Under the Huang Jiao Tree Read online

  She looks doubtful. I’m not sure she knows what they’re for.

  As we sit in the car, becalmed, waiting for the traffic jam to dissolve, Boris and I have a chance to talk – though he has very little English and I no Russian. I’ve already met him in the school grounds – a tall figure with white hair gleaming above all the hundreds of dark student and teacher heads at his shoulder level, his patrician bearing compromised only by a curious loping stride. His face, the skin with that pearly northern pallor, has strong lines sweeping back at cheek and jaw – I imagine bones much heavier and whiter than mine. He has a nose that could command respect on its own and a full mouth characteristically pursed in an expression of mild dissatisfaction. His blue eyes, frank and full of light, are striking – but then I haven’t looked into any eyes of that shape or colour for several days. The visual norms of my world are already changing. Boris manages to convey considerable courtesy with his few phrases of English, and there’s evidence of a well-cultivated mind. His stalking gait and unsmiling demeanour suggest he chooses to be a Russian island in this Chinese sea. He has no hesitation in expressing frustration and impatience. I feel our common European heritage strongly; we have much more in common than either of us has with Chinese culture. This doesn’t seem very important at this moment, but maybe it will be in the long haul ahead. Boris asks me for New Zealand coins for his seventeen-year-old son studying architecture in Moscow. There are a few survivors in the back pocket of my wallet, and I place in his finely-shaped white hand the familiar symbols. How reassuring they look. I’m surprised how sad I am to see them go. But they won’t help me here.

  We travel through a district where all is tattered and grey, with narrow alleys a well-nourished New Zealander couldn’t pass through, stone walls coated with grime, and black holes where people live. Rags hung out to dry, torn plastic awnings and roofs of iron held down with broken bricks are the only signs that anyone lives here. What happens to these people in the five long months every year when clammy fog wraps Chongqing?

  The University, by contrast, is spacious and leafy, with expansive gardens and trees. We leave the car and walk towards an administration building. Hilda, my dreamy but amiable interpreter, studied here last year, sharing a room with six other students. She tells me that if you graduate, the Government will find you a job if you can’t find one yourself. Hilda met Eric, her boyfriend, at a dance at the University. He was studying law at another University nearby, but failed the final exam. Only five per cent pass; the odds aren’t good. Now he has a hot pot restaurant instead, and dreams.

  At the University Foreign Affairs Department, in an atmosphere discreet as an undertaker’s and hushed as a library, my laboriously fair contract is spelt out to me. Holding the Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English has given me the status of Foreign Expert – a frighteningly overblown term – instead of Foreign Teacher. The Chinese copy of the contract must be signed as well as the English copy. Wang, a gentle, intelligent young man in the University Foreign Affairs Department, reassures me: ‘It really is exactly the same.’

  On our return from the University, Hilda with obvious relief hands me over to Ellen. It can’t be easy trying to guide a foreigner through a bewildering bureaucratic maze when you’re as bemused as she is; Hilda and I will have to learn together how life here works. I follow Ellen’s more purposeful figure up the steps of the school office building, to apply for my salary in advance. Apparently I owe more money, representing several weeks’ salary, to the Health and Police Departments. Ellen needs some authoritative piece of paper and we go first to her office, a large room with a desk to match – four men might just be able to move it. There are many files of papers bound in brown paper, but somehow nothing on the desk looks current.

  Out in the corridor, we meet the Deputy Principal, still in his brightly-coloured shirt with ‘Marine’ surprisingly written on it. We’re a long way from the sea here, a frighteningly long way. His accent is pure British and he looks rather like several recent Russian statesmen – massive head, furrowed brow and generous smile. Ellen passes me over to him, for what I’m not quite sure, and runs off down the stairs, waving.

  He motions me to a chair opposite his desk. We’re a long way apart. He doesn’t look at me again, but writes for at least ten minutes in silence. Am I being made to wait to make a point? His face as he writes suggests something simpler. There’s plenty of time to look around his room. Every drawer and every cupboard has a padlock on it. Perched high on a pile of files on his desk, and visible from his window are two red flags. A patriot. Perhaps everyone is. Now, why should I feel envious about that? Is it the sense of a strong community here, united by a common loyalty?

