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Published: August 12th 2007
Another attempt to earn some desperately needed summer cash. When we returned from Hunan province, missing horribly the ambrosial succour that is William's company, David said that he had another opportunity for us. A week later, after Cecelia spending much time on the phone, and us being completely uninvolved in any of the plans, found us waiting to be picked up outside the school gate, for some demo classes around Shaanxi province.
"They'll be there between 12 and 2," sez Cec.
2.45, a big, black, shiny Nissan pulled up. The two bossmen, who we later dubbed Elvis and Costello, bounced out, gestured, and we sped off into the countryside.
The total sum of English known by the two is "OK", and "Cheers", which doesn't lead to very in-depth conversations, but useful for doing the only thing they know - drinking lots of bad beer. It was great for our Chinese though, one tick in the 'pros' box of assessing this trip. Trying to work out what was happening, and where the hell we were off to next, does wonders for language ability. We couldn't even call on the permanent English teachers for help, as they invariably reverted to Chinese in
Yana Suburbs
View from Hedge School. About one hundred people live here. The teacher gets really bored, he does a lot of calligraphy in the evenings, apparentlytalking to us, being unable to communicate in English, aside from what they had learned from the children's books they were currently teaching. Their grasp of the colours was amazing though, but only in chanting form.
The first night in Yanan, about 4 hours away from Xian, was spent in a drinking and dice competition. The Chinese blokes lost horribly, and were tickled pink by our command of the intricacies of the dice game. About 1am, they drove us to our hotel in the middle of nowhere, blaring their police sirens and flashing lights. We asked if they were policemen or detectives, they replied "sort of", and giggled. They flashed an actual police car, and gurned at each other, falling around laughing. I gathered from this that maybe the sirens were not kosher, and as the trip progressed, seeing all those fingers in all those pies, we deduced that maybe they were serious businessmen, as they were also covered in scars, and had an entourage of drivers, women and hotel owners that traipsed around after them, doing anything they asked. Stopping every once in a while to collect bundles of crisp one hundred yuan notes from people standing on
the side of the road helped lead to this conclusion. Entering tourist atttractions was paid for by cigarettes, rather than cash. And one museum was opened up for us, even though it was officially closed, with a personal tour by the manager. Even highway toll booths seemed to hand back the same money as we whizzed through.
8am the next day was a bit painful, but saved by the mayo jar full of instant coffee I had packed. The first school was extremely unexciting, the teachers more concerned about their blingy shoes and their hair than actual teaching. They took private lessons for extra monet while we taught their real classes. It was also lashing with rain, and we had to hang around in the school until 7.30pm, because it was raining too hard to go anywhere. 12 hours, and we only get paid for the actual lessons taught. Yum. Getting back to the hotel, the electricity was out, another hour hanging around in reception until they found a candle. This was caused by huge thunderstorms, which lasted the first week. Enormous bursts of lightening lit the way up the stairs. Luckily, Artemis isn't easily spooked, she was asleep
Don't leave me behind
Whenever I'd pack, and put her collar on, Artemis would panic, and glue herself to the door of the hotel room, determined not to be forgotten on the bed. Apparently, according to the China Daily (amazing source of news, if you read between the lines), the excess lightening is caused by increased CO2 in the air. Yummy. And I thought getting to the countryside would be escaping from the pollution.
The students in Yanan were very spoiled, running around the classroom, pulling down other kids' shorts, boys pouring milk over the girls. Attempts at discipline were halted by the other teachers, they apparently let them run riot, because their parents are so rich. None of that, I made kids stand at the back, sit down and play nicely, and there was a marked improvement in behaviour. The teachers deserted us, saying "just practise the oral English" at the beginning of every lesson, before they ran off to tutor, or text people. Quickly running out of games, I played an interminable amount of hangman with them. They seemed to enjoy it. I know I did.
