I’m finding this winter an unfamiliar season – strangely still, becalmed. There’s none of the cleansing violence of our season at home. In spite of the cold, there’s something equivocal about this Chongqing winter. So far, there’s no feeling of life stopped, gone to root, of the death of the year. Without a few severe frosts or snow to cut life back there’s no call to a season of reflection and husbanding of resources, and none of the chastening of a winter in southern New Zealand. Here the grubby but determined flow of life goes on – with a scarf and topcoat. It drizzles a little sometimes, and the dust turns to slurry, but this is the dry season. Only the damp fog clings. My skin softens under the moist breath of Chongqing.
Hilda calls at the flat and I enquire politely after her boyfriend, Eric.
‘I haven’t seen him recently,’ she pipes.
‘Are you still friends?’
‘I don’t know. I think perhaps we’re not very suitable.’
She looks at me, her eyes puzzled rather than distressed. Emotionally she gives the impression of bits of eggshell stuck to wet feathers. Does she expect advice? I tell her I like Eric, and that I hope things will work out. She’s probably given him the push to preserve her fragile sense of self while she waits to see which way her feelings move her; but having seen the prickly pride and delight they take in each other, I feel hopeful for their friendship. Hilda has few resources and being claimed by someone appreciative at least gives her somewhere to stand.
In the present wintery weather, my umbrella becomes an issue. I’ve been putting off having it mended. Mrs Zhou approaches me in the playground to ask me when I’m going to get it fixed. She may squint up at me through her owlish glasses, but there’s not much she misses. She must have seen me struggling with it in the recent rain, its two broken spokes giving my protective tent a rakish lurch. I’ve seen spokes on the table of the shoe mender not far from the school gates, and Mrs Zhou, who likes to inform, confirms that this is the place to go.
By the time Hilda, my ears and mouth for these practical purposes, stirs herself to come with me to the shoe mender, the broken spokes have entered a whole new phase, hanging down in front of my eyes like bats. During the winter, the cobbler has an awning of the ubiquitous red, white and blue sheeting strung above him from a tree. He sits on a wooden stool neatly held together with wire and padded with a small straw cushion. He has a machine for stitching, substantial but simple, with two wooden reels of thread the size of salt and pepper grinders. In front of him on his table, in a large heterogeneous pile as though swept up by a broom, are nails and spokes and heels and thread and shoes and rags and Chinese scissors with enormous handles This spiky stack doesn’t represent disorder, for he lays his hands instantly on whatever he needs. His bench reminds me of an article in the ‘China Daily’ which commented on how unsystematic Chinese farming practices and equipment are, and how difficult it is to graft modern technology and method on to this stubbornly natural, organic system.
Hilda dusts the seats of two other wooden elf-stools and we sit down beside the mender. It’s foggy and drizzling heavily. The light has gone early from the sky, electric lighting begins to appear in surrounding buildings and smoke rises from the food stalls. People trudge up and down the road, chatting. One woman takes off her shoe and puts her foot under the mender’s nose, wriggling her toes, pointing to a sore spot with impassioned commentary. He stops what he’s doing, lifts her shoe the way you pick up something you know well, fingers it gently, looks inside. She keeps up the flow, addressing it to him, to interested passers by, and to the man’s wife who’s sitting beside him singing softly to their sleeping baby. The flow doesn’t sound like complaint, just a passionate statement of personal predicament. He makes understanding noises, waits quietly, looks up at her. The flow winds down to the occasional sentence. He makes more sympathetic noises, offers some comments. Apparently nothing can be done. No action is taken, but she seems to feel better and puts her shoe back on and walks off, still talking. The man seems to have wrapped his courtesy, like a bandage, around a hurt that can’t be fixed.
He returns to my umbrella. His movements are quick, and he seems interested in what he’s doing, neatly fitting new pieces and fastening them with little rusty clasps he finds in his pile. He sews the spokes to the fabric with thick thread that he first licks carefully to a point before threading it through his needle. He lets the umbrella down, fastens it and gives it back without looking at me. Hilda discusses payment. Living on my salary in a dry flat with an air conditioning unit, I haven’t got what it takes to argue with a man who sits under a tree, winter and summer, and mends shoes and umbrellas to keep himself, his wife and baby. It seems the haggling must be done, because that’s the way they do it here.