  Eventually he sighs and hands me a neatly printed teaching timetable. He explains that my contract was for fifteen lessons a week but they have a lot of classes and want me to teach twenty-one instead.

  ‘We’ll pay you,’ he says, and smiles virtuously.

  As we talk days and times, the provisional allowances ‘Monday – or perhaps Tuesday’ appear again and again. Is ‘perhaps’ a useful way out if it doesn’t seem such a good idea later? The element of uncertainty in planning seems to be encouraged. I think I sniff a benevolent, ponderous muddler. As he shows me out, he beams: ‘You can bring any problems straight to me.’ It sounds as though he’s offering a short-cut to the top of a very rugged administrative mountain.

  Reaching this stage of legal acceptance as a resident teacher has taken many days and a number of trips. In a country with a powerful bureaucracy this isn’t surprising, but what has surprised me is that the school has dribbled so slowly through a routine they must be familiar with.

  If I’m on a journey, I have to set my progress against some view of time. I brought with me the linear Western understanding of time: time moves forward on a single track and never returns; it’s now or never, every minute counts, fill each with productive action, suck every second dry of its juices. Time’s to be used, so get anxious. I do have a vague awareness of another view in the traditional liturgical shape of the Christian year. This suggests a cyclical view of time – and it’s a model I prefer, of an unbroken circle of life, my origin and my destiny always at the same point. But the church services that I’m used to make little of this. Easter Sunday almost cancels out Good Friday because it comes after it; God intervenes in history, in time that is linear. I’m not so sure that time is essentially linear. And I am sure that linear time isn’t the perspective of those around me in this Chinese world, though I can’t yet see the shape of the lens they’re using. Quite simply, I don’t think time bothers them. Certainly, they have in place the same large frames in terms of activity that the West does, but within these, time doesn’t seem to be the determinant. An episode takes the time it needs, rather than fitting into time. Chinese history and literature make repeated reference to the seasons of the year. I feel myself respond to this; I feel the inevitability of a cycle of seasons in my own spirit. I carry them deep within me – my new lives, flowerings, harvests and deaths – as constant marrow of my bone. I notice I’ve begun to show my recognition of Chinese time. I’m walking more slowly. I prefer this less controlling attitude to time. I’d like to be able to tell myself that I’m taking my time. But I know I’m not – I’m taking their time. I’m fitting in, showing respect for their ways. There’s nothing wrong with that – up to a point – but when I return to New Zealand, will I put on my running shoes again? One day I’ll have to stop forever fitting in. That thought is beginning to gnaw at the back of my mind – but why here in China? It won’t be easy to give it up; I’m good at it, and it can be useful, but some day I might have to come out from behind who I am, and take the consequences – and it’s the consequences I’m afraid of. Who will accept me then?

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  IN AT THE DEEP END

  Foreign Language Schools here specialise in teaching English, which is seen as the open sesame to all international opportunities China ca
n now reach out for under the Open Door policy. Eight such schools (of which this is one) were originally established to allow China’s future interpreters to study English intensively before their University years. As a good standard of English has become vital for gaining entry to China’s relatively small number of elite universities the number of these schools has increased rapidly. All Chinese high schools (middle schools they call them) offer five lessons of English a week. Foreign Language Schools offer ten lessons a week and employ foreign teachers, like me, to give an extra air of authenticity. The English we teach often bears little relation to the prescriptions of the vital Chinese examination system, but we’re able to fill gaps in spoken English, especially in everyday communication, and we serve a symbolic purpose as proof the schools are opening up to the world – as per instructions from Beijing.

