Yunnan’s Rain

The cement that makes up the school courtyard is soaked and unevenly spotted with puddles. A dark green mold has emerged and grows under the shallow water, fed by only the rarest episodes of sunlight. Yunnan’s rainy season has returned. The stagnant damp musk blankets around my body in a familiar way. I hug myself at the arms and rest my elbows on top of the brick balcony exterior to my room. The outside of my skin is cold to the touch, but the foggy air has a mellowing effect and I do not feel it. My thoughts sink slowly into the drag of nostalgia and I cannot but think of my arrival into Dachaoshan nearly two years ago.

Strangely, the first memory I remember is neither the time when I took my first shower in shockingly cold rainwater nor when my clothes remained damp for over a week and had frustratingly acquired the strong stench of black mildew. I no longer easily recall the time when I saw a rare double rainbow while playing with Obama the dog on the steps of our balcony’s staircase. The smell of Yunnan’s after-rain penetrates my mind more deeply than those notions. It is distinct, rich with scents of the varied and exotic forest fauna. Upon an inhale, I pick up the freshness of evergreen pine as it slides down from the mountains and mixes with the waxy plant-ness of the banjiao trees. There is a wisp of perfume from the bougainvillea—Yunnan’s most beloved purple flower—which line the main highway. At times, this unusual combination of evergreen and tropical forest scent is obscured by the aroma of red clay exposed to the open air and the somewhat putrid stink emanating from nearby pig pens. The smell is overwhelming. Although I barely recognize the odor of my wet clothes and soggy shoes, I am reminded of when I set foot into Big Dynasty Mountain. I can smell my first walk.

When my thoughts return to this experience, my imagination does not even bother to re-create how I started or where I began—I can only envision myself as already being on the road. My feet propel my body along the highway, following each bend and curve, each upward and downward slope in parallel alignment with the mountain’s natural terrain. Although the road is recently paved, I step carefully around mounds of dirt and gravel with the occasional need to steer clear from piles of cow and goat excrement. Enormous boulders, which must have existed in some prehistoric age, flank the shoulders of the road, while young clusters of bamboo sprouts try to shove their way between the cracks. Surrounding the rocks grows thick, wild underbrush that has become more unruly by recent summer showers. Above a grey fog, burdened in bundled moisture, slowly rolls over the mountain until everything is gradually covered in a ubiquitous haze. With every step I take, I breathe in the intoxicating scent of the mountainside forest, suspended in my lungs. It will rain soon.

I sigh and slowly make my way back into my room. My brown Boyte bag, whose once fashionable shade of chocolate had been dulled by two years’ worth of dust and mold, stands swollen and erect in the middle of the floor. Everything is already packed. What could not fit into the bag was shipped directly to Shanghai via two medium-sized cardboard boxes. Without too much thought, I made sure they were taped up very thoroughly so the rain would not penetrate them in transit. My co-fellow finished her latest “Paint-by-Numbers” project—a canvas which copied the image of Van Gogh’s Starry Night in the form of a children’s coloring book, where one fills in small areas with a pre-designated color. I had asked her a while back if she would consider giving me the painting as a memorable gift of our friendship. She agreed and I promised that it would be the first thing I hang up in my new metropolitan residence. It will probably be the closest thing I can get to a view full of stars after I leave, I thought somewhat regretfully. I made sure she signed her name.

I had given away the trinkets and objects that had filled up in my room over the years to the local teachers, who quickly shuffled them away into their own rooms with polite smiles. Actually, save for very few items, almost everything was taken. I decided to keep a couple laminated photos, even though I have electronic duplicates on my computer. Some precious notes that a couple students wrote to me I tucked away between the folds of my clothes. I also packed a set of glass mugs that a student, whose name I never knew, gave to me the night before. The last thing I saved was one of my most cherished items: a pair of farmer’s local-style cloth shoes. I had recently washed them and so they were drying on the balcony outside. They were presented to me by two brothers who live in Dachaoshan’s furthest hamlet. I stayed two nights in their village, chatting with them about life in the States, picking tea leaves, village gossip, and other various topics. Every time I handle the shoes, my heart is torn between either putting them one, which would ultimately wear them out, or storing them away in preservation. I always end up choosing to wear them. They make very comfortable walking shoes.

