China Reflection

Lin Miaoke is my idol.  With pigtails hanging down from her cute little 9 year old head, she wowed the world during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics as she flawlessly performed on stage during a version of “Ode to the Motherland.”  It was a perfect, clean-cut lip-synching debut.   It didn’t matter that the voice that the world was hearing wasn’t that of Lin Miaoke.  She looked so damn adorable–the perfect cookie-cut-out child giving it up to the masses in China’s unzipping it’s fly to the world.  The only mistake was that the world discovered and knew Lin Miaoke was lip-synching the whole time.  This news became a big deal in the West…another story of another fake.  Another finger we can point at the Chinese for producing a pretty copy of the real thing.  But it doesn’t matter to me.  Lin Miaoke is still my idol.  I am Lin Miaoke.

A call from Heart’s Eye

On my way back from Ningxia^W and Inner Mongolia^W I received a phone call from Mrs. Zheng, the leader of the Heart’s Eye movie theater for the blind.  This theater is located in the same courtyard where our office is currently located, and I’ve mentioned it in previous posts.  Every Saturday morning members of Beijing’s blind community come from near and far to “watch” a movie.  Someone with regular vision sits at the front of the theater with a microphone and narrates those portions of the movie that the listeners cannot see and need narration for.  In addition to these movie features, the Heart’s Eye Theater (also called “Hong Dan Dan”) organizes other activities and outings for Beijing’s blind community.  Hong Dan Dan has a small staff of regular employees, and Mrs. Zheng and her husband are constantly busy trying to organize and improve the activities.  Besides the blind community itself, however, the other major players who take the major role in all of the activities are the volunteers who come every week to assist.  I, myself, have not personally been a volunteer for the theater.  Once we organized a dumpling making activity and Lu Yao, one of the blind students who used to live in the dormitory next to the theater joined us.  From time to time when we host events at our center, some of the members of Hong Dan Dan join in.  It’s mostly a friendly and neighborly relationship.  Or so I thought it was, before I received the call from Mrs. Zheng.

Mrs. Zheng:  Jeffrey, I’ve got something important to talk with you about.

(The noise of the train is so loud, I have to talk at the top of my voice, while sticking my finger in my left ear to block out the background noise).

Me:  What’s up?  Is something wrong?

Mrs. Zheng:  Anhui TV Station is doing a program on volunteers, and they want to include Hong Dan Dan in their program.

Me (sensing that I will be asked a favor):  Yeah?  That’s great!

Mrs. Zheng:  They need a white, western, male, who has been a volunteer for us and was born after 1980.  Do you think that you could do it?  I was going to ask the English girl who teaches them choir, but they specifically requested a white male.

Me:  Well…I’d be fine with it.  But a couple of things.  I was born in 1979…December 26, 1979…almost 1980.  Also, I’ve never volnteered with you guys before.  This could be a problem.  (I’m trying to say no, but the words won’t come out…part of me wants to see where this goes).

Mrs. Zheng:  That’s not that important.  We can talk about it more when you get back.  I’ll go ahead and tell them it’s ok with you.  Alright?

Me:  Alright (I guess).

A Song of Times’ Past

Besides checking in with Mrs. Zheng about the Anhui TV station activity, I don’t worry much about the activity.  We decide that maybe it would be best if I were to actually go in and volunteer at least once before the activity so that I can talk about what it is like to be a volunteer.  I tell her that I don’t think I’m ready to narrate a movie, but I’ll come in and tell a story instead.  I mostly busy myself with office work, etc.  Then one day in the office, an unknown number calls my mobile phone and I answer.

Me:  Hello? Who’s this?

Other:  Hi, is this Jeffrey?  I’m with Anhui TV station.  Mrs. Zheng told you we would call?

Me:  That’s right.

Anhui:  Anyway, so maybe we can ask you some questions about the blind students you have been teaching sometime.  We can find a place and time to meet.

Me:  Oh, that would be fine.  But I think you should know…I don’t have any blind students.  I haven’t really volunteered there.  I just know some of them and Mrs. Zheng.  I go there often.  My friends and I organize activities near there.

(Silence)

Anhui:  Well.  That’s alright.  Can you tell me your favorite Chinese song?

Me:  Uh….”Camel Bell?”

Anhui:…..any others?  that one is kind of old…

Me:  the “Chinese Kung-fu” song is cool, too.