In these grey and rather dreary days, when the strain of a twenty-week term is beginning to tell on my classroom energy, I’m glad to be told that a diversion looms, and one that will probably knock a few lessons off my timetable. The school’s sixth annual Foreign Language Festival will be held next week, with a qualifying round in the next few days.
Better still, Boris and I will be involved only as observers, as the plays performed in English and Russian will be produced by the students themselves.
Several classes invite me to their rehearsals. Apparently, their Chinese teachers have offered little help. Given the students’ difficulties in finding suitable stories for their plays, the results are amazingly good. Perhaps this proves the wisdom of throwing the students in at the deep end and leaving them to it.
One class of sixteen-year-olds is struggling with a de Maupassant story which they’ve translated into English from a Chinese translation of the French original. It bears the marks of its long and tortuous journey, but the students are alight with pride and hopes of competitive glory. Another class is presenting, with proprietary passion, an old Chinese story, and another is tackling the trial scene from ‘The Merchant of Venice’ with obvious delight in the guileful rhetoric.
A scene from ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is the choice of an older class. The two versions I’ve seen so far show considerable skill in summarising the story, and in the use of key speeches, which the students produce verbatim, memorised from the edition they use. More often than not, they don’t understand the meaning and therefore leave out words or chunks, but they battle on, trying to deliver their lines dramatically. Where they have to make links, they’re thrown back on the English they know from their textbooks, popular songs and videos.
‘We’re honoured that you should visit us,’ is followed by: ‘Hi, Mom.’ (American English is not officially taught at this school, but Americanisms creep in constantly. Their association with power, plenty, and heady entertainment is irresistible.) ‘We shall walk in the park as the weather is pleasant and the aspect delightful,’ is followed by: ‘OK. Well, don’t be too long, you guys. Hurry back.’
In a way it doesn’t matter. Teachers and students alike will attend the performance, smiling proudly while the reverenced commodity, English Language, flows forth, neither party aware of the wondrous stylistic hybrid that simpers, shrills and struts the boards. Asked for advice, I simply suggest ways in which the words might run more easily over their tongues.
Mr Liu, the Deputy Principal, officiates at the qualifying round of the competition wearing his blue track-suit pants with silver stripes up the sides – like a tropical fish – and his pork-pie hat. It is his job to read out the judges’ decisions. The information given to him may well be far from clear, but his announcement of it creates even deeper confusion. He starts with prolonged, preliminary throat-clearing, seen rather than heard in that adolescent uproar, then turns the paper up the other way to see if this is an improvement. The students laugh, as at an old joke, and one or two well-intentioned ones race onto the stage to offer help, which makes him testy. His English is careful and considered, and after a long, slow train of warm-up comments he draws attention to five or six minor mistakes in grammar and pronunciation that he’s pic
ked up during the performance. In the grand scheme of things, the points are hardly pivotal, but English is a slippery customer and it’s probably reassuring to deal in absolute ticks and crosses. The students chat on loudly through his comments, but he continues unperturbed.
At last, the long-awaited Festival is held on the sports ground. The platform normally used for Monday morning assemblies is now heavily rigged with lights and microphones. We’re obediently seated by 6.30, but for some time the only entertainment is the performance by workmen adjusting the lights from flexible bamboo ladders.
I’ve been steered into the seat beside the vice-president of the International Studies University, a pleasant man with some English who wears large sports shoes and seems determined to enjoy himself. As we grind into the third hour, the vicepresident shows further good sense by excusing himself, saying he regrets very much that he has other business, and disappears into the night.
Boris is on the other side of me. We can talk more easily these days as he’s learning English by attending one of the Junior Classes of thirteen-year-old students. ‘These Russian plays are full of mistakes in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation,’ he intones with gloomy satisfaction, trying to make notes on his damp programme in the dark, as the rich, rolling sounds of Russian struggle onstage.