My shorts vibrated from the cellphone buzzing in my pocket. I took it out and turned off the pre-set alarm. Outside my window I saw that the rain had ceased and been replaced by a brilliantly shining sun. By the time that it would start raining again, I would be far away from Dachaoshan. I stooped down to sling on my backpack and grasped the faded brown handle to my suitcase. I looked around at the bare bleached walls of the concrete enclosure and silently wished it goodbye. Turning, the momentum of my walking feet propelled me outside into the transitioning day, overcoming the sudden nostalgic urge to look back.

On Duty: Part 2

If my students know the Chinese equivalent of “treat others the way you want to be treated,” then they certainly fall short of upholding it as an honored mantra. Outside of the usual shoving and hair-pulling, I have seen worse cases of downright hatred, including a recent incident involving two girls scratching each other’s faces bloody. A more expansive list includes a group of boys bullying another boy to quit school, two rival girl gangs consistently meeting out on the basketball courts to throw punches until none of them were allowed back to school, and “townies”—students who live in the main part of the village—cursing out and kicking those students who come from more rural (often less developed) areas.

To make matters more intractable, parents oftentimes fail to nullify the situation. In the three-way parent-teacher-student discussions, tension runs high while mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, and other relatives are quick to curse the opposing family unit. As fists are raised again, teachers try to calm down the scene at the expense of a few nasty words in return. No one leaves these dialogues completely satisfied. At least an outcome that nobody can object to is that all the students involved must return home for a couple days to cool-off. One might reasonably figure that if the school kicked out every student who was in a fight or initiated an instance of bullying since they arrived in grade seven, not many students would be left.

Maybe it has to do with village etiquette. A close Chinese friend from rural Henan province, who now works in Shanghai, pointed out that the standards for manners in his village are vastly different from those he has experienced in developed cities. Even small gestures of politeness to both strangers and locals, such as waiting in lines, helping out an old person, or holding the door open for another person, seem virtually non-existent in remote towns. Not-so-little children will say directly to both relatives and their peers “Geiwo!” (Give it to me!) when they want something. If you walk through a market day, where tables line up on either side of a dirt road overflowing with the season’s best produce, crowds will unflinchingly jostle one another in order to get where they need to be, pushing their way to the front of a table with money in hand in spite of the person who arrived before them. Nobody mutters a quick “excuse me” or “sorry” and items that were knocked down in the fray are never picked up and returned to their original spot on the tables.

This isn’t to say that local people in rural areas are brutish or uncivil; actually, this is very far from the truth. As a guest, you may be treated exceptionally well. Locals, of whom I have never interacted with before, have seen me only once and  taken it upon themselves to invite me inside their homes to share a meal with them. At other times, old ladies who are in the process doing their cross-stitch work will suddenly bundle up their cloth with strings freely hanging and abruptly stand in order to offer a seat to me. Some of the conversations that I have had with farmers passing by have been the most pleasant and enlightening ones in my two years spent here.  In the past, I have received huge bags of fresh apples, carrots, corn and other crops from local families upon entering their household. Twice, I have been asked to become the bridesmaid for newlyweds who I did not even know their full names.  Thus, I would go so far as to say that much of the hospitality and generosity I have experienced here has even surpassed the so-called American “Midwestern politeness”. But, then, whence originate the onslaught and strife?