Anhui:….no, no…not right.  Anymore?

I think back to one of the first songs that I heard when I came to China:

I arrive in Jiangxi^W hearing the song over and over again.  It is the theme song to a Korean soap opera, but it really has quite a sentimental melody to it.  At one point there is a chorus of children in the background.  The chorus of children doesn’t feel cheesy to me.  It feels appropriate.  When I first hear it, I have no idea what the words are saying, but I like the melody.  It gives me goosebumps to think about it now.  It is all around me.  When I walk down the street in Yichun I can hear the theme song of the tv show blaring out from the stores that I pass by…there is a store that sells metalworks and pipes, there’s another store that sells solar water heaters, a restaurant owner sits lazily at a table with no customers.  A fly swatter dangles from his fingertips as he rests his head in the crook of his right elbow.  The song is a wistful first impression of culture shock and part of my introduction to my 800 students in Yichun.  I hear it and think of a certain crisp autumn day in Yichun^W, Jiangxi Province.  The sky is blue, and the rustle of the rattling of the swirling leaves on the ground fill the air.  I am going to a lunch for my South African colleague’s child’s 100 days of life celebration, a watermark event in a baby’s life in China.  We’ll eat plate after plate of food.  Outside, the wind will continue to swirl as leaves are gently pulled off the tree branches lining the town’s streets.  I see another day where I hike up Bright Moon Mountain, about a half an hour drive from Yichun.  I go there with my student, Nancy.  The weather is cold, the sky is blue again–always with this song, the sky is blue.  Waterfalls on the mountain are either frozen or trickling.  I can see Nancy’s breath as she pushes the air out.  The mountain is sleeping.  She puts her face close to my camera as I take a close-up.  She is in Shanghai now.  I’m in Beijing.  I miss these days.  The song is always missing, hoping.

Me:  “Hope.”  From that tv show.

Anhui:  Good….good.  That’s a good song.  Can you learn that song?  You may be performing it with Sister He (pronounced “Huh”) from the “Supergirls” show (China’s version of “American Idol”).

Me:  I can try to learn it…but I’m not a very good singer.

Anhui:  It doesn’t matter.  As long as you try.  Anyway, talk with you later Jeffrey.

I look up the lyrics to “Hope” in the evening when I get home.  I have no idea what “performance” the guy on the other end was talking about, but I have a feeling that I will find out soon enough, in a very intimate way.  In the evening, I return home and say a little prayer of hope to Lin Miaoke, knowing that her spirit of guidance is the only force able to pull me through the next chapter of this particular Chinese saga in my life’s story.

Morning

“I stayed up all night praying.  Didn’t sleep at all,” Paul says to me when we meet in the hotel lobby in the morning.  He seems wide awake and full of energy.

“You prayed all night?”  I ask him.

“All night,” he says.  “And you know what…” he pauses, “a miracle happened…My friend asked me to pray for her.  She’s been having some trouble recently, and asked me to pray for her.  I did.  And something good happened.”

I’m glad that Paul is so full of light and energy today.  He is like a box of Rice Krispies with his ’snap,crackle, and pop’ attitude.  I don’t have time to find out what the “good thing” is that happened to Paul’s friend.  Jacky and Amanda walk into the lobby to greet me.  The students are waiting for me.  I don’t know where I’m going.

The teacher

We get into the Jesusmobile and drive through the town.  It’s not a huge town, but there’s really no such thing as a tiny village anymore.  There are thousands of people here, and the towns and areas that used to be grasslands are being mined for the coal that lies beneath the surface.  Amanda’s parents’ grassland where they previously took their sheep to graze has been purchased by the government so that it can be mined.  This is progress.

We take a right underneath a dusty bridge and head past the restaurant where we’ll be eating lunch later.  I’m told that we’ll have fish from the Yellow River, which runs beside the town.  But first thing’s first…time for me to be a teacher again.

When we pull up to the school, nothing particular stands out to me about the building at first.  It has 3 stories stacked on top of one another.  I hear the voices of kids chanting and repeating what teachers are saying.  There’s a courtyard in front of the school with dry, flat, colorless landscaping.  It seems utterly ordinary.  There is a propaganda poster in front of the school that reads, “Dedication today will lead to tomorrow’s success.”  This is just what I was hoping for…an ordinary, typical, Chinese elementary school.