  On Monday mornings, the whole school gathers at 7.30 on the sports ground for Assembly. A formidable sound system blares out stirring martial music and the students gather in a closelypacked grid. From my bedroom balcony, I look down on 1200 heads, every one gleaming jet-black. The principal and deputy in turn read speeches, declamatory and strongly amplified. The tone suggests they’re urging patriotism, industry and effort. Student interest isn’t high, but they stand quietly enough, scuffing the ground with their toes or swinging their arms.

  The students all turn out here again, twice a day, for an extended exercise routine to music, with an instructor at the front – a controlled release of the school’s mass of boiling adolescent energy. They seem to enjoy quick, fierce movements of this formal military type. Hilda tells me that, all over China, in every middle school at this time, students are performing the same exercises to the same music. She has no idea I find this astounding. ‘Lemon Tree’ rides the airwaves of China, and millions of young Chinese bodies step and swing obediently, even eagerly. Only in the back rows, where independent minds and troublemakers congregate, do they grin, make token movements, and dream. Would New Zealand students ever perform such mass exercise routines? In spite of the moans and groans, might they even enjoy it? Could we get such mass conformity? Would it be good for us?

  The day dawns for me to leave the safety of my flat, and meet my classes. I’ve watched hundreds of students between lessons racing about like feverish ants on the open balconies of the Junior Classroom block, their yells and laughter amplified by the rock and concrete surrounding them. I wonder what lies in the taller and more imposing senior block behind. All I know is that those blocks house a furnace of energy I have to enter, and I’m apprehensive.

  On my first day of teaching I face five classes of fifteen-year-olds in succession. The day represents my all-time high in internal confusion, and I swim through it with the fixed smile of the desperate. Most of the time, I have no idea who the people around me are, what I’m supposed to be doing, nor where I’m supposed to be doing it. Everyone watches with relaxed and friendly smiles as I race up and down the seven flights of stairs looking for classrooms, address the wrong classes, and sink under the weight of one hundred and fifty of the English first names the students assume for their English classes. Linda is particularly popular – I teach thirteen Lindas. I move through a blur of classrooms, teachers and students. The students themselves are warm, welcoming, full of energy and curiosity, and their standard of English is often excellent.

  A buzz goes round each class when I raise my left hand to write on the board. Left-handers are virtually unknown here. If left-handedness has negative associations, they’re too polite to say.

  Among the teachers there’s a relaxed shirt-sleeves and we’re-all-in-it-together feeling. The smiling bonhomie suggests that everything’s under control, but I’ve no idea what’s going on. The Chinese English teachers for each class sit in on my lessons and explain politely that they are there to learn from my teaching. It seems rather an unlikely outcome, but I imagine they may also be there to check that I’m not trafficking in religious or political dogma. How political is this society? I know they’re afraid of their own bureaucracy, of its power to obstruct. A guide book on travel in China advises in the spirit of: ‘Have as little to do with officialdom as possible. Chances are that if you don’t ask, no one will think to say no.’ Who wrote that – a Chinese or an American?

  The students are fascinated by a kiwi puppet and by New Zealand stamps. Most of them have seen only a handful of foreigners, and never spoken to one. They respond well to oral drilling, to any call to group response, to calls for physical movement – the more vigorous the better. The classrooms echo to roars and shouts. They all smile; at least she’ll be a change, they think. The ardour of their love for their country and pride in their city is impressive. In this they’re absolutely one, and its strength can be felt coming forward from the classes like a gale. Again, I envy their confidence in their shared identity. They’re bursting with questions, speak ardently of family and friendship. Eager and unsophisticated, they’re believers.

  The fifteen-year-olds write a few sentences about Chongqing for me. Dick hands in a drawing of the city’s new Datianwan Sports Stadium and writes: ‘You know in 1981 Newzeland 5 Saudi 0 so China didn’t come into the World Cup!’ There’s certainly reproof here, but he comes up after the lesson and introduces himself. Speaking slowly and carefully, he offers a gracious welcome to Chongqing and to China, and his eyes behind thick glasses are bright and warm. He tells me his glasses are a problem when he’s playing soccer. I tell him I don’t know much about soccer but I love fishing.

