“Students like that must be dealt with severely,” said Hsin-mei vehemently. “I’ll go talk to the president about it this evening. Have you reported this to Mr. Liu?”
Hung-chien said, “It’s not just a question of reprimanding the students. Miss Sun can’t go on teaching that class. You should ask the president to find someone else to take over her class and declare that the school has been unfair to Miss Sun.”
Miss Sun said, “I’d rather die than teach that class. I really want to go home,” she sobbed.
Hsin-mei quickly said it was a small matter and invited her and Hung-chien to join him for dinner. While she was thinking about the invitation, a messenger came from the president’s office asking for Hsin-mei. Kao Sung-nien was giving a reception for the inspector from the Ministry of Education. All department chairmen had to attend, and he was asking Hsin-mei to go to the reception immediately.
“What a nuisance!” said Hsin-mei. “We won’t be able to have our dinner today,” and he left with the messenger.
Hung-chien unenthusiastically invited Miss Sun out for dinner. She suggested they go some other day, as she wanted to return to the dormitory. When Hung-chien noticed how pale she was and that her eyes were puffy and bore all the telltale marks of crying, he asked her if she wanted to wash her face. Without waiting for her to reply, he took out a fresh towel and pulled out the stopper from the thermos bottle. While she was washing her face, Hung-chien gazed out the window, thinking how Hsin-mei would misconstrue this if he knew about it. When he had given her what he thought was ample time to wash her face, he turned around and discovered that she had opened her purse and was looking in the mirror and putting on powder and lipstick. He gave a start. He had never thought she went around so well equipped with makeup; he had always thought that her unadorned face was a work of art by itself.
When Miss Sun had finished fixing her face, her eyelids, reddened from crying and set off by the color on her cheeks and mouth, looked as though they too had been touched with rouge. It lent an air of unexpected wantonness to her innocent face. As he was seeing her out, Hung-chien passed by Lu Tzu-hsiao’s room. Lu was sitting in his room smoking with his door half opened. When Lu caught sight of the two of them, he quickly stood up and nodded, then sat back down again as though he were attached to a spring. They had not gone more than a few steps when they heard someone calling them from behind. They turned around and saw Li Mei-t’ing, beaming triumphantly. He told them that Kao Sung-nien had just asked him to serve as dean of students, and the appointment would be formally announced the next day. He was now on his way to the social room to welcome the inspector from the Ministry of Education. Giving Miss Sun a close scrutiny with his dark glasses as though surveying her through a telescope, he said laughingly, “Miss Sun is getting prettier and prettier! Why don’t you come see me instead of just going to see Mr. Fang? When are you two getting engaged—”
Hung-chien hissed at him, and he ran off laughing.
Hung-chien had just returned to his room, when Lu Tzu-hsiao came in and said, “Why, I thought you and Miss Sun had gone out for dinner together. What happened?”
Hung-chien replied, “It’s beyond my means. I’m not like you big professors. I’ll wait for you to do the inviting.”
Lu said, “I’ll invite her if I want to. What difference does it make? I’m afraid she might not do me the honor.”
“Who? Miss Sun? I can see you’re quite concerned about her. Taken a liking to her, have you? Ha, ha. Let me introduce you.”
“Don’t be silly! If I wanted to get married, I’d have done so a long time ago. Ai, ‘He who has seen a great ocean is not easily content with a pond!’”
Hung-chien said with a laugh, “Who told you to be so choosy? Miss Sun’s very nice. I made the trip here with her, and I can vouch for her disposition.”
“If I wanted to get married, I’d have done so a long time ago,” he repeated, like a record player with its needle stuck in a groove.
“No harm in just meeting her.”
Lu peered suspiciously at Hung-chien and said, “Aren’t you on pretty close terms with her yourself? Taking away someone else’s girl is something I wouldn’t do. Nor would I pick up what someone else has let go.”
“Of all the nerve! You are really low.”