The school’s principal comes out to greet us as we pull out in front of the office building.  Amanda used to be a teacher at this school.  They greet one another, and then introduce Paul, Jacky, and myself.  Luckily, the students are in class now; otherwise, I’m sure I’d be mobbed by a crowd.  Our coming here is a big event.  The principal leads us into her office.  As we walk through the hallway on the way to the office, I notice an unusal amount of calligraphy displays on the wall.  She reminds me that Wuhai is famous for its calligraphers.  Apparently, there’s a calligraphy museum located in the center of town.  After entering the principal’s office, we sit down on the huge couch while she pours tea for us.  As she picks up the gigantic red thermos, she explains what’s to come:

“So, we thought we’d combine a few classes together into one large auditorium for you to teach them.  This way, more students will get to talk with you at a time,” she says.  The water trickles out of the thermos as steam rises from the cups.

“Ok.  About how many students will I be talking with this morning?” I ask her, anticipating the number that will come out of her lips.

“About 200 or so,” she says.  200…not a bad number.  I have an idea of the lesson that I will give to the students.  I have a stock, “first day lesson,” that seems to work well for kids the first time we meet.  It involves writing one’s name vertically, and then saying introducing something interesting about oneself from each of the letters.  So, my name, “J-e-f-f-r-e-y” and introduction might go something like this:

J: I lived in Japan for one year.

E: I used to be an English teacher.

F: I have 6 people in my Family.

F: I lived in France when I was 2.

…and on and on.  I’m certain that whenever I do this activitity with students that not all of them understand what I’m saying; however, understanding is not the point.  The point is to get them interested in English as something that can be fun and useful.  The point is to get them speaking with each other.  After I finish doing my own name, I model introducing myself to a student or another teacher, and then tell them that they should try and do the same introduction with their name and at least 3 friends.  In a class of 200 students, there are sure to be some students who understand just about everything that I am saying.  They spread the word, the class gets active, the world comes together…everyone is happy and doing something.  This approach is a lot different from the Chinese approach of rote memorization and drilling vocabulary into students.  I’m not about to do that on a one-time visit to a school.  I want as much interaction as possible, so I take my own approach to teaching.  I know it’s not perfect, but it’s active, and it appeals to the students…and it’s fun!  Learning a language should be fun.  That’s what I’ve always thought, anyway.

I don’t tell them any of my plan for the activity.  We just talk for a while, all in Chinese, about the students and the school, etc.  Amanda and the principal catch up with one another.  After we empty our glasses, it’s time to go upstairs and put on the teaching show for the youth of China.

The principal leads us out of her office and out the front doorway of the school.  We walk across the parking lot and square that’s in front of the school.  Our objective is to get to the building across the square.  It’s not a long way to go, but…I’ve already been discovered.  The students start running over to look at me.

“FOREIGNER!  FOREIGNER!”  I’m not sure which of the kids is yelling this, but it’s the first word that I hear.

“Hello?  How are you?”

“What’s my name?”

“Where are you from?”

“Who’s he?”

“FOREIGNER! FOREIGNER!”

I smile through it all and soak it up.  It’s time to be a rock star again.  The kids chase me, but I keep my pace slow and steady.  If I started running now I’d never escape them all.  The principal doesn’t even seem to notice them.  She leads the way up the stairs of the dusty building that we enter.  It’s dusty not because of its oldness, but rather because of its newness.  It seems like it was just finished the day before.  The odors of sawdust and construction fill the building and blow in and out with the breeze.  We walk up the stairs to the second floor.  Just before we reach the top of the stairs, the principal turns to us and says good luck.  There they are…200 children sitting quietly waiting for me.  My audience, my fans.  It’s good to be a teacher.

Class Dismissed

When I start off, there are two girls who sit in front of the class who ask if it’s ok to give me a hug. 

“Of course, why not?”  They hug me.  I worry for a second that every single child will want a hug now, but it doesn’t happen.  The class starts out slowly, and the students are relatively attentive, listening to me when I talk.  In a class this big, there are always one or two students who stick out and can answer the tougher quetions.  Anyone can be king for a day, anyone can entertain a class of Inner Mongolians for one or two periods.  The “newness” effect stays with the kids for about the same amount of time that it takes for the class to run its course.  I go though my self-introduction and then have the kids do their own introductions with each other.  The part of the class where they talk with one another is always my favorite part.  I roam around the room to help people think of words that begin with the letters in their names so that they can complete the activity.  There’s sort of a controlled chaos atmosphere in the classroom, but most of the kids are taking part in the task at hand, asking me questions, speaking with their classmates, etc.

