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From Magic City Morning Star R.P. BenDedek
Chapter 18 With the new semester in Suzhou, came a new foreign teacher to our school. His name was Bob. Originally from England, but an Australian citizen for many years, Bob was a man who had turned his back on his previous high flying and well paid job to teach English in foreign countries. Bob and I shared the same build, sense of humor, love of philosophy, and attitude toward the way English is taught in China. We would sit in our underwear in the hallway outside our respective kitchens [opposite our rooms] and chat for hours. Sometimes we spent our time in laughter, and other times in anger at the frustration of dealing with kids whose declared ideologies were far removed from their actual practices. It is very difficult to remain calm in the face of lazy, arrogant and pretty much useless students, when they start on about their glorious culture and their pride in China. The politically correct can let their hearts bleed and fill with anger all they want at such words, because their reactions are as far removed from reality as their bodies are from China. Chinese are raised to 'serve the Motherland', so when you are confronted by the dregs of society who show no respect for their parents, teachers, schools, classmates and society at large, but who loudly proclaim their 'love of China' as a justifiable excuse for not doing their homework and talking throughout all their classes, then you know that such kids are opportunistic liars who would have profited greatly had they lived throughout the time of the Cultural Revolution. They certainly can 'talk the talk' but at the end of the day, their talk does nothing but bring dishonor to their culture. As mentioned in the last chapter, half of my classes consisted of students from a 'special school', most of whom were just this type of student. But as also mentioned, not all were like that. Chinese society runs on 'power, manipulation, and control'. The Chinese like to say that Mao Zedeng set China free from the slavery of Feudalism, but in daily life it is quite obvious that feudalism is alive and well in China, and whilst 'you' have been propagandized to believe that this is a Communist invention, the reality is quite the opposite. The history of China is all about 'control'. That is why its history is so full of war and revolution. Everyone wants power, for power equals money. Getting power and using people, is an overlaid blueprint for, and an ingrained pattern of social behaviour in China, and within every class there is always a group of students whose direction the rest of the class will follow. If that controlling group is dedicated to learning, then the whole class will meekly follow and cause no disruption. If the controlling group is discontented or disgruntled [about anything at all], then the rest will meekly follow or at the very least, never oppose the direction in which the class goes. In one of these terrible classes in Suzhou during my final semester, there were 48 students. Even providing such classes to these students was pointless. Eventually, I invited 11 of the students to 'skip' their Wednesday class, and join with another class on Thursdays. This they did. It was completely so not the done thing, but these students understood that it was their only chance of progressing in their English Studies. And progress they did. One of those students, during a group discussion toward the end of Semester, said that she was so grateful that I have been her Oral English Teacher, because I taught her how to speak English. Naturally I objected to her statement, but as the discussion progressed, it was made clear to me, that despite having assumed that this girl had spent considerable time with foreigners or other Chinese in English discussions, she had in fact, never had a conversation in English until I became her teacher. I say this not to flatter myself, but to point out, that there are so many Chinese kids just like her. They have a tremendous amount of English in the computer in their heads, but never progress because no one ever gives them the chance. And then when they are lucky enough to get the chance, there is always the possibility that their classmates will simply not allow them to progress. So when I write things like: "the politically correct can let their hearts bleed and fill with anger all they want at such words, because their reactions are as far removed from reality as their bodies are from China", it is because my heart bleeds for those deserving of a chance, not the opportunistic B.S. artists who chant all the correct propaganda without believing any of it. Eventually, because of these 'special school' students, I had to leave the school. They did a number on me just like they did with Jhunex. There is a lot I could write about what happened, but that will have to wait until after I no longer want to live in China. I say that because that is exactly what I was "advised". The background circumstances were such, that if I published them, I would no longer be allowed to live in China. It was 'suggested' to me by an 'officer', that I leave this story until such times that I no longer live in China. Why? Because it involved someone who could not be 'opposed'. So let me just put the story this way: My classes consisted of the 'regular students' who attended the school and those from the 'special schools'. They did not study together. My regular students progressed well. My special school students did not; not in my classes, or in the national teachers classes. One could never fail a whole class in China, because that would indicate that the teacher was useless; so no classes were failed by the National teachers. Every one of these students was passed, and at the end of their year in this school, they would be returned to whatever place it was from whence they had come, and their educational standard would no longer be the responsibility of our school. How could such students pass their tests? No Comment! But this 'foreign teacher' was somewhat less accommodating in the provision of exam results, and had no problem failing whole classes. Classes controlled by lazy and socially discontented students became angrier and angrier with this foreign teacher's 'lack of respect' for them, until finally in one class, after once again pleading with the better students to take control of the class, a group of the better students cornered me at the end of class to complain that I was a bad teacher. Their announcement was swift and power packed, and I exploded at them and gave it to them in spades. They utterly disgusted me and I told them so. I told them outright that I absolutely hated their class, their laziness and their lack of respect for Chinese culture, tradition, parents, education system and each other. Because they had complained that I did not 'let them talk English' in class, the following week, I walked into class and wrote on the blackboard that I would spend this lesson correcting papers, and they were free to talk English as much as they liked. I sat down in a desk in the front row, with the students behind me. The [better student's] leader sat directly behind me and spent the whole lesson in silence. So much for 'not letting' them speak English. This happened at the very end of the school term, and although I had been requested to agree to sign another contract with the school, I had in fact made inquiries about working elsewhere. That other school decided to contact my current school to check up on me, and as a result I had to apologize to some angry teachers for saying one thing while doing another, and then had to 'promise most faithfully' that I would not go to another school. Two days after making that promise, the students from the 'special school' laid complaints against me with the 'humanities department' [not connected to the English Department], and as a result, I was informed that I would not be given a new