Lu quickly said he was only kidding and promised to invite Hung-chien out for dinner in a few days. After Lu Tzu-hsiao left, Hung-chien began to think how funny it was. Miss Sun would certainly be happy if she knew someone was adoring her. The news might cheer her up. But then Lu didn’t seem worthy of her. She wouldn’t go for someone like him. It’d be best if she went ahead and got married. All the frustrations she had to put up with in her job just weren’t worth it. Those students really were impossible—enough to give you a headache. The slogans they had written on the board were quite grammatical, though. She should take that as a consolation. When she’d calmed down, he’d tease her about it.
Hsin-mei returned from dinner reeking of alcohol and asked Hung-chien, “Did you ever go to Oxford or Cambridge when you were in England? What’s their tutorial system like?”
Hung-chien replied that he had taken a trip to Oxford and spent a day there, but didn’t know in detail how the tutorial system worked. He asked Hsin-mei why he wanted to know.
Hsin-mei replied, “Today’s guest of honor, the inspector, is an expert on the tutorial system. Last year he was sent to England by the Ministry of Education to study it and stayed at both Oxford and Cambridge.”
Hung-chien said with a laugh, “How can there be an expert on the tutorial system? Wouldn’t any student at Oxford or Cambridge know a lot more about it? All those people in charge of education can ever do is try to impress everyone with fancy names. By the same token, there should be experts on studying abroad and experts on being a university president.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Hsin-mei. “I think the educational system is just as worth studying as the bureaucratic system. For instance, not all the government officials are necessarily informed of its strengths and weaknesses.”
“All right, I won’t argue with you. We all know you teach political science. Tell me, what did this expert have to say? Does his visit have something to do with the meeting tomorrow?”
“The tutorial system is a new policy of the Ministry of Education. They’re telling every university to put it into effect, but apparently the response hasn’t been very good. Our President Kao here is most enthusiastic about carrying it out—Oh, I forgot to tell you. ‘Blind Man Li’ is now the dean of students. Ai, you knew it already. The inspector will advise us on it while he’s here. He’s going to attend tomorrow’s meeting, but what he said today wasn’t especially brilliant. According to him, the tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge has a lot of weaknesses. It’s a long way off from the ideal of having students and teachers sharing a community life. The plan we put in effect will be one which has undergone his improvements and the ministry’s approval. At Oxford and Cambridge each student has two tutors, an academic tutor and a morals tutor. He thinks that goes against educational principles. A teacher should be a ‘learned scholar and a man of virtue’ with character and scholarship both. Therefore each person is assigned one tutor who is a professor in his own department. That way scholarship and moral virtue can be combined. The British morals tutor is a tutor in name only. If the student gets into trouble on the street and is hauled away by the police, the tutor goes to the police station and bails him out. If the student owes a shop money and can’t pay it, he acts as guarantor for him. The responsibility of our kind of tutor is much greater. He has to investigate, correct, and report to the authorities on the student’s thinking anytime, anywhere. That’s how the regulations go. We can skip that, but there’s another point he’s very proud of. British tutors talk with the students while smoking their pipes. This goes completely against the spirit of the New Life Movement, so we are absolutely forbidden to smoke in front of the students and we should give up sm
oking altogether—and yet he hasn’t himself. He smoked merrily away on all the cigarettes provided by the restaurant, and even pocketed a box of matches on his way out. British teachers take their meals with the students but sit at separate tables. They sit on a platform while eating so that students and teachers are cut off from each other. That too has to be changed. From now on we’re to eat all three meals a day at the same table with the students—”
“Why not just go ahead and sleep in the same bed with the students!”
Hsin-mei said with a laugh, “I nearly suggested that at the time. You still haven’t heard what ‘Blind Man Li’ had to say! He began by flattering the inspector, then said something about how the civilized nations of China and the West are all very strict about keeping the sexes separate. Love between student and teacher undermines the authority of the teacher and the student’s respect for him. Since this is so deplorable, in order to prevent any such thing from happening, unmarried teachers should not be tutors for women students. It was so annoying, and they all looked at me and laughed—you see, of all those deans and department chairmen I’m the only one who isn’t married.”