While people in this area have proven to be uncommonly welcoming and inviting into their homes and lives, it seems they have a completely different set of reactions when they face something frustrating and angering. I have noticed that punishment for superior-inferior relationships (e.g. parents and their children) usually includes a dimension of harsh physical returns. While it is not the case for every family, many of my students have confessed to me or to their other teachers that they have been hit or slapped severely at home for making childish mistakes, like not listening to their mother or father’s instructions, playing for too long, causing problems at school and so on. During home visits, parents will encourage me to hit or slap their child if they do something out of line (I have yet to take them up on this offer). Though I have never paid witness an unhappy work environment here, I have heard of occasions in which bosses will curse out or scream at employees for making small mistakes in their jobs. Swearing is rampant among all ages.

Violence does not only occur between people of different social statues. Young children watch in on as gang members take out their hatred in fist and knife fights, while sons and daughters watch their parents claw and kick at other adults, only to mirror these cruel actions later on. Old retirees will bitterly bicker and make threatening moves with other aged men and women. Anger management thereby seems to be left literally in the hands of the people angry with each other.

As far as the case with my students goes, there are more factors that aggravate these vicious outbursts. Firstly, in farming communities where parents must leave home for months to work and earn a living, nobody can stay home to take care of their son or daughter. Even if these parents want their child to grow up in a way that is more becoming and warm-hearted, the fact that they are not physically present in the household isolates them from becoming a dominant role in their child’s maturation. Students who return on the weekend to an empty house have nobody to dissuade them from hanging out with the “wrong crowd” of peers and falling into bad habits like smoking, drinking gambling, and gang fighting.

Yet another problem is that within minor village disputes there is no ‘higher authority’ that villagers feel they can appeal to. Last year, I listened to one student recount a story of his middle-aged neighbor. The woman, after being sworn at by another villager, took retribution by biting off a piece of the other villager’s ear. In spite of the sickening mess, not a single witness out of the huge group that had clustered to gawk had notified an officer. Utterly shocked, I asked the student why. He shrugged his shoulders and replied that no one thought the local policemen would do anything to remedy the situation, adding that he personally thought that the police were too afraid to confront this kind of violent episode. Rarely there is someone who has a good enough relationship with the majority of the people in the town to help smooth over the situation and is able to successfully encourage both fighters to return peacefully back to their lives.

For students, I believe this attitude has carried over to their perception of their teachers at school. When tempers rise and an outbreak is imminent or happens, teachers only find out after-the-fact, in spite of the large number of students who knew that such a thing would happen. We are very seldom notified in advance, even if there are dissenters among the witnesses or informants. Of course, there may be students who, out of curiosity, might even want the fight to occur, or those who fear that simply being involved will yield punishment; however, these case are few and far between. Some students have expressed to me that they believe teachers cannot help resolve or prevent the fight, even if they were present. In these episodes, the idea of running to find a parent or a school leader is a fleeting one that is erased by the feeling of hopelessness and lack of faith.

In instructing my students to look out for one another, even for another peer they do not like, I have been fighting an uphill battle. As an American who grew up in a privileged area and by parents who taught me by firm compassion and love, my methods for dealing with anger are inherently different than how my students have seen throughout their lives. Truly, I am an outsider to these villagers and do not completely understand lines of hatred that have existed over the ages between town-people and remote hut clusters as well as those of different ethnic minority backgrounds. Still, through my interactions with students and “no-hitting” policy in my classroom, I try to find simple ways to demonstrate how a friendlier and more respectful environment for everyone can be formed via empathy and logical reasoning rather than over-emotional tumult and physical aggression. I’d like to think that it has been working: while I have been on duty, students have become more patient in their words and actions, and they have become bolder with their smiles.

On Duty

I am only two minutes late and, as I walk down the flight of stairs to the school’s cafeteria, I see the line of 7^th grade boys shoved backwards in a pulsed wave. Flip-flops come off in the scuffle and one student trips over the boy in back of him. Another group of boys, hugging each other, stumble backwards gleefully and then regaining composure only to shoulder the students in front of them, once again creating another wave—this time in the forward direction. I hasten my steps and urge myself to get to the front of the line. Moving past the boy on the ground, who is beginning to stagger to his feet, I look for the perpetrators of the initial push. A few unhappy girls catch my attention. With a pouting face and reddening cheeks, one of the more outspoken girls hotly tugs on my jacket sleeve.

