China: Zibo Follies
This is a tale of mystery, suspense, and intrigue. Well, not exactly. But at the time we felt we were in the middle of a Charlie Chan movie-we just couldn't decide who were the villains or if there would be a happy ending.
We thought we had all the details before we left San Francisco. We were expecting to teach conversational English to children five days a week, two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon. Our room and board would be taken care of, a good deal of our airline flight paid, and we'd receive a small stipend for teaching. All seemed to be progressing nicely.
But Confucius say, things are not always as they seem. At least he should have said that.
Our first hint of trouble came when we entered our new home away from home-a tiny room on the third floor of the Old Zibo Hotel. The hotel was a relic out of the nineteen thirties, threadbare, dingy and barely livable to say the least, though it was somewhat clean, and you could take a shower---if
you could ignore the fact that the shower sprayed all over the bathroom since there were no separations between shower and the rest of the appliances.
But we were optimistic. Exhausted and grimy from our endless "hard sleeper" train ride, we sat in the dark, dreary one bulb room, surveying our surroundings. "We can do this," we told each other cheerfully. We said it even when we learned we'd have to get up at 6 a.m. the next morning to meet in the lobby for our first teaching meeting.
Daylight came all too soon, and we dragged into the lobby with the cadre of other teachers. In the heat of the early morning, we waited and waited and waited. No breakfast and no officials were in sight.
Finally, we learned that the powers that be had chosen a select group of 10 of us to represent all the teachers at an opening school ceremony.that morning. We-- the four token Americans--and the others-all students from African nations, Azerbaijan and Turkministan studying at Chinese universities left an hour later by taxi to School Six, a half hour away. We ate a cold dry boxed breakfast---a hard boiled egg and boiled dumpling-on the way to the school. Once there, we were ushered into the teachers' room, again for an hours' wait. Finally, we were led to an outside courtyard where 600 students waited for us watching as we sat on the dais for the opening ceremony. Interminable Chinese speeches followed one upon another, interrupted only by the m.c. saying suddenly, "Now Speech One." "Now Speech Two," etc;. in English to introduce the featured English-speakers.
The sun beat down, rivulets of sweat ran down my back, but the Chinese children before us sat quietly and obediently through it all, and we smiled and nodded at them. Finally, it seemed hours later, the ceremony ended. The next day was Saturday, and I sat thinking we would at least have the weekend to recuperate from the trip, to explore the town and perhaps even check out a little of the countryside.
Not to be.
The First Day of School--- And the Last
We were asked to gather in the hotel lobby the next morning at six a.m.to await school assignments! The 10 best teachers-including Nancy and I were to take a taxi to School Two. The other Americans were to be separated from us and moved 40 kilometers away to teach at different schools. We didn't see them again and couldn't manage track them down!
Dawn on Saturday. No breakfast again, but finally we received a box breakfast (again a cold dumpling and hard boiled egg) when we demanded food and water because they told us we were expected to teach for four hours without any preparation that morning. It was all downhill from there.
We arrived at School Two, met the principal and vice principal-a stern-faced woman who lectured us on high standards and their expectations of our classroom abilities. This school was the best of the Zibo Foreign Language Schools, we heard, and we were expected to conform to its highest standards!
Therefore, before final assignments were made, we would proceed to a classroom with 60 children waiting for us. A Chinese teacher would sit in the back of the room and watch while we taught a lesson using conversational English. This was a test of our skills and an evaluation would be done after the first class, with the children telling the Chinese teacher and vice principal how well we did. We would then meet with the vice principal again. By now she was a person I likened to a Nazi taskmaster with everything but a whip in hand. We were shocked! We had known nothing of this teaching assignment just an hour before, there were no books or chalk, no information, and no planning process.
But, never mind. I gritted my teeth, entered the sweltering 90 degree classroom, and looked around. Sixty solemn eleven-year-olds sat primly waiting for their American teacher to arrive. Shifting into high gear on the platform, I put on a HIGH CLASS performance. I had no idea how much English they knew and had no materials at hand but drawing on my old fifth grade teaching experience, went through every gesture and classroom memory I could recall. The hour passed as slowly as Chinese water torture dripping on me moment by moment! I was exhausted when the ordeal was over, but the kids liked me and let me know that. My Chinese evaluator had sat in the back of the room taking copious notes, and I knew he would have positive things to say.