After the teaching part of the class finishes, the students ask me to sing them a song.  I tell the I’ll sing one for them if they first sing one for me.  They discuss with each other, some of them yell out songs names.  Finally, the same two girls who gave me a hug when I walked into the room offer to lead the class in a song.  It’s a revolutionary song.  I don’t understand all of the words, but I can tell that it’s a song that goes well with marching.  The kids sing in unison, yelling the song out in orders, more like a drill seargant barking at soldiers.  I sing them “God Bless My Underwear,” sung to the tune of “God Bless America.”  It’s one of my favorite songs to sing when put in this situation.  It’s just the right length for a song, and no one will get the joke except for me. 

Lunch

“You must be so tired,” the principal says to me after finishing up with the second round of kids. 

“Serving the people invigorates me!” I say, throwing back some propaganda as a joke.  I’m actually not tired at all.  It’s been a long time since I was a “teacher.”  I used to do this sort of thing everyday.  It’s like pulling a comfortable couch out of the attic to sit on for a while, dusty, but still familiar.

After finishing the two classes, taking pictures, and, yes, signing autographs, the principal tells us she would like to take us out to lunch.  Joining us for lunch will be another English teacher, the school’s music teacher, and the physical education teacher.  They are already waiting for us at the restaurant, so we’ve no time to waste.

The restaurant is around the corner from the school, and I’m once again reminded that we’ll be eating fish directly from the Yellow River.  Amanda, Jacky, and I get back in the Jesusmobile after saying goodbye to the kids who are now also on their lunch break.

We pull up to a dusty courtyard where one of the meanest and ugliest dogs greets us as we get out of the car.  Jacky laughs.

“Crazy dog,” he says.

The dog continues to bark at me.  I feel an urge to throw something at it or taunt it.  It’s neck is tied to the end of a chain which is connected to the tree in the center of the courtyard.  We have a staring contest for a few seconds.  The mutt barks at me, unable to jump on me and do whatever it is he wants to do.  I stamp my foot down, causing the dust to unsettle, and the dog runs back a few steps in fear, still yapping his yap.  I’m getting hungry.

“Jeffrey…come on in,” Amanda yells to me, coming out of a hanging curtain meant to keep flies out of the room in which we’ll be eating.  She ushers me into the room, which is already filled with the other guests for the lunch.  The music teacher is the first one to shake my hand.  He has a huge belly, and his face reminds me of Santa Clause without the beard.  He wears a shirt with horizontal stripes on it, eccentuating his belly.  Beside him is the physical education teacher.  Also stocky in structure, he is built like a firehydrant.  There is another young girl standing next to Amanda.  She is quiet like a mouse and I ask her if she is also one of Amanda’s old students.  Giggling, Amanda tells me that she is the school’s other English teacher.  She looks so young, 15 or 16 years old I would have guessed. 

I remember this part of the meal because at this time we have not yet opened the grain alcohol.  There is a salad and the fish has already arrived, fried and crispy.  I like it when they prepare fish this way in China because  I don’t have to worry about the bones.  When I eat a crispy fried fish whole, I can just crunch the bones up in my teeth.  This makes the consuming of the fish much more convenient and much less dangerous.  We sit around the round table, waiting for the rest of the dishes to arrive.  I sit facing the door, as is Chinese custom when there is a guest.  The food arrives dish by dish…and then comes the grain alcohol.  Oh no…another spiral into madness.  The time is only just past noon.   At the same time the bottle arrives through the door, my heart leaps out of my body and walks out the door.  I know that we will finish this bottle off.  I’m already anticipating getting that first taste out of my mouth–that first sip of toilet water.  After that, the grain alcohol just feels hot and I don’t notice the taste so much.  Soon I’ll start to like it.

