bighairylaowai.com

I said a couple times before that I didn’t want to narrate the great sagging vacancy of my office existence on this website. But like John Prescott’s meaty shagathon, such grotesque lurid things always come to light. None of that background padding. No story-telling scaffolding. Simply, I came across a letter that had sent out to a client from one of the administrators in my firm. It consisted of seven tranches of indented text, not long enough to be termed paragraphs as they only contained one or perhaps two short sentences each. Each of these fragments began with the phrase I should be grateful… save for the third which surprised with the variant I should be most grateful… and the sign-off paragraph that left nobody in doubt with I should therefore be grateful…

This is probably the only time that I will invite comments. FYI absolutely no fence-sitting. Your reaction to this will determine your station, should you be granted one, in next month’s Global Restructure.

I have chosen to place this hotly anticipated blog entry under the category of teaching. Think well upon that.

The way was clear only briefly. A single shrill cry of laowai! brusquely interrupted my daze, another of Tom! confirmed my mistake of walking past the first grade classroom on the way out. A trickle of them scampered over and grabbed at my legs, clung onto my arms and tugged at the hem of my T-shirt, followed by the crash of another thirty pair of feet. I was engulfed within moments. My arms were being squeezed to see just how big they were, my sideburns were being violently pulled and patches of stubble pinched and ripped at. One student was hanging off my daypack, drawing me backwards with his suspended weight. The few cries of Tom had given way to laowai [old outsider], which swiftly gained the synchronicity of a chant, Lao – wai! Lao – wai! As the first few had clambered on me, I feigned difficulty in walking, but as the Lilliputian load increased I became absolutely immobilised. I searched around for help, but I was met only with the shamelessly broad grin of their Chinese form-teacher. Gulliver had been subdued by 40 rampaging Chinese five-year olds.

This was the clamorous moment of comprehension. I had employed a consciously nonchalant, intriguing spiel detailing my future plans the length of the Australian East Coast, but only now, on the first day of a 6 month contract, did this pretentious pontification mean anything. My employers termed themselves as a School of English, and from the images on their website, I assumed that these modern offices in the central business district would house corporate work. The logo, coloured with cold blues and whites, depicted two businessmen, stiffly postured, their fore-arms allowed the liberty to share a deeply formal, unquestionably symmetrical handshake. The days would require preparation, I would need a vast bank of technical knowledge to satisfy the demands of these motivated learners, but having garnered the respect of these gentlemen, it would transmute into nights of being showered with Beijio (56% proof clear spirit) at expensive, neon-soaked Chinese bars, all the while their behaviour expressing to me Yes. We respect you as a teacher, and believe we have achieved the optimum symbiosis between the hungry student and the wise, generous teacher. Indeed, your tender years that we so doubted at first, belie the strong current of sagacity within. Ha ha. But enough of such matters. Let us drink and prove ourselves to be so very crazy at such times.

Instead, I was informed that I would be teaching 24 lessons a week in a Chinese Primary school. Average class size: 50.
Read the rest of this entry »

A fairly painful looking injury happened in a class this morning. To drum the requisite 6/8 new items of vocabulary into little kids, I often play a TPR (Total Physical Response) game to finish with. It involves sellotaping flashcards (have a word with yourself) which is teaching-speak for A4 sheets bearing large, colourful pictures, at various points around the room. Oh, little jokes along the way - where to stick this one? Maybe on your head a ha ha, or no, I’ll stick it on the window. What, why is it not sticking? O bless me the window is in fact open and I had not noticed the fact that this window is open as I am such a clumsy feckless laowai. Brings the class down that one.
Read the rest of this entry »

The following is a reference letter that the Head of English in one of my Primary Schools wrote for me on the last day of the school semester. Written with far better handwriting than my own (which isn’t particularly difficult really), I genuinely treasure this thin leaf of lined paper torn from a student’s exercise book. If I was being sappy, or reeling in slurry drunkeness, I’d suggest that it validates my time here.

***************************************************
Jon had been an English oral teacher in Yucai Primary Foreign Language School Attached to Chengdu no. 7 Middle School for half a year.

Jenny
6.15.2005

***************************************************

The next is a letter that a middle school student gave me as I was leaving a classroom after acting as a substitute teacher for a single lesson.

***************************************************

Dear Jon,
I’m so pleased to meet you.

From Junior Class4 Grade 8
Write to me soon.
Tony

***************************************************

My gut instinct was PISS - TAKE, either of me, or an effeminate boy in the class. But the earnest smile of the boy who ran out to give it to me, the reaction of the Chinese teachers I showed it to and the fact that it is common for middle school kids to try to correspond with the roundeye teacher has since convinced me otherwise. I sent a letter back trying to reassure and compliment this apparently fragile boy, and included the line I like many kinds of food except French food, I hate the French, so that through our rampant xenephobia we could be kindred.

Time for another update I guesses, I would have sent one sooner, but the first month has been pretty draining, and any leisure time has seen me visit one of the ex-pat pubs, or retreat to fortress Lau-wai for a swift dvd from the knock off shop..

There’s been a little turmoil at the organisation, with one American dude leaving after a week, and an Aussie so p*ssed off at the behaviorial standard of the Middle School he’s been sent to that he can’t speak to the Chinese directors of the company without yelling at them but you lied to me! They respond by retreating into complete ignorance, spurious logic, pragmatic modification of reality (lying then), or even leaving the building, all reactions that the Aussie has compared to the temper tantrums of his young sister. Myself, I found out that I was getting ripped off a little in my contract, so I brought some of the famed Jonny B aggression to the negotiating table a couple weeks back, and threatened to leave that day… It sounds harsh and uncharacteristic but you realise that is the typical pattern of commerce over here, from a fruit and veg stall right up to contract negotiations for a job. Any attempt I made to use logic and describe my teaching qualifications were spuriously brushed aside, so I suggested that I would leave, which brought an immediate improved offer - no further bone of contention.
Read the rest of this entry »