“Teacher, these boys cut in line!”

Without wasting a second, I ask, “Which ones? Show me.” The girl steps out of the line and taps six offenders on the shoulder. I nod to her in approval. The past year and a half has toughened and firmed my attitude towards any instance of unfairness, even if the wrongdoing is something as small as cutting in line.

“You six.” I look them seriously and square in the eyes.  “You know the rules. You are not supposed to cut in line. This is unfair to other students and causes a huge disruption. Take your bowls and walk slowly to the back of the line.” My voice, even though I am speaking in Chinese, is smooth, firm, and unyielding. There is a brief pause from the six boys, as if they can search for a way to maintain their cushy spots at the front of the lines, but I hold my gaze. Without me adding an extra word, the boys groan outwardly “Aiyaaaa!” and drop their metal bowls and chopsticks to their sides, dragging their feet past the long line in which they will now have to wait.

Although I am not a banzhuren, who has the dual role of homeroom teacher and caretaker, twice a semester I am expected to, like all other local teachers, carry out zhizhou (pronounced: jer-joe) roughly meaning “to be on duty” for a week. My responsibilities are straightforward. Before the crack of dawn, I wake up only to hustle bleary-eyed students out of their cozy quilts and herd them to the school courtyard to do morning exercises. When the last morning class bell rings and students rush to get in line for lunch, I use a stern voice to maintain order and firmly pull cutting-in-line offenders to the back. After I gulp down a quick lunch with our other teachers, I then usher students back to their dormitories for the hour-long afternoon nap time. Jittery students who chat loudly or try to sneak off to the playground to play basketball are given a sharp reprimand. Later, the same process as lunch is repeated at dinner time. Finally, after their two grueling nighttime study halls, I head to the dorms with my flashlight and make sure all students are in their beds, the floors are swept, and they are nodding off into a deep sleep. For this one week, I am like an older sister who tucks them in at night and says “sweet dreams.” Exhausted from pulling apart student hassles and keeping the students in line throughout the day, I hit my own bed and fall asleep almost instantly.

In spite of the draining schedule, zhizhou gives me an opportunity to interact with students in different way than in the classroom, especially with regards to etiquette. Among my students, especially the boys, pushing, cursing, hair-pulling, tripping, wrestling, chalk-chucking, spitting, thing-snatching, and hitting are all appropriate forms of friendship. Having been brought up in a household that maintained somewhat traditional European manners (I can almost hear my mother snapping, “Elbows off the table!”), I was taken-aback when I saw students grabbing each other’s shirts and yanking them to the ground. The first time when I admonished two boys who had done so left me with two confused faces. Thinking that they did not understand my American-accented Chinese, I demonstrated the shirt-grabbing behavior to show them what I thought they had done wrong. Realizing my meaning, they grinned ear-to-ear and told me that they were just playing. As they left laughing, I stood alone trying to piece together how what I thought to be dangerous, even somewhat violent, behavior, could be interpreted as fun. At first, I thought the pair of boys’ logic was a fluke and that other students wanted to deserve kinder treatment. I tried to give warnings students who I thought were displaying bully-like behavior.  I received the same reactions as the first pair of students: a wide grin and a line of reassurance. Slowly, due to its ubiquitous presence at the school and the lack of local teacher support, I addressed these forms of so-called comradery less and less.

Still, I cannot stop some questions nagging at my conscious. Here, where fist-fights are a common way for both adults and children to quickly resolve a dispute, why should I teach my students the virtues of kindness and benevolence?  In a place where no one seems to support these virtues, or at least take these kinds of behavior as normal, I wonder what the purpose and relevance kindness have. And, in careful perspective of their actions, do my students need or require a local community that is more kind? A couple experiences here in Big Dynasty Mountain, as well as in Henan help me to unfold some ideas.

(To be continued in “On Duty – Part 2”)