“Cccccrrraaak.” The music teacher twists open the bottle of grain alcohol.  Now it’s just us…teachers and children and foreigners around the table.  The food is in piled up, and the silence commences.  The physical education instructor pours glasses of the grain alcohol for all the adults at the table.  I can’t get away from this glass.  I have to drink with each person.  Inside I’m holding my breath; outside I try to keep a semblance of calm.  I’ve usually don’t get out of hand with this stuff, but I definitely have let it get the better of me and my friends in the past.  When I first came to China I wasn’t familiar the alcohol (called baijiu) has bested me from time to time.  I remember abandonding my friend in a barbershop after losing a bout with baijiu.  Brandon Pusey had come to visit me from the US after we traveled in Vietnam for a while.  We spent some winter weeks in Yichun in Jiangxi Province and decided to have a night of darts, baijiu, and peanuts in my apartment.  After finishing up the bottle, he decided he needed to go out in the cold and get a haircut.

“Don’t leave me in the barbershop, Jeffrey…you have to tell them how to cut it.”  I can still remember his cries of “No….Wait” as I left him giggling in the barber’s chair when I abandoned him.  He returned to my apartment with a shaved head.

Baijiu 1: Foreigners 0

The meal commences with a toast given by the physical education teacher. 

“Welcome to our school!  Welcome to Wuhai!  We always appreciate visitors and hope you can return in the future!”  He reaches his glass to me and lowers to a level lower than my own glass.  The alcohol looks like water.

Clink!  Down the hatch with the first toast.  My throat is on fire.  I’m going to eat too much this meal.  I can feel it already.  The conversations start to mix with each other after the first toast, and everyone relaxes a little bit, their faces already beginning to flush.  It’s at meals like this one where I can really take in the drinking culture.  People don’t just drink casually.  No one drinks alone.  Everyone is always toasting with someone else.  To drink by oneself is self-destructive…because the next toast is only seconds away from the previous one.

“What do you think of Wuhai?” the music instructor asks me.

“Amanda tells us that you are in the tourism industry.  I have a friend in the US.  I can’t remember which city, though…New Jersey?” the principal is asking me or telling me.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.  This fish is awesome.  Man, look at the music instructor’s belly!  How did he fit it into that shirt?

The music instructor seems to be reading my mind.  He rises for another toast.  Clink!  Down the hatch.  Not so painful anymore.  That teacher is so quiet.  She’s not really a teacher is she?  So young. 

“Jacky…what do you think about this meal?  Pretty good, huh?”

The principal stands up to toast Amanda and myself.

“Today was a wonderful day for Wuhai…for our school…an international day!  Ha ha ha.  Amanda, you’re always bringing good fortune back to us.  We miss you at our school, but we’re glad that you could bring Jeffrey back with you.  Jeffrey….welcome to Wuhai, and thanks for an excellent class!”

Clink!  Down the hatch.  Butter.

The toasts are coming in droves now.  We probably drink 4 more.  The stuff is strong, and it’s sloshing around in my belly.  I suddenly miss the crazy dog in the courtyard.  I continue to stuff my face with the food, but nothing can overcome the taste of the baijiu that is running through me.  Luckily, I know that the end is coming…until.

“A song!  A song!  Sing a song!”

It’s come to that point of the meal where people start to request singing.  This always seems to happen when out for a celebration…but I’m ok with it.  I like singing.  So I decide to bless them with a song that I wrote in high school about a super hero I created, called “Slash-Eyeball.”  It’s an utterly immature and ludicrous song, nonsensical in meaning.  I purposely slur the words and make them unintelligable so that none of the people who can speak English are able to understand the lyrics.  Although they can’t understand the words, the listeners beat on the table with their chopsticks, keeping in time to the rather groovy melody that I created more than a decade earlier.  Afterwards, the erupt in applause.  My song is followed by the music teacher and the physical education teacher.  One of them sings an Inner Mongolian song, the other a song I happen to like called “Camel’s Bell.”  By now, everyone’s faces are flushed, the room is heated with our sweat, and those who are smokers have lit up.  There are bones on the table and Mongolian tunes in the air.  There’s not one hint of the grey hair…and yet, he returns in the evening.

Zoo

After a rest in the afternoon, I head out with Jacky on his electric bicycle to visit a nearby park.  In the park there is an abandoned zoo with depressed monkeys, a forlorn bear, and lathargic birds.  We walk around the park talking about this and that.  Just as I suspected, Jacky’s father, Jesus/Paul has dabbled in quite a few things throughout the years.  He was a policeman, a bookstore owner, a bible salesman, and a fur trader.  All of these things add up to whatever it is he does now.  Jacky and I walk from the cages as the grey sky looms over us.  We stare at a bear, it’s uneven patches of unhealthy fur aching to be fed with nature.