contract. The English Department representatives were very embarrassed, and gave me some of the more delicate information which I cannot record here, but the bottom line was that the whole thing was a charade instigated by a particular non-student personage. So incensed was I, that I asked Bob to contact his 'Chinese friend', to organize me a job somewhere else for the following semester. The process took less than 3 days to organize, and I had the new contract signed and returned to my next school, before the regular students of my school found out what had happened. And so it was in my last week of teaching that students came to tell me that they had found out what had happened, and that they had formed a complaint against the humanities department and the special school students, and that I would be invited to continue with their school the following semester. They were shocked to discover that I had already signed a new contract. When the new school contacted the Foreign Affairs Officer and the New Dean of English in my school in Suzhou, they were informed that I was in fact a great teacher that they did not want to lose. The Lies of Political Correctness. No matter how well you are thought of personally, in China, the nation takes precedence over the individual, and Chinese take precedence over foreigners. Such a concept in the west would be politically incorrect. The people who 'did this number on me', were despicable individuals who espoused the ideology and quoted the propaganda, but in whose heart was nothing but selfish disregard for everything that the ideology stood for. They were extremely 'politically correct' in their judicious use of words, but in the end, even their truthful words, if ever they spoke such, [closed complaint - no defence allowed] were distortions designed to punish those [me] who stood in their way. This, as any western person with their eyes open knows, is already happening at an alarming rate in the west. In Australia, the politically correct crowd, in their defence of Australia as a democratic country; in their virulent opposition to discrimination; and in their absolute abhorrence of violence, committed violence, denied democratic rights, and committed discrimination against one Pauline Hanson and her political party members. The very things of which the ideologues accused her and her party, were the very things which they practiced in the name of 'humanity'. Well may it be said that those who bleat the loudest in support of an ideology, are the first to abuse that ideology in the pursuit of personal power, and as I have already said, power and control are the fundamental desires of the Han Chinese. It is in fact the basest desire of the Western Political Correctness Thought Police. On Communism. Sometimes when I read things that westerners write about China and its people, I am left laughing at the sheer ignorant stupidity of the starry eyed multiculturalists. I have lived in China for seven years, and frequently encounter Chinese who are taken aback by the depth of my understanding of Chinese life, culture and thinking, and yet, I am more often than not mystified by the way Chinese people view the world around them. If I can consider myself so ignorant, how is it that the ideologue considers himself to know and understand more about the common Chinese person than I. I particularly find it amusing that western ideologues somehow see Communists as 'less' Chinese in their cultural thinking and emotional drives, than the common man; that they are more abusive and loving of power than the common man. While the political activist berates China for its' totalitarian one party system of government, the reality is that if China were today to become [in reality] a two party system [it actually does have other parties], then next week there would be civil war. These are not my words but those of some University professors with whom I discussed the democratic process in China. China is, for all its apparent strength, a fractured country that would completely fall apart if it were not forcibly held together at this time, and the reason for this, is that China's economic prosperity has grown faster than its educational standard. By this I mean that while many Chinese have grown rich and in some way or another have come to have power that they once could never have had, their internal drive and motivation is extremely 'selfish'. While amongst many young people one can observe true love of country and willingness to serve the best interests of the country, for most people, such espoused ideals are just the required 'politically correct' propaganda to be cited in public. They talk the talk, but the walk is absent from their hearts. If a two party election were held tomorrow and the non-communist party won, it would not take long for that party to find excuse to outlaw the communist party and would then simply replace it as a totalitarian government. It would do exactly what the communists have done. It would just be a repetition of what took place in the Cultural Revolution, with the Red guards being replaced by the Black guards who were replaced by the Grey guards etc. The west may not like communism, and the political activists may not like the Chinese Government, but despite all the problems that exist in this country, the leaders in Beijing are smart enough to know that there are only two ways to hold onto power. One is suppression of the people, which ultimately leads to rebellion, and the other is to create a socialist harmonious society in which everyone is too happy and content to bother with a revolution based solely on some ideological concept. Today's China is forging ahead; gradually loosening its' grip on power, and creating a happy and harmonious society. There are some major issues in the way of course. One is the widespread corruption within the party. It exists everywhere in Chinese culture, but on an ideological ground, it should not exist in the party. There is no better way to demonstrate the sincerity of the Central government's fight against corruption, than to quote a former student of mine who said: 'I am sick of everyday reading in the paper how another official has been arrested for being corrupt!' The other issue of some importance, is that of ethnic strife in places like Tibet and Xinjiang, and to a lesser extent now, the independence movement in Taiwan. But I believe that as China progresses in it's pursuit of a harmonious socialist society, coupled with it's prosecution of corruption, that these provinces will find less and less to justifiably complain about, and more and more for which to be grateful. At the end of the day however, there is only one relevant point to make: When Political Activists in the West spend their time instigating more and more laws to manipulate, control and punish western people who do not hold to their particular ideological beliefs, then they have no right to criticize a so-called 'totalitarian' China. It's just a case of the kettle calling the pot black. In Finding Myself in China, I have discovered that I am free here from the hypocrisy of those who make such a big show of righteous humanitarian, non-discriminating democratic love for truth and the common man. At home in Australia, 'BS' is called an individualistic expression of personal values and viewpoints that may not necessarily be in synchronization with the experiences and opinions of those to be found in the broadest definition of the word 'society'. Here in China, BS is just called BS. It's really nice to be free of Western BS. R.P. BenDedek Hardcover Publishing inquiries welcomed! R.P. BenDedek is the pseudonym of an Australian who has been teaching in China since 2003. In addition to contributing to Magic City Morning Star News as a columnist, he also is an assisting Editor for the Newspaper. Additionally, BenDedek is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at www.kingscalendar.com © Copyright 2002-2008 by Magic City Morning Star |