“Ha, ha, that’s great! But if there’s danger of a love affair between an unmarried teacher and the woman student he’s tutoring, then there’s just as much likelihood of adultery when a married teacher tutors a woman student. He didn’t mention that.”
“I asked him whether married men who hadn’t brought their wives along could tutor women students or not. He mumbled something and told me not to get him wrong. That ‘Blind Man’ is a real bastard. One of these days I’m going to spread around the stories about Wang Mei-yü and that Soochow widow who traveled with us. Oh, and there’s another thing. He said that men and women faculty members should not have too much contact with each other. It would give the students a bad impression.”
“That clearly refers to Miss Sun and me,” exclaimed Hung-chien. “‘Blind Man’ just saw us together.”
Hsin-mei said, “It doesn’t necessarily refer to you. I noticed Kao Sung-nien’s expression changed at that moment. There must be something behind it. But I think you should propose, get engaged, and married as soon as possible. That way ‘Blind Man’ won’t be able to gossip. And—” he raised his hand, grinning broadly as he spoke—“you’ll have the chance to commit adultery if you want.”
To stop him from uttering any more nonsense, Hung-chien asked if he had talked with Kao Sung-nien about the student who had insulted Miss Sun. Hsin-mei said that Kao knew all about it and was planning to expel the student. Hung-chien then told him that Lu Tzu-hsiao was interested in Miss Sun. Hsin-mei replied that as her “uncle” he approved only of Hung-chien. They joked for a while; then as Hsin-mei was leaving, he said, “Oh, I forgot the most interesting part. There’s one item in the proposed tutorial system promulgated by the ministry that states that after the student has graduated, if he commits any criminal act in society, the tutor will be held responsible!”
Hung-chien was dumbfounded. Hsin-mei went on, “Just think, the tutorial system is turning into that sort of thing. When the Ming Emperor Ch’eng-tsu executed ten branches of Fang Hsiao-ju’s clan,9 it’s said that even Fang Hsiao-ju’s teacher was put to death. Will there be anyone who still dares teach in the future? I’m certainly going to oppose it at tomorrow’s meeting.”
“Hell! What I saw of the Nazi Party’s educational system when I was in Germany wasn’t even that bad. Is that supposed to be part of the Oxford-Cambridge tutorial system?”
“Humph, Kao Sung-nien even wants me to write an article in English and submit it to a foreign journal, so Westerners can see that we have the Oxford-Cambridge atmosphere, too. For some reason all the good things from abroad always go out of whack when they come to China.”
Hsin-mei sighed, not knowing that this is China’s special talent, something for which she is unrivaled. Anything coming from abroad is always destroyed.
Hung-chien said, “You were always telling me how smart your former teacher Kao was. Now that I’ve come and seen him in action, I don’t find him so brilliant at all.”
Hsin-mei said, “Maybe I was too young and inexperienced then to judge him correctly. But I think Kao Sung-nien has come up in the world these last few years. When a person gets in a high position, he’s apt to get carried away.” He didn’t realize that a person’s shortcomings are just like a monkey’s tail. When it’s squatting on the ground, its tail is hidden from view, but as soon as it climbs a tree, it exposes its backside to everyone. Nevertheless, the long tail and red bottom were there all the time. They aren’t just a mark of having climbed to a higher position.
The Chinese Literature major who had made trouble for Miss Sun was dealt with in this manner: Chairman Liu of the Foreign Languages Department favored dismissing him, but Chairman Wang Ch’u-hou of the Chinese Department was opposed to it. Chao Hsin-mei, because of his personal relationship with Miss Sun, was willing to help out but not to act on her behalf, and had merely supported Liu Tung-fang’s position from behind the scenes. Li Mei-t’ing, the Dean of Students, stepped in to break the deadlock. Li held that the student’s rudeness resulted from not having received a tutor’s guiding influence, and he had therefore remained in ignorance. One who did not know any better was blameless and should be excused. The case could be settled by giving him a demerit. Li called the student in to his room and thoroughly lectured the student for some time, telling him how everyone had wanted to dismiss him, that Wang Ch’u-hou could do nothing for him, and that thanks entirely to Li, he was not dismissed. With moist eyes, the student expressed his gratitude.