“Do you think money or life is more important?” Jacky asks me.

“Well…you need money to live…in most places.  But money isn’t life.  I don’t know.  Money can’t buy everything.”  I say. 

“Are you rich?” Jacky asks me point-blank.

I’m a little bowled over by this question and don’t know how to answer.  “Well, I’m lucky…I’ve never really had to worry about money that much.  I’m not poor, that’s for sure.  I’m not rolling in money, though.  Comfortable,” I say.

We walk over to the birds and continue the jutted conversation of a 29 year old American and a teenaged kid from Inner Mongolia.

“Why did you want to become a Christian?” I ask Jacky.

He looks at the birds and tosses a little pebble into the cage.  “My dad says that we can’t trust people.  We just have to trust Jesus.  What he says is the truth.  People will always lie to you, but Jesus won’t lie to us.”

Creepy.  Can’t help thinking it.  But if he and his father are happy with this belief, then I am happy for them.  He gets a phone call.  It’s Paul.  We have to go back to the hotel.  Dinner is coming.

Hua Er

Paul takes us to a Peking Duck restaurant for dinner.

“I thought you’d like this.  I know you’re going back to Beijing tomorrow, but I like Peking duck anyway. ”

“Of course.  Thanks.”

I’m told that we’ll wait to eat for a bit, as there are other guests who are coming.  We’re ushered upstairs to a private room, and luckily there’s no baijiu waiting for us.  In the private room is a guy whose name is Frank.  He tells me that he’s also a Christian and that he’s met this famous pastor who preaches to the TV mega-revivals that I always flipped through when I was a kid looking for cartoons on Saturdays and Sundays.  He’s been to the US and visited many churches there as well…even to Virginia.  Seems like a friendly enough guy.

After a few minutes of waiting, the other four guests arrive.  There is a couple with their small child.  The man, David, is also a Christian and training to be a pastor.  He is with his wife and daughter.  All 3 of them are Christians.  They’ve brought with them Lily, one of the thinnest and most delicate Chinese girls I’ve ever seen.  Her hair is in wavy curls that cascade in a waterfall over her shoulders onto her orange dress.  She is also an English teacher, but is not a Christian…not yet.

As they arrive, the food does as well.  Paul orders beers instead of baijiu.  Before we start eating, we join hands so that David can lead us in a prayer.  Lily…innocent Lily…looks around and then looks down with everyone else as David prays.

“Jesus…we thank you for this food and for bringing us friends from near and afar.  We give grace to you for this meal and for this day.  Amen.”

Lily asks,”Is that how it is?  Every meal?  Each prayer is like that?”  Her eyes are wide and curious like a deer’s.  I have the feeling that she is on the path to being converted.

The meal is good.  It’s a mixture of Beijing duck and some dishes that I’ve never had before…there’s a mashed potato dish that is new to me that is excellent, with some cilantro in it as well.  Frank talks with me more about Christianity and China.

“It’s getting more and more here.  The young people have nothing to believe in anymore,” he says.  “You know, I just felt so welcome when I went back to the States.  The people in the Church community were so friendly to me.  It was different there of course…I mean, not so much to do, but it definitely felt…well, it was amazing to go to these sermons where everyone was praying together…really something…why did you come to Inner Mongolia anyway?” he asks me, changing the subject.

“Well, I originally wasn’t going to come here.  I was going to Ningxia at first.  And on the train I met Amanda.  When she got off the train I told her that I would come back and meet her in Wuhai…I wanted to see it for myself.”

“Why didn’t you take the airplane to Yinchuan?  Much faster,” Paul says.

“If I had taken the airplane I never would have met Amanda,” I laugh.  Good answer.

“But why did you go to Ningxia?” Frank asks again.

“Well…it’s kind of a strange reason…” I tell them about the grey hair and Beihai park and my unfulfilled quest to hear hua er. 

“Hua er?” Paul asks.  “You know…Lily can sing Hua Er.  Would you like to hear it?”  Silence.  It’s going to happen.  She’s going to sing hua er.

“I would love to hear Hua Er,” I say.  “Can you sing something?” I ask Lily.