The students continue to deliver their lines with unabated fervour, although the noise from the audience makes them inaudible and the microphones scream. In the actors’ dramatic flights across stage, they are repeatedly levelled by finite microphone leads. Two students from each performing class have the coveted job of controlling the incidental music. Predictably, there’s over-kill as each successive class tries to get still more epic effects. The music thunders and sobs, deafening and impassioned, and the actors’ mouths open and shut in energetic mime.
Several old Chinese stories are presented to an enthusiastic reception, especially a story from the life of a Sichuan hero of the ‘Three Kingdoms’ period. The hero, recognisable as Tony, now well-padded with bolsters, struts on stage and booms, as in pantomime:
‘You know who I am!’
‘Zhu Ge Liang,’ the students yell in delight.
Many of them have told me proudly about the brilliant strategies and matchless cunning of the loyal Chancellor of the ancient Shu Kingdom, who didn’t live to see the longed-for triumph of his ruler. The students revere this illustrious son of their province no less than any current soccer hero.
I notice that girls who’ll cover their eyes if a bikini appears on television will lap up savage tales of concubines and murderers, poisonings, beatings, despots and soothsayers, when they appear in traditional Chinese drama. They scream as the villains appear, sigh with maidens in love, cheer the violent heroes. Through even the most monstrous and overblown of these stories run endearing elements of humour and common sense.
By 10 o’clock there are finally no more performers in makeup and robes waiting on the platform steps, and the lights, after their startlingly unpredictable performance during the evening, dim on cue.
‘It’s finished,’ Boris roars with undisguised relief, and I wander back to my flat in the darkness, to put my feet in a bucket of hot water and read the paper. I’m learning how to look after my needs; in fact, I’m beginning to feel quite comfortable here.
I think this comfort may have something to do with my temperament. I’ve been told – often with some irritation – that I’m cautious, easily pleased and patient. Certainly they’re rather feeble attributes to bring to the innovative, restless, individualistic and ACTIVE-NOW society I’ve come from; but here, taking it easy and watching your step is quite acceptable. I’ve little option anyway, as I can’t read warning signs and haven’t yet reliably memorised the Chinese word for ‘Help!’ Patience is proving useful too, because I, like everyone else here, have to wait for most things. It’s easier, for everybody, if I’m not drumming my Western fingers; and why should I mind waiting when there’s so much passionate living to watch and listen to? What a pleasant surprise to find I have some of the qualities I need for this job; what a pleasant change not to feel ineffective. Is it possible I’m not essentially feeble after all? Maybe I simply haven’t found the right place for me in New Zealand and the right people to be with.
Both teachers and students show concern for their foreign teachers, as a Christmas away from home approaches. Ellen and Anne, representing the staff and delighted with their cross-cultural thoughtfulness, climb the stairs to my flat, laughing breathlessly and carrying a loudly tinkling five-foot Christmas tree. They’re as enchanted as small children by the lights and shining bells and stars and spend a long time debating whether it looks better by the door where draughts will keep the decorations in constant shimmering motion, or located by the gently leaking fridge.
I’m surprised, several weeks out from Christmas, to see our local department store decorated with trees, bells, stars, angels, banners with Christmas messages in rather scrambled English – the entire Christmas decorative repertoire. Synthetic carols almost drown out the usual noisy commerce of the shop. I’m less surprised to find that no-one I question has the faintest idea what’s being celebrated. I’m sure the Chinese simply feel that, if there’s a good party going on anywhere, then they should be part of it, and they’re grabbing their chance for some extra colour and shine, sentiment and song.
