A NORMAL DAY

I figure I’ve been writing primarily about the things that have made a significant impact on my psyche, at least in the time surrounding the various events. However, as I was going to bed last night, reflecting on what a lovely day I had, it struck me that what I love most about my time here in Xi’An is the minutia of day-to-day life. Consequently, I’m going to tell you about my very standard day yesterday (10/30).

My morning started out, as they always do, at 6:30. I got out of bed and made myself my standard breakfast of yogurt, tea, juice and fruit (with a few chocolate covered espresso beans for good measure). I left my apartment around a quarter to 8 to get to the Primary school by 8. My fifteen-minute walk is punctuated with hellos from the neighbors and the security guards as well as tardy students running at top speed to school who leap into the air and shout “Hello teacher” to the heavens as they fly by. Everyone knows I’m the English teacher from America here to make their homes even more valuable, prestigious and luxurious than they already are and so people often say, “Hello” or “Good morning” in lieu of my “Ni hao.” Being a Monday, everyone in the school was at the flag raising ceremony and so I slid into my office in solitude.

Monday is my heavy day in terms of classes as I have class every period on Monday. Consequently, I started off with four classes in a row of my second graders. I spent the first two periods projecting over the din of students to have them make paper airplanes to learn the words of the airplane (“nose” “body” “wings” and “tail”). It worked surprisingly well, barring the few times Alpha Hottie walked back and forth in front of the windows of my classes, effectively resetting my brain. You see, not only do I get to see my monkey on Mondays but as Alpha Hottie’s office and classroom are on the same floor, divided by my classrooms, I get to see him as well.

After the second period, there is a 20-minute break where all the students and most of the teachers file out onto the sports field to do some calisthenics. The English teachers all return to our office to sip tea and chat. It is also the time I am tapped for questions that have arisen during the first two periods regarding English as well as suggestions on how to teach various topics. We talk about various teaching strategies and the frustrations of trying to do something as abstract as impart a passion for language in such an unbelievably homogeneous society. That doesn’t even take into consideration the issue that a language teacher must be able to teach all subjects as each subject has its own specific lexicon in the new language. Currently, the primary English teachers are working on biology terms. Fortunately, my presence has inspired the students somewhat to learn English so they may ask me questions and I have been lucky enough to retain most of my primary school knowledge of all subjects to answer any questions they might have. (I have made it a rule to answer any question a student can manage to ask, no matter how obtuse, random, simple or intrusive, so that they are inspired to learn a larger vocabulary and gain knowledge. I have even, on occasion, helped them understand other subjects via English explanation.) Frankly, communication with me is the only incentive to learn English they are able to grasp in primary school outside of “not getting hit.”

Once the second period rest was over, I passed Alpha Hottie again in the hallway and made my way back to my next class. I approached my next class as normal. As always, a swarm of children comes flying down the hallway, grabbing me by the hands, dragging me to their class and screaming “Yay!” As I get towards their door, other children come out leaping into my arms and snuggling into me.

Torture. It is pure and utter torture to have the love of children like that and have it replayed four times before lunch on a Monday morning. Frankly, I came to China tired of the sophistication, bitterness and sang-froid of my professional life in New York. Somehow, “being professional” back home seemed to exclude what mattered most to me about “being human.” It all made rational, reasonable sense but I had grown tired of the excuses for cauterizing my passion in the pursuit of my passion. I don’t know why but joy in my job had been lost and forgotten while any remnants of it were considered “unsophisticated,” “immature” and “unprofessional.” I was vaguely aware of the hollow space left behind but I always figured that was simply an irreversible part of being a grownup; like when you learn there’s no Santa. These children have restored my faith in things I thought I had lost forever.

Before class, I squat as the children wrap themselves around every available body part and, barring that, each other to double layer me. While I’m squatting, we speak “Chinglish” for them to use their latest vocabulary and to have an emotional connection with me. The little girls touch my hair and everyone wants a chance to look at my light eyes. Every once and a while, the kids get into a kissing match to see who can plant the most kisses on my cheeks. Each time they kiss me, they dissolve into giggles.

Yeah, it’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it.

It then takes me a good fifteen minutes to get them seated in some semblance of order (mind you, “order” is never reached unless other teachers are present) and I begin the lesson. Today’s lesson was planes and, like I said, we all made paper planes. The little boys helped out the little girls to make super cool airplanes and then we wrote “nose” on the nose of our planes, “body” on the body of our planes, “wing” on the wings and “tail” on the tail. Alpha Hottie passes by several more times just to make a staggeringly easy lesson difficult.

Once they’ve got the vocabulary down on their planes and we’ve all said the vocabulary enough to make you batty, I then have volunteer students go the blackboard, draw a plane, label the parts and say the parts as I point them out. The bell rings and I say “Bye-bye” and they say, “Bye-bye” as the students from my next class come pouring through the door to drag me to their class.

My last class before lunch on Mondays is the class with my little monkey. My little monkey has multiplied. There are now three little boys who simply must be picked up and held by me in my last class of the morning. And this is to say nothing of the little girls who flock around me to tell me how beautiful I am, how much they love me and to kiss me on my cheek.

Today, before class my three little monkeys got into kissing my cheek. As I picked up two of them at a time, they did rapid fire kissing on each of my cheeks while they fought each other for exclusive rights to me. Other things eventually distracted two of them and I was left with one of them who insisted I pick him up. I held him and he wrapped his arms around my neck, rested his head on my shoulder, sighed and completely relaxed into me. He lifted his head once to study my face seriously, gently caressed my cheeks with his hands, kiss me on the cheek and then relax back down again. He would then, occasionally, briefly squeeze my neck in another hug.