“Ah…I only know a little bit,” she says modestly.  “But I can try to remember.”  She stands up, her hands at her side.  Her orange dress is frozen in the light.  The lights themselves seem to dim.  No one speaks.  The room is waiting for her to sing.  This is the reason I came on my trip…to hear this song…to fulfill the Grey Hair’s prophesy.  Lily looks off into space and seems to be focusing on a point in the wall behind our heads.  The door beside that we entered in from opens up and in floats the Grey Hair.   The Grey Hair is also accompanied by a face.  The face is a bit paler than the faces of other Chinese faces that I am familiar with.  On the eyes of the face is a pair of large square-rimmed brown glasses.  The hair on the face’s head is also grey flecked with black.  The mouth is a friendly mouth, widening into a grin.  Underneath the face are all the other things that should go along with it…a body, arms, legs, shoes, shirt, pants, etc.  But…I can’t take my eyes off of the long, grey, hair.  It haunts me, waving back and forth in the wind like a snake’s tongue.  The Grey Hair turns its head ever slowly as Lily begins to break the silence with her breathing…he is enchanted by her dress, her hair, her innocence.  All of us sit there, waiting–the Christian family, Frank, Amanda, Jacky, Jesus, and me.  We all wait for Lily to sing the Grey Hair’s song.  We wait.  She sings.

This article is another look back on my two years spent in Jiangxi^W Province where I taught English at a small university in Yichun City^W.

The first time I visited the orphanage in Yichun City, the thing that struck me the most was not the fact that almost all of the orphans were girls.  Nor was I surprised at the ratio of caregivers to orphaned babies (about 20 or so babies in a room with 2 to 3 caregivers in all).  The thing that surprised me the most was that the orphanage was in the same complex as the retirement center for elderly whose families had abandoned them or could not care for them.  The two buildings were next to one another.  On the right was a one story, one room structure filled with unwanted babies.  On the left was a two storied complex inhabited by the elderly, many of whom were also abandoned by their own families.  When I looked at the two structures standing next to one another I had to wonder to myself, was it possible for a person to spend his whole life in this complex?  After being found in a public market, on a doorstep somewhere, in some lonely spot where no one could hear a baby crying, was it possible for a baby to grow up in this orphanage and die of old age in the building next door?

Find the Spot

Prior to my arrival in Yichun City, a wonderful South African couple had been living and teaching English at the University.  Their names were Jody and Michelle and their hearts could fill a room.  By the time of their departure, the entire duration of their stay in Yichun would add up to a total of 5 years.  They had seen Yichun’s roads paved and bridges built.  Yichun City had hosted the Farmers Olympics, an event in which farmers from all over the country converge to compete in farm-related sporting events.  They had watched their students grow into adults and find work in “the society,” and Michelle had even given birth to a lovely daughter named Bella.  I have to admit that if it wasn’t for Jody, I would have probably not decided to work in Yichun City.  At the time I was looking for work, I was still teaching English in Niigata, Japan^W.  My method for finding English teaching jobs was simply to search around on the net and see what was available.  I knew that I didn’t want to start out in a big city like Beijing or Shanghai.  I wanted to go someplace I had never heard from before.  I sent an e-mail to Yichun University and Jody responded.  Over the next few weeks, we kept up a correspondence.  He even gave my e-mail to some of my future students.  After receiving e-mails from these students and hearing how excited they were to meet me, I was hooked.  I felt as if I already had a home and an eager audience awaiting my arrival.  I had found the spot.

