to be totally precise, the less number of times you repeat yourself to ensure that they understand, and the less often you check to ensure that they know what they are doing. I had said that the letter was going to Shanghai. I had only asked him to help me send the letter EXPRESS DELIVERY. And he never told me that the post office had no special envelopes (international), only that it had no envelopes. So, having sorted all that out, I sent off my application to the consulate in Shanghai, and dashed home. Having turned down several requests to dine with the Dry Cleaners family, I had finally agreed to join them Thursday night, but after doing that, I got a call from Diana (My summertime Chinese teacher), asking me to join her for coffee, as her friend, the Television presenter at CCTV something or rather (whom I had met before), wanted to talk to me.
I figured that once Diana called me with the time on Thursday, that I would be able to let Chen Yang's mother know what time I could make it for dinner. As soon as I returned from the post office with Xiang Jun, the phone rang. It was Diana. She wanted me to meet her immediately at the new restaurant we had visited together just a few nights earlier.
When I hung up the phone, I immediately called Judy, the brand new Chinese/American foreign teacher teaching at No.5 Middle School, and Informed her that we were to leave immediately for coffee with Diana and her friend. Giving Judy directions on how to walk down to the main road from her school, I hung up, apologised to Xiang Jun for rushing off, and raced down to the road to catch a cab. Judy arrived at the intersection of AiGuoLu and the main road, just a minute after I got out of the taxi. Not knowing the name of the street to which we were headed, I knew it was pointless trying to take another taxi, so we walked. It took about 10minutes, and we arrived at about 5:15pm. Neither Judy nor I were especially dressed, and as I had gone directly from class to the post office and back home, I had had no chance to shower or change. I was covered in chalk dust. 'But it doesn't matter!' Chinese saying. OH! But it did!. Here is where the real BS kicks in! When Judy and I walked into the ultramodern, flashy, expensive, upmarket restaurant/ coffee shop, there was Diana and our mutual friend Crystal, the Television presenter, the Reporter who interviewed me last year, AND A BLOODY CAMERAMAN! Judy and I were both ready to run! They were all at a beautiful table that had a nice fruit platter on it, and a plate of sunflower seeds, and outdoing the table were the four women, and one cute little 2 year old boy. Introductions were made, and we all sat down. Now I am not going to bore you with the running conversation, but over the next 15 minutes, I asked several time, (only to be ignored) 'Is this a Television interview?'
They do this you know! They don't tell you about it, they just do it! They get all dolled up and you turn up to face a television crew dressed in whatever! (Judy was gaining some new insights into Chinese customs). Finally we were informed that the Television crew were doing a story on life in Hong Hu, and had decided to do some filming in this restaurant. (Yes! And I calculated that we received about 400 RMB worth of free food! BUT IT WASN'T FOR AN ADVERTISEMENT!) After about 5 minutes at that table, it was decided that the lighting was not so good, so we moved to another table, and from there to another, and eventually back to the first table, where the light was just fine. With each move, fruit platter, sunflower seeds, water glasses, Ice cream and coffee had to be packed up and transported to the new table. Finally we settled. Now this restaurant does as great 'hamigua bingjiling' (Ice cream sitting on cantaloup), and so to bribe us, (I mean, make us feel welcome), we were presented (Judy and I) with a bowl each. Then of course there was the coffee all round. As there was a delay in the arrival of Judy's ice cream, I held off eating mine. But with time, it began to melt, until there was a mess on the table. When I finally decided to just eat it, with my first spoonful (with the tiniest little spoon you ever did see), the ice cream fell down my face, across my black chalk covered polo shirt, and into my lap. Ahhh! Nothing like seeing a dribbling idiot being interviewed on TV. (Oh! I do apologise. I forgot that America and Australia are at the polls!)
Finally it was explained to me that the reporter would ask me two questions about this restaurant. 'Do you like the place? And How often do you come here?' (Oh Yeah! Every second day! I'm a rich foreigner!) They were true to their word, for there were only two questions, two answers, and two translations into Chinese. But the cameraman wasn't happy with the playback. So Judy who had been on my right (I was at the head of the table), and Crystal who had been on my left, got shifted so that the reporter was to my left and Diana was to my right (and Judy kept ducking everytime the cameraman did a wide sweep of the table!)
Finally with all that done, we got down to some serious coffee and talk, and, surprise surprise, dinner on the house. Just what Judy wanted! From her first day in town she had been sick, she couldn't eat much, and was not used to spicy food.
It was actually the best 'little pieces of pork on bits of bone' that I have eaten here, the proof of which was that I ate most of Judy's meal as well. The night progressed wonderfully and a lot of fun was had by all, until just as we were about to leave I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to have dined with Chen Yang's mother. I got Diana to write me a note in Chinese, and while walking Judy back to her school, we called in at the dry cleaning store to deliver the note. Mother was still there, but didn't see me coming. When she turned around, I was kneeling on the ground in Chinese supplication, holding a note and saying 'Dui Bu Qi' (Sorry!). She freaked! She grabbed both my hands and dragged me to my feet. Having read my apology, she arranged for me to join them the following night.
After I walked Judy home, I took a bus to Yi Zhong (school), and sat down to write this article. So there you have it. Another day of BS.
I do hope you have enjoyed reading it. You won't get to read this for about a month, so I will post an update later and let you know how my classes are going. As for that dinner I went to at Chen Yang's home the following night. The less said about that the better. Actually, after all that beer I don't remember enough of it to write about it. Have fun! ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS
R.P.Bendedek Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com Note: This file was amended August 2007. © Copyright 2002-2007 by Magic City Morning Star |