We returned to the faculty lounge. Ms. Nazi, the vice principal, was waiting. More whispers and pointing and conferences among them. Then she announced, "Five of you have been rejected. Please leave now." They were all from African countries. We were stunned.
The five of us who remained now learned the good news--we were to go to yet another class and repeat the teaching performance we had just completed. With the evaluator in the back of the room, again I jumped through hoops to teach the children English. Now totally exhausted and thinking the hour would never end, I made it through the hour, returning and collapsing in the lounge. Our nemesis, the Nazi-Chinese vice principal, now announced that we must stay for a curriculum planning time for the afternoon to learn how all subsequent classes were to be taught.
As if this was not enough, now came the biggest surprise of the day!
We would begin teaching four classes each morning starting the next morning---Sunday, she told us! And, the crowning blow, we would teach without a break SEVEN DAYS A WEEK for the next four weeks and one day! Four hours each morning starting at 7:30 a.m. with a 10 minute break between classes to run to the one bathroom, presumably with the 300 girls (or maybe the 300 boys too?) I had seen the w.c.-the usual open stall and hole in the floor that morning.
Seven days a week? I asked. Without a break? I said I didn't think I could do this. I was already hoarse from the heat and difficulty of teaching 60 children each class. This is the best school. We have highest standards. Maybe the other schools had five-day a week assignments, but no possibility for that here, we learned.
Nancy and I returned to our "digs." We were dismayed! We found the rest of the troops-all the university students in Chinese universities-also were getting restless from their own living situations. Nancy and I had already decided we must move across the courtyard to the "New Zibo Hotel" and were figuring strategies for paying our own supplement beyond what Mr. Chang was paying. But these new facts were very disturbing and we were debating what course to take.
But that evening as we sat in our dingy room wishing for a miracle, suddenly it appeared in the unlikely form of a mysterious knock on the door. Peeking into the dark hall, we saw two middle-aged American men. They asked to talk to us. "Are you the American teachers? We have been looking for you," one said.
Once we invited them in, we learned their disturbing story. They had taught at the school in the spring semester and told us a harrowing tale of being taken advantage of and exploited. Mr. Chang had overloaded them with work and reneged on promises to pay until he was forced. In fact, angry at their making friends with a local Chinese person, he evicted from their apartment and asked them to get out with 90 minutes notice, threatening that if they did not leave, one of their passports and ticket home would be with held. The police had been called in and the American Embassy had been notified of the goings on in the hiring of teachers. As their unbelievable but true story unfolded, Nancy and I, innocent foreigners who were working on tourist visas unknowingly-became more and more nervous. We began to fear that the police could come after us on some fake crime of teaching without the proper work visa.
What should we do? This story piled onto the miserable working conditions of that day convinced us! We decided it was time to leave.
It was close to midnight by the time we packed. We wangled a dolly from the New Zibo Hotel, loaded our heavy suitcases on it, wrote a message to Mr. Chang Chun saying the situation was just too difficult and the heat just too much and that reluctantly we had decided we could not teach in his school. We left it at the desk for pickup in the early morning.
Nervously, we pushed our belongings across the darkened courtyard and fled to the luxury of the New Zibo Hotel-and hung out a "do not disturb" sign.
Of course, our plan didn't succeed entirely. In the morning the school contacted us directly, modifying the teaching offer to one they thought we would accept. We refused. Mr. Chang called. He was in the lobby and wanted to talk to us. We refused.I was hoarse and couldn't talk, (the truth). He called again. Still no luck. Nervously, we awaited another call---perhaps from the henchmen he always had around. But we had made up our minds.
We had decided it was time to move on. All of China was at our doorstep, and now--just four weeks earlier than we had planned---we were ready to set out for whatever adventures awaited us. Little did we know how bizarre these adventures would be.
[Go to China Part Three]