Jody and Michelle often made visits to the orphanage in Yichun, checking to see that the orphans and caregivers had enought milk, appropriate cribs, winter clothes, etc.  Often going into his own pocket to provide these gifts, I was in constant awe and often inspired by their generousity.  As it turned out, many families from the U.S. had adopted orphans from Yichun City in the past.  It was due to Jody and Michelle’s hard work that this became possible.  I remember one particular couple from the States who were returning to Yichun for a heritage visit, as well as to meet their new child that they would be adopting.  They already had a 5 year old daughter who they had adopted from Yichun when she was too young to remember.  They would be making the trip back to Yichun to meet with the caregiver who looked after her during those early days.  Afterwards, they would go to Nanchang^W, Jiangxi’s capital to meet their new child for the first time.  I remember being with them when they visited the orphanage to see the caregiver who took care of their daughter during their earliest and most vulnerable time.  The air filled with tension and anticipation, awkwardness and excitement as we walked through the gate of the orphanage.  Accompanied by Jody and a group of his students, the couple arrived at the orphanage bearing gifts for the supervisors and the caregivers as well.  I’m not sure the couple’s daughter exactly knew how much the  moment meant to those around her (how do you explain these things to a 5 year old?), but the silence was thick,impenetrable, and full of weight at the exact time her parents handed her over to her previous caregiver so that they could embrace for a hug.  She stroked her hair and said something to her that was unintelligable to me at the time, speaking in a Yichun dialect that I couldn’t understand.  Some moments in life are forever weighted down with such a heaviness of gravity and emotion that I don’t think I can ever forget them.  I can’t get the image of that scene out of my head:  the American couple looking on in deafening silence as their daughter embraced her first caregiver, the students from our university standing around staring, the tears welling up in Jody’s eyes, the blue sky above.  In this spot, life was happening.

After Jody and Michelle’s departure, I realized that I was not them and could not do what they did.  I remember having the same realization after class one day when I tried to teach like Jody, be like Jody.  He was a good teacher, so I thought I should use his techniques.  It didn’t work.  I couldn’t be Jody.  I could only be myself.  It was after I made this discovery that I really began to come into my own and develop my own style of teaching.  With regards to the orphanage, I would often visit with my students.  However, when we visited it began to dawn on me that I looked forward to seeing the elderly residents who lived there as much as I looked forward to seeing the orphans.  I have discovered over time that I increasingly enjoy the company of old men and women by my side.  I enjoy listening to their stories, spending time with them, and trying to get a picture of a past unknown to my own experience.  I like making that connection.  I like the connection because I know that old folks don’t have ulterior motives most of the time, and I feel that the connection comes easily to me.  Many people believe that old folks have ”had their day,” but they still need someone to talk with and spend time with every bit as much as those orphans do.  This was especially true of the folks who lived next to the orphanage.  Every time I would visit the orphanage with my students, I was told by one old woman how her family had abandoned her there.  With tears in her eyes, she would thank us for coming to visit her.  She cried every time we visited.  There was another woman who was 100 years old and could not move from her bed.  Her feet had been bound as a young girl, and my student, Faith, had to scream into her ear in a Yichun dialect in order to be understood.

Whenever we visited the orphanage, I usually made it a point to bring a group of students with me so that there could be some interaction amongst my students and the elderly, as well as with the children who lived there.  On some visits, my students would prepare gifts.  On other visits, they had prepared songs to sing or dances to perform for the residents.  When my parents came to visit, I took them there and we sat down in their rooms as their guests.  I remember once around Christmas time we had a particularly long visit.  One of my quietest students, Buninuo (a name that she had created for herself), sang a portion of a Beijing opera for the group.  I was shocked.  Buninuo was one of the few students who had failed my oral English exam the previous semester.  Of course, Beijing opera has no relation with having a conversation in English, so I don’t know why I was surprised (incidentally, she made a great improvement in my class the the second time around).  As soon as she started singing, one older man jumped into the circle and began to sing with her.  There we were, gathered around my student and the older man.  Standing in the middle of the courtyard belting out tunes in Chinese, I’m sure they never even realized they were etching their way to a spot deep inside of my heart.

The future

We never know what images we will file away into the depths of our consciences.  What kinds of memories are we going to keep with us?  What kind of memories are going to be the ones that make that find the spots?  I wonder about that little girl returning to the orphanage.  Will she remember that moment when her Chinese caregiver held her in her arms again?  I think about the old woman who wailed her tears of abandonment each time we visited her in her room.  When will she find the spot that gives her peace?  I hear the voices of Buninuo and the old man singing in the middle of a circle of students and teachers, the young and elderly, Chinese and foreign.  Will they sing together again?  When I think about the orphanage in Yichun, sometimes I think about the despair that brought the people there.  Sometimes I think about the happy endings that a handful of the children may be leading in their new lives with their new families in a place far, far from Yichun.  Usually I think about the moments that were created while I was there.  It didn’t feel like an orphanage or retirement center when I visited.  It just felt like a place, a community that gathered together to share and check up on each other’s histories and stories, a spot where life happens still today.  A spot that I’ll return to someday in the future.