|
From Magic City Morning Star R.P. BenDedek Part Two in a series of articles about the experiences of an Australian Conversational English Teacher in Rural China. Self published author of 'The King's Calendar:The Secret of Qumran', (a study in Biblical history and chronology), R.P. BenDedek is a pseudonym.
ARRIVING AT HONG HU No. 1. MIDDLE SCHOOL
She was accompanied by Liu Xi Wen (Lawrence) who later became our Liaison Officer, and by Yuan Fu the driver of the school van. Our greetings were exchanged in under a minute and we were immediately whisked away (without even the opportunity to visit the men's room), and driven directly to Hong Hu. We had had no idea where Wuhan was when we landed, and other than being informed that it was the Provincial Capital, we received no further illumination from our hosts. The drive to Hong Hu took three hours despite having used the expressway. It was my first 'real' glimpse of China. I found it both surrealistically beautiful and pitifully shocking. The contrast between landscape and farmhouses was 'marked', as too was that between farmhouses and buildings in the townships. China is a mixture of wealth and poverty set within the backdrop of nature's vast expanse.
It's location is such that it does not receive any 'through traffic', being as it were, the end of the line. It is the end of the line for buses from Wuhan, and has no railway station. It has a population of approximately 136,000 people spread across several townships or villages.
The first thing that shocked us about the school was its sheer size. Although the number has now been increased by about 1000, the school accommodated over 3000 students, of which about 1500 are boarders. At that time there were about 47 'home' classrooms, apart from the 30 classrooms in the technical building, the library, printing room, dormitories, meal rooms and staff offices. The residential premises are located over the road, and primarily consists of six buildings each containing 14 self contained apartments. We were not taken immediately to the school but shown to our quarters. Since the Second apartment was not quite finished, my brother and I shared 'my' apartment for a few weeks. The teachers were quite surprised that we did not wish to live together. (Foreigners are funny like that!) The area within the Residential compound is about one third the size of that within the school boundary. Like the school, it is reasonably new and it was not until after our arrival that the grounds were finally finished. It now even includes a basketball court, and there is still plenty of room for additional buildings. The school and the residential compound are accessible only through security gates. While 'China is a friendly and safe place', security is everywhere present. Even our apartment windows have security grills. It is totally claustrophobic. The night we arrived we were invited to a special dinner with the school's CEO, but he didn't come. He was busy. I call him the CEO because whereas you would understand headmaster to mean the CEO, in Chinese schools, there are so many headmasters and principals that it is impossible to find out who the CEO is unless you use that expression. You know, he was at the school right up until September, and I still had no idea as to who he was or what he looked like.
The food is placed onto the glass section, and when you want something, you just turn the table. Caution is always advised in doing this, for not only are there numerous people all trying to do the same thing at the same time, but as bowls get moved around on it there is always the chance that if it sits too close to the edge it will knock over someone's beer or tea if it is sitting too close.
As a westerner, the first cultural cringe one experiences at a traditional Chinese meal, is watching chopsticks go back and forth between a dozen mouths and the 'Communal' bowl of food sitting on the table. The Next cringe is watching everyone spit unwanted food on the table.
Chinese people like most of their meat 'on the bone'. This does not of course mean that they love a good 'lamb's shank' or 'leg of chicken'. No No! Nothing that simple. They like to chop the bone into a million pieces and then cook it with whatever meat is still left attached. It's rather like eating glass, and as for using chopsticks to take the little slivers of bone from your mouth, forget it! You just have to spit it out, because if you put your fingers to your mouth, everyone has fits.
While I will admit to having a penchant for bacon, and the occasional ham sandwich, I do not eat pork. It is the most revolting thing than one can eat besides mushrooms. But in these here parts, pork is the staple meat. Then of course there is the beer. No meal is ever without it, and the obligatory 'tea' and the oft times offered 'hot coca-cola'.
All of these things were in abundance at dinner, and good manners required that I eat. Without a word of a lie, I spent the first 8 weeks eating biscuits and drinking coffee. (Thank God that Nescafe made inroads into China). For most of the time that night we were asked incessant questions about Australia. What does any normal Aussie say when asked about Oz. What's it like? Sun, Sand, Surf! What's left to say? but of course they really want to know about the 'ships'. The what? The ships! There are many ships in Australia.
You know how people love to chat over dinner? Well that is what people do at formal dinners. And they smoke while they are doing it. I like to smoke but not at dinner. But of course, once you have finished eating, it is nice to just sit there and have a smoke while you talk right? Wrong! Are you finished? someone said. Yes thank you! I replied. And suddenly there was this massive evacuation from the table. Dinner was officially over. 'Good night!' And so we retired to our apartment. Now for you Americans, you already know that February means 'winter', unless you live in Florida. But for us, February is Summer and even our coldest was never as cold as Hong Hu in winter.
Consequently we froze our buns off. Not that it mattered much because despite the fact that the beds came with western mattresses, they were as hard a wooden planks. Actually, the reason for that was that they actually sat on wooden planks. So between the cold, the hunger, and the hard beds, I don't think either of us got much sleep that night.
It did take a week however before anyone took us into town to help us buy groceries. My brother being somewhat experienced, needed only to be shown 'how' to get to town, and after that we were fine. I owe him a huge debt for all that he taught me over the next 10 months about surviving in China. I don't know how I would have managed given the extensive efforts of the school administration in helping us acclimatise. We did however have a lot of problems with our contracts. The school had privately hired 3 foreign teachers previously, and each had only stayed a few months. We on the other hand had come via a SAFIA (foreign affairs office) accredited organisation and our contracts were meant to be standard. Things got so bad that after many calls to Beijing the Foreign Affairs office in Wuhan stepped in, and ordered us out of the school if it (they) did not comply with the regulations for the employment of foreign teachers. In the end, everything settled down. We finally got to go to class. And what a shock that was. 75 students cramped into little rooms with almost no room to move. No heating, no insulation, drafty, dirty, disheveled, and completely chaotic. The students demonstrated no willingness to speak or inclination to be self disciplined. But that is another story! ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS
R.P.Bendedek © Copyright 2002-2007 by Magic City Morning Star |