Meanwhile there was no one to take over Miss Sun’s class, and so Liu Tung-fang, afraid that Mrs. Han might seize the chance to step in, took over the class himself, deploring that at a national university, unlike a private one, the salary was fixed and bore no relationship to the number of hours a person taught. After taking over the class for a week, he grew tired of it, thinking how foolish he had been. His time and energy were being wasted and would never earn him a single kind word. If the school really could not find a substitute, then it would have been obvious that as department chairman he was acting for the sake of the students in taking the extra course and all the chores himself. But now when there was a Mrs. Han around, for him to take over the class himself, thereby occupying two seats with one posterior, everyone could see it was a selfish act. No one would give him credit even if he worked himself to death. Chao Hsin-mei was known among the faculty members for his English, and Chao had only six hours of class. If he had a friendly chat with Chao and asked Chao to take over Miss Sun’s class, mightn’t Chao agree? After all, hadn’t Miss Sun come on Chao’s recommendation? If she was so incompetent as a teacher, shouldn’t the one who had recommended her take the responsibility? Of course Chao Hsin-mei’s English was apparently better than his own—Liu Tung-fang could not but admit that—but then the English of the Section Four students was too poor to tell the difference, and they were all students from other departments anyway. His prestige in his own department would not be affected. His mind made up, Liu first put the suggestion to Kao Sung-nien, who then asked Chao Hsin-mei to come in for a conference. Because of his relationship with Miss Sun, Hsin-mei could not very well give a flat refusal, but then in a sudden inspiration he recommended Fang Hung-chien.
The president said, “Hmm, that’s a good idea. Mr. Fang has too few hours to begin with. How is his English? I wonder.”
“Oh, very good,” said Hsin-mei confidently, thinking that Hung-chien would be more than qualified to teach these students.
Hung-chien had felt his position in the school was not very secure, and so after Hsin-mei had explained it all to him and Liu Tung-fang had earnestly asked him, he screwed up his courage, braced himself, and cautiously prepared to teach English. As soon as this was announced, Han Hsüeh-yü went to see Kao Sung-nien, declaring that his wife had no wish to teach English, that he bore Liu Tung-fang no ill will, and that he would like to hire
Miss Liu as a teaching assistant in the History Department.
Kao Sung-nien was delighted and said, “Faculty members should unite and help each other. We’ll certainly hire your wife to help us next school year.”
Han Hsüeh-yü replied haughtily, “Whether I stay on next year or not is still a question. I’ve had five or six letters from T’ung-i University asking me and my wife to go there.”
Kao Sung-nien quickly urged him to stay, saying that next school year he would work out something for his wife.
When Hung-chien went to the Foreign Languages Department office to discuss the classwork, he saw Miss Sun there and said jokingly in a low tone, “You’re the one who got me into all this. Want me to avenge you?”
Miss Sun smiled but made no reply. Lu Tzu-hsiao did not mention his dinner invitation again.
At the meeting on the tutorial system the inspector from the ministry opened with an elegant ten-minute speech in which the phrase “When I was in England” came up on the average of one and a half times per minute. When he was through speaking, he glanced at his watch and left. The audience let out various-sized coughs that they had been holding in their throats, making a continuous ahem, ke, ke, ke. At Chinese meetings, after three minutes of silence and after the chairman has made his announcements, one usually hears this burst of coughing. Besides letting out a few token coughs, everyone shifted to a slightly more comfortable position. Kao Sung-nien was the next speaker and inevitably elaborated on the relationship between the cell and the organism for the umpteenth time, expressing his hope that everyone would sacrifice his own personal convenience for the sake of the group at large. Next Li Mei-t’ing read the general outline promulgated by the ministry along with the detailed regulations he had drafted. He offered them for discussion.
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