  ‘My third uncle likes fishing. You are welcome to my home. We will go fishing with my uncle.’

  I smile and say I’d like that, but when no firm invitation eventuates I’m not surprised. Students and teachers alike swamp me with similar promises. Some prove to be simply expressions of goodwill, while others are of real, practical intent. No-one can explain the code to a Western mind, so I never know which is which.

  The seventeen-year-olds tell something about themselves and what’s important to them. Vincent writes: ‘Soccer is not the all of life but it’s the most. You know, the China soccer team is not very good, but this can’t stop me playing soccer, because I love soccer indeed. The 14th football World Cup match was taken place in Italy in 1990 and my favourit soccer star Klinsmann and his Germany team won. I was very happy. I love football, I love playing football, watching football, talking about football. Do you love soccer, Mrs Jane?’

  Although soccer surfaces again and again in classes, there are other student passions. From the same class as Vincent, Tony writes: ‘I’m a computer fan. I like playing computer game. It’s my life.’

  Brawny as a bear, he introduces himself after his first class. He questions me about what I know of the latest computer technology, computer games, new videos and the NBA. Drawing almost a complete blank, he knows I need help here, and says he and his friends will bring a Jackie Chan and a Will Smith video to my flat for us to watch (foreign teachers who have television sets in their flats have uses) and he’ll take me into the city to buy videos – at one twentieth of the United States price, he adds encouragingly. He’s unusually comfortable with spoken English – it fits his mind and his mouth easily. He’ll prove a good friend.

  As I read the boys’ written contributions, I realise English lessons involving soccer and basketball might well stir some language.

  The students have time in class to ask questions.

  ‘How famous is China in New Zealand?’

  ‘How much Chinese History do you know?’

  ‘Do all New Zealand students get jobs in the holidays?’

  ‘Do you believe in God?’

  ‘Is New Zealand soccer good?’

  I am amazed at the trust, warmth and openness of the students – it accentuates their youth. They present themselves simply – which is attractive – though this may partly be because all that passes between us has to be within the limits of their English. This means I can be simple too. I’m enjoying that. In spite of all the complicatio
ns I feel inside me, on some level I must be simple – an important level, because that’s where I feel at home.

  Very few students show signs of trying to be ‘cool’ or of adolescent apathy or resistance to learning. How have Chinese schools avoided this? I feel encouraged. At this early stage, while I have the advantage of novelty, I don’t think they’ll be difficult to teach and they’re touchingly eager to make friends.

  I struggle to understand the structure of this school. I know it offers six years’ tuition – three junior and three senior, age thirteen to eighteen – and that students in each year are divided into five streams. Classes 1 and 2 at each grade are admitted to the school, virtually free of charge, on the strength of gaining the highest marks at the entrance exam. Class 3 is made up of those who obtained a mark or two fewer in the exam. Their parents pay. Classes 4 and 5 consist of those whose marks were lower still, or who failed to sit the exam. Their parents pay more. Someone, however, insists that no-one pays for tuition at this school. Why do I get so many different answers to the same question? Is it ignorance, lack of interest, concern to give a foreigner the right impression, or the wish to please? But then, why do I ask the same question of different people? I suspect it’s because, unable to feel the bottom of the pool with my feet anywhere in this world, I keep on swimming, asking questions. If I want to live with confidence in China, I’ll have to ask each question only once, or accept a multiplicity of different answers and just let them be. I have a feeling this is what China does.

  A low grade class is housed in a dark basement classroom. It’s the wildest class I teach, and probably my favourite. Cherry, their teacher, says they spend a long time each week trying to clean the classroom for our lesson. There’s no platform by the blackboard and no teacher’s desk – just a small battered student’s desk like all the others. Is this a punishment for low marks? I think of the top class of this grade, two floors above, in their airy room, where gifted students, quiet, earnest and sweet, are slow to respond in class in case they make a mistake. If I were allocating the rooms, I’d bring them down here into the gloom. They’re so bright, they’ll make it anyway. I’d take this noisy, willing class two floors up and give them light to fly by.