They’re anxious to learn, and both teachers and students beg me to spend a lesson teaching them how to celebrate Christmas. In lessons they all appear to enjoy, 500 students and those of their teachers who sit in on my lessons learn the meaning behind the symbols in their shops, and practise Christmas carols. I explain to them that although, at present, only a small percentage of New Zealanders acknowledge any allegiance to a Christian church, all New Zealanders celebrate Christmas. If they’re to understand the ways we celebrate that event I’ll need to tell them the story of the first Christmas. I need to watch my step here. I’ve signed a contract promising not to proselytise or otherwise interfere in China’s internal affairs – not that I have any impulse to do so. Trust is such a big issue in any relationships in China – I’d like to be found trustworthy. I’ve neither the talent nor the courage for civil disobedience. So I need to be careful in class about how I bring up any references to religion. The Chinese Government today has an official policy of tolerance towards religious belief; a certain number of Christian churches are allowed to hold religious services – though strict rules apply, and the possession of numbered bibles bearing the imprint of the Nanjing press is allowed. The Government, trying to hold together the largest family on earth, is still deeply suspicious of the power of religion to encourage division and dissent. Given the historical evidence, who could blame them? I make it clear in class that I’m giving this lesson in response to requests from teachers as well as students. Responses from classes are certainly enthusiastic, and if the students definitely prefer ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ to ‘Away in a Manger’, that probably has more to do with which has the catchier beat than with the acceptability of the sentiments. I, in my turn, feel the privilege of being able to outline, however sketchily, a story of great hope.
Six months later, just before I leave Chongqing, Anne unexpectedly refers to the lesson. At the English Teachers’ meeting following Christmas, three Chinese English teachers complained that I had spoken inappropriately to students during a pre-Christmas lesson, but an unexpected ally emerged in George, one of the teachers who’d taught in Australia, who stood up and claimed that he’d sat in on that class and it had been an excellent English lesson. The matter was dropped. Given that, in my anxious efforts to be acceptable I felt I walked a narrow and invisible line, it was perhaps as well I didn’t know at the time about this close call. It’s interesting that George, whom I hardly knew, should choose to defend me – or was he perhaps defending something he valued in his Australian experience? Looking back, I’m not sure that he did attend that class.
Christmas Day arrives and the school
gives me two days holiday from teaching, in courteous recognition of my national festival. A New Zealand friend has made me a tape of the service of nine lessons and carols, and I listen to the chaste and beautiful voices of the choir of King’s College, Cambridge against the background of school bells, hammering in the new building nearby and the librarian’s mother, across the landing, chopping up vegetables for dinner. Other New Zealand friends haven’t forgotten me. One remembers my homesick stomach in particular, with cheese, a gingerbread man and chocolate. I do eat Chinese chocolate, which is quite as good as Cadbury’s for boosting my energy but not as good for raising my spirits, perhaps because I’m sure I can taste cough mixture somewhere in the recipe. Another friend sends a hand-knitted scarf to comfort the end of the winter. I’m disconcerted that every time I pick it up my eyes fill with tears. I don’t cry easily, and eventually work out that I’m crying because I have so few soft things around me – no cushions, carpets or cats. I decide to accept the message from my disordered psyche, and surreptitiously put the scarf under my pillow with my pajamas. I take a call from my family in New Zealand, hearing in their affectionate voices the ease of lives in the sun, and much amusement at where I’ve chosen to spend this Christmas. When I put the phone down, it doesn’t seem a good choice, and I’m comforting myself with a cup of coffee when I hear shuffling and chattering outside my door, followed by an energetic and extended tattoo of knocks on the door. I open it to find an entire senior class who’ve come to wish me a happy Christmas and sing Christmas carols. In the middle of this charge of benevolent adolescent energy, and dwarfed by it, Hope – angelic in a white dress – directs her class through the door with the steely authority of a sergeantmajor. Somehow thirty of us pack into the tiny living room, sitting on each other’s knees, perching on the desk and the back of the settee, and ‘Silent Night’ fills the room, on the wings of a number of strong and eloquent voices. The vowels may take some eastern twists, but for warmth and enthusiasm they beat the King’s College choir hands down. If this visit doesn’t help towards the happy Christmas they so earnestly wish me, then there’s something wrong with me.
Under the Huang Jiao Tree Page 12