The other schools were much better, unfortunately it was the Yanan school we spent most time at. Most schools were also better with the timetable, allowing us to work two classes in the morning in sequence, then a long lunch,
Signing Autographs
Some of these kids are 15 or 16. Aren't they little? then two in the afternoon. There was a tiny hedge school, with 6 students, with a great teacher. He was good with the kids, got them excited, and helped us with translation of game rules, though by this stage I had the rules in Chinese well memorised. Another school in Zhi Dan, where we stayed at the hotel belonging to the mother-in-law of one of the teachers, was pretty good, two of the teachers were real disco rats, and fun to hang out with after school. Yi Chuan was another school, set into the caves in the mountains, they actually had their lessons organised so we never taught the same class twice. Lou Chuan was the last stop on the way home, wonderful students, though classes ranged from 6-16, difficult to find something to keep all age groups interested. Yay, hangman. One teacher was loving it, and played along with, also putting up her hand with the children to say her name, age and favourite colour. At least 15 minutes of each class was taken up with photos and signing their books. I amused myself by trying a different style on each, until they examined each others books, and came
Chocolate River!!
It's loose soil, not anything yucky back, demanding another like I had done on someone else's book.
We were supposed to stay for two weeks, but ended up having to lie, and say we had a flight booked to Thailand on Saturday, as they wanted us to stay for three weeks, and I had had enough, especially with the Yanan school of lazy teachers. Every day we were told, "only one more day". On Wednesday (2 and a half weeks and counting, and 4 days of "one more day"), we asked what time the next day we would be leaving.
"Oh, no tomorrow, 12 classes, then 8 classes. Then go home Friday night."
"No."
"But we like you to stay."
Bugger off.
We agreed to work the next morning, then leave after lunch.
As well as teaching these demo classes, which we soon realised were not real classes, just a showing off of the foreign teachers to get more students in - making it easier for us, as the teachers didn't mind playing 40 minutes of 'Headup, 7 up', a game of closing eyes, four students touching one other's thumb, and those picked trying to guess who had picked them (excellent for your English)
Proof I did go
No choice, just herded into the car and taken there - we also visited some very famous sights in China.
We went to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, I mean, Hukou waterfalls. The river is a lovely, rich chocolate brown, which is actually really pretty, just not great in photos. Many, many tourists there, none fell in, unfortunately, though I had my camera ready to capture the moment, as people were being hoisted onto other people's backs to cross to a rock closest to the falls. Yanan tower was also visited. It's very tall.
This area is renowned for being the centre of the start of the Cultural Revolution. As many places are. Zhi Dan is named after some bloke who was big back then, we went through his museum, every single photo in intricate detial. I can't remember much about it, but the grounds were beautiful. Also, the XinHua museum, the news group. many articles in glass cases, 'corrected' by Mao. Scary waxworks that freaked Artemis out, so we left fairly quickly. There were lots of typewriters and transmitters, not very exciting. Also not hugely comfortable with that level of propaganda so thrust into my face, so I smiled plastically/grimaced, said "very interesting", and busied myself with pretending to
Oompa Loompas
Or maybe tourists in silly hats, not sure. They are little though fix Artemis' collar.
A 2 hour drive home took 4 hours, of course, as we had to detour to visit the boss. This happened a lot, our main driver, aptly named Driverman, took advantage of our small appetites by inviting at least three of his mates along for every meal. This meant we also had to pick them up on the way, usually on the other side of town. He never asked us if this was OK, just dragging us anywhere at his whim. Everything was very much done to suit everyone else, having us sitting around for hours was of no consequence to them, as we were far too polite to whinge. Getting paid made everything better, surprisingly this was the least problematic part of the trip, luckily I had been anal and untrusting enough to keep a full record of all classes worked. Luckily, as they asked us on the last day how much they owed us, they had been too hungover every day to keep track.
Nice to get home, eat when we want, rather than lunch at 11am and dinner at 4, when it suited Driverman. Plus, just downloaded Harry Potter 7, so busy
Elegance
And not one fell in listening to that at the mo. Only 10 discs to go...
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marian little
non-member comment
madness
Hi Erin after reading your last Blog I have decided that both of you are bonkers. keep safe and well Auntie Marian