Scene 1.
‘Happy April Fish Day, teacher!’ My students are knee deep in plastic snack-sized dried fish wrappers. It’s April 1st. There’s a huge grocery bag three quarters full of unopened dried fish packets under one of the rows of desks. It was a gift from a friend of a friend in Fujian province. A huge bag of dried fish, lightly spiced.
Everyone in the class has a mouth full of dried fish and they look quite pleased about it. During the listening segment of the lesson, one of the rows of hard, bench-like desks tips over with a crash. One of the boys had been so enraptured by the fish that he’d tried to sneak just one more from under the seat behind him. The Little House on the Prairie bench collapsed.
‘It’s delicious, teacher! Here, take!’ I’m given a huge stack of my own dried fish. After all, it’s April Fish day today.
I taught a 90 minute class on Introductory Paragraphs in Research Essays (background, general to specific, previous research and citations, aim and research question). Every jaw in the room chewed the dried fish diligently as they took notes.
Scene 2.
Whilst explaining the concept of Academic Body of Knowledge and how a research essay is meant to refer to it and then to add to it, I drew a picture on the board to illustrate it. I drew a small circle and said, this was the first guy to research Subject X. Then I added little petals, one by one, around the center circle until I had a rather magnificent blooming flower and quite a hearty (though metaphorical) growing body of knowledge.
“Teacher! The body of knowledge looks like a chrysanthemum!’ exclaimed one boy. I was so proud. He could pronounce chrysanthemum. Hell, he knew the word even.
“Teacher!” exclaimed another, “It looks just like Student X’s hair from behind!”
Student X, who possesses a mighty head of hair, nodded and beamed proudly. Not only did he possess awesomely poofy hair but it also looked like a lovely blooming flower and represented the growth of academic knowledge and research.
Scene 3.
Mrs Gu and Mrs Tang are the classroom teachers responsible for the well being of my current and previous crops of students. They make sure the kids are in class on time, hauling them out of bed if necessary. They make sure they do their homework and eat their veggies. They yell at them if need be. They call their parents. They mother them because the kids have no mothers in the dormitories. Kids need mothers. They don’t actually teach and I don’t know if they ever did, but they are still officially Gu laoshi and Tang laoshi and they’re the ones you don’t want to piss off if you want to keep your job. The guy I replaced two years ago hadn’t won their approval.
I have.
And I did it in a way that I’m 99.9% certain would have had me fired immediately anywhere else. It wasn’t planned. It certainly wasn’t planned because I’ve been called up for insubordination and inappropriate behaviour in the past for this sort of thing and nearly fired. It’s a weak spot of mine.
It started small. Last year with Gu laoshi, if kids were late I’d jokingly slide my fingers across my throat to indicate what I wanted her to do with them if they were ever tracked down.
She and Tang speak only Shanghainese and I don’t. The kids say they barely understand them, their local accents are so thick. But they are fluent in dark, dry humour. As am I. The light hearted throat slitting grew into slitting with a subtle mime of heads rolling neatly onto the floor with a thump. Then a quick game of soccer. Many hearty chortles and a quick volleyball serve of the metaphorical head of the tardy kid. The kids also thought it hilarious. A Greek chorus of chortles always emanated from inside the classroom.
Today, Gu laoshi beckoned me out into the hallway while I was taking attendance. She mimicked sharpening long knives, one against the other. Skritch skritch skritch. Eyes glinted. She giggled. A quick finger slice to the neck and the nicely sharpened finger neatly did it’s job. The invisible head rolled down the hall. Thumbs up, mimed Gu.
Finger to throat again, she made rough, awkward sawing motions. Terrible, terrible, she indicated. Nothing worse than a dull finger! That head ain’t going nowhere.
I quickly opened my iPod Chinese dictionary and tapped in a word. Inefficient. That’s very inefficient, I said, in appalling tones. Gu and Tang agreed, vehemently.
I went back inside and taught a 90 minute lesson on European business recruitment practices.
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