That is the sum total of the worth of my life. There does not need to be a heaven because it could not possibly surpass that.

Unfortunately once the bell rings, his class is the least well behaved and so they tend to learn the least but goddamn, they are too wonderful.

And then begins the torture also known as “lunch.”

As I walk through the hallways, all students full-body holler “Hello teacher!” Some of the boys high-five me, some of my babies leap to hug me and some of my students tell me how beautiful I am. As I enter the cafeteria, I’m met with a deafening cacophony of the randomized, “Hello teacher!” (Essentially, as soon as one student sees me and hollers, “Hello teacher,” other students turn to look for me first or simply holler it out without looking.) When I turn to look, all the students are standing up from their seats and full-body waving and so I say, “Hello” and wave to each one of them. It takes a while to do this and I certainly don’t mind but even if I did, frankly, as the only tangible reason they have to speak English right now, I see it as my professional responsibility to nurture their interest in an English capacity. If English is overwhelmingly positive and each new vocabulary word gives them a slightly larger piece of me, then good learning patterns will be set quite young.

I then go to the teacher’s lunchroom (a smaller room off the main cafeteria) and get my lunch. I’m always one of the first teachers in and so I sit by myself. Students sneak up to the door to watch me eat in the hopes that I’ll look up and wave. So, I sit in a back corner with my back to the wall and my front to the room and doorway to have a full view of Alpha Hottie and the ability to wave to my babies when they peak in.

Soon my regular lunch girlfriend shows up and we chat away. Sometimes other teachers come and join us and we talk about life, family, travel and generally how our day is going. At some point, Alpha Hottie shows up and my morning becomes complete.

It takes about a half hour to eat lunch and return home, so I’m usually back in my apartment by 12:30 and from there, I’m free until 2. In Xi’An, it becomes the time of the siesta and so I see no reason not to “do as the Romans.”

On Mondays, I have afternoon classes in the Middle School and so I head off to there. I try to get to my office at least a half hour before class starts so I have time to prepare and so my colleagues have time to ask me questions that may have arisen. Yesterday, my beloved colleague entered the office whistling and twirling his badminton racquet. Upon seeing me, he broke into a wide smile. “I had a dream and you were in it!”

“Really?” I asked smiling. Normally that sort of comment would make me nervous, however, he was saying it and secondly he was saying it in front of an office full of English speaking colleagues.

“Yes, it was the second time you have been in my dream.” He then told me the remarkably benign narrative of his dream where we are building towards something together. It has been made very clear that I am seen a breath of fresh air and the opportunity for real exposure to the West unlike my predecessor who was simply in it for the (in his opinion paltry) paycheck and to do the bare minimum.

I told him how happy I was to help out in the dream and he stayed quite happy. We chatted a bit more and then the bell for class rang.

I taught my classes and, as my colleagues were busy in a Chinese-language meeting when I returned after classes, I skipped my usual post-class lingering-for-questions/ comments/ discussions period from 5 to 6.

Instead, I went to see my boss about extending him an invitation to my Brazilian Angel’s for lunch. As I introduced the two of them and he got her a good teaching job at another school, she will host the two of us for lunch on Thursday as a thank you.

I knocked on his door and he warmly invited me in. Immediately, he changed out my old tea for some new tea he’s gotten (everyone here carries 15-20 ounce tea bottle everywhere in lieu of the American cup of coffee and bottle of water except the tea bottles are not disposable) and invited me in for a chat. I extended the invitation and told him how happy both my Brazilian Angel and I were with her new job. He told me how happy it made him to make me happy.

We spoke some about the Americans who came to visit and how much he respected one particular gentleman who came to visit. The two of them have been emailing back and forth and he is quite excited about building a bridge of friendship. I explained that I hoped to be constructing a pen pal program for students and we discussed the possibility of me creating a teacher exchange program.

He then confided in me that speaking with me helps him to relax. He told me that the company of a woman so beautiful and so kind is such a relief. I tried to beg off, frankly uncomfortable with the constant praise being heaped upon me. One compliment is something I can accept graciously; hundreds a week make me nervous. He stopped me and insisted upon being heard. He told me that all the teachers come to speak to him about how kind and how beautiful I am. He also expressed sadness in the fact that I do not speak Chinese well because there is a saying about my sort of kindness and beauty that he wishes he could share with me. I tried to express to him that I am merely a product of my environment and that I can be truly awful when surrounded by an environment demanding my inner bitch but the Chinese have created an environment in which she need not appear. When almost all emotional and physical needs are met, only the irretrievably fucked up are still obnoxious. Frankly, it’s easy to be benevolent when everyone lays themselves out for you not to mention, it’s extra easy to look benevolent when the legacy left to you is one of lecherous opportunism wrapped in “doing you a favor” patronizing. I don’t think he quite understood as he’s never really been in any society but the one in which we are currently immersed. Nevertheless, I felt it important to articulate the idea that my personality most immediately reflects the environment I feel surrounds me. We then talked for about an hour and a half about life, politics, tea, poetry and the beauty of snow in the mountains.

And, I returned home as I usually do, content with life. At home, I followed my staying in routine. I made and then had dinner, talked with my Brazilian Angel, watched some DVD’s, listened to some music and got to bed by 11.