China's Rich Orphans

A bitter-sweet memory a former student shared with me: “I started boarding school at five. Each night an auntie would instruct us to clean our room before we slept. We would wait for her to leave, throw bucket-loads of water onto the floor, and then laughing, we would pretend to be little fish swimming away in the dirty water. We would then huddle together to keep warm and sleep, because none of us liked to be alone.”

Growing up in Australian suburbia, we all had the inking the Asian education ethic was a far cry from the lame aspirations of underachievement dogging the average Aussie. What this inkling didn’t even nearly give us, was the full picture of educational expectations in China. As it turns out, Chinese-Australians were pretty laid back compared to Chinese from China.

Schooling in China starts as early as two. By schooling, I do not mean day-care or finger-painting, nor do I mean an hour-and-a-half in a sandpit with other toddlers, and an adoring parent waving at you lovingly from outside the kindy gate. Entrance for two year olds into China’s most prestigious pre-schools requires a hefty round of testing and the submission of a resume listing talents and achievements. These ‘achievements’ do not include obvious toddler triumphs, such as being potty-trained or weaned from a mother’s tit, but glorious musical, linguistic and athletic feats.

For many toddlers, acceptance into these prestigious schools also marks the start of boarding school. At boarding school, these small children are expected to shower, feed and dress themselves, attend full days of schooling, and show their filial gratitude by achieving highly. Many a sympathetic teacher has been known to complete the tasks themselves, before drilling the toddlers with the question and answer: “Who did this?” – “I did this!” “Who did this?” – “I did this!”

For many, being a good parent in China means providing the most expensive and prestigious education available, and pressuring your child to over-achieve. As judgemental as it may sound, I think it is wrong, senseless, and detrimental to any child’s wellbeing. Children should be with their parents. There are thousands of ways to bring up healthy, happy and intelligent children, and this is not one of them.
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A Lament to Industrial Relations

The Chinese penchant for a life at work is best described as diametrically opposed to the Australian spirit. As such, I spent my first nine months in Asia chanting anti-work mantras such as: Hey ho, hey ho, the six-day week has got to go! and One, two, three, four, 5 pm I’m out the door!

Time wore me down however and culled my protests. My final resignation came after realizing no one else had time for friendships or walks in the park, and discovering there was something debasing about playing Scrabble alone, and having only a few passing roaches to chuckle at my witty dialogue. So, after two years of feeble resistance and long working hours, I woke one day finally cured of my disabling Australian work ethic. After all, who has time to reflect on their national identity, when all they do is work?

In addition to becoming a confirmed workaholic, China has taught me to avoid facing problems, smile sweetly, and swallow at least a few bitter pills. Still, being the slow learner that I am, it has taken over 3000 hours of social psychological conditioning in private language institutes for me to really come to terms with my deficiencies as an employee. To think, I once foolishly believed in paid holidays, honest appraisals, and education before profit!

Yet, despite all my progress, I still feel this laid-back, bush-whacking alter-ego lurking just beneath the surface. An alter-ego that sometimes just wants to yell out: fair go mate! Especially when it receives that kind of email that starts: NOTICE: the teaching department will eliminate 10 teachers at the beginning of February! To be honest, that alter-ego is sometimes so overbearing I fear it’s actually a genetic disorder that induces outbursts of working-class pride.

As a result of my crippling precondition, I have found myself at odds over a renewal contract in my company. It seems my disorder has blinded me to the rewards hidden behind signing a contract that demands: the Employee must consider the benefits of the Company as priority, and obey all the Company’s policies.

Despite the director’s kind attempts to push me in the right direction, I still feel a strain of rebellion coursing through my veins. A strain that multiplies each time I focus on any of its 654 supporting clauses – the teacher has no right to refuse working overtime; days taken as sick leave or for national holidays should be made up at the company’s discretion, quitting mid-contract will incur a fine of RMB 50,000 …

Fortunately, the director of my school is an attentive and reasonable man, who was willing to take a few hours out of his busy schedule to reveal the flaws in my logic. He may have even convinced me, had I not previously been genetically-coded into believing a contract should be binding, fair and lawful, and that clauses included for the sole purpose of scaring employees are actually redundant. Still, every day the voices in my head get louder: one, two, three, four, please don’t think and work some more!
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raspberries on their stomachs

A more serious concern I carry with me is the lack of physical boundaries between teachers and students. In Australia there is an on-going debate about where the lines should fall. The current laws demand no physical contact under any circumstances; meaning even if a child is hurt, don’t touch them. We are also warned to never be alone with a student, just to ensure our legal protection and their safety.

You can imagine my shock upon arriving to Taipei, where grown men can pick up small girls, tickle them, kiss their faces, and blow RASPBERRIES ON THEIR STOMACHS – it is even encouraged. My students jump on me, pull my hair, and grab my legs when I’m walking, and no one looks twice.

Think about it. To teach English you don’t need any educational qualifications; there are no specific requirements outside being foreign, and no legal checks done on prospective teachers. Any junkie or paedophile (as long as they’re white), can get a job, at the drop of a hat, in a remote and anonymous pre-school, and hide out for years.

After working in Taiwan, I now understand why we have such strict laws in Australia, and why they are so necessary. I am not alone when I say this – many, many female teachers here are appalled and disgusted by the way grown men are able to interact with, and handle small children. I have met so many men I would never let my children near, let alone touch. There is no social awareness about the dangers of sexual abuse, let alone legal protection for the abused. A 45 year old pot dealing Canadian teacher, who thinks he’s Woody Allen, even openly proclaims he finds the small boys he works with sexually desirable.

So, the question is: not if, but how extensive are Asia’s paedophilia rings, and just how linked are they to English teaching?
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detachment from nature

A five year old told me that same week: “teeeacher, if you want to kill a cockroach you need to cut it into six pieces with scissors, and then flush it down the toilet” … One of my most fruitless battles and personal gripes in Taipei has been the intense DETACHMENT FROM NATURE. In all fairness to Taipei’s city slickers, not even pigeons want to live here, so I guess it’s pretty hard to be ‘attached’.

The most reactionary I ever came to this nuance of Taipei culture was during a grade four class in which we read a poignant Amerindian selection: In Charge of Celebrations. The protagonist of this extended poem was a solitary dreamer who spent her days lost in the wild beauty of the Arizona desert, fashioning festivities. There was Dust-Devil Day to twirl and whirl in dust storms, Green Cloud Day, Coyote Day, Triple Rainbow Day, and The Time of Falling Stars. Of course I should have been clued in enough know that on no tenet could they relate to this story; especially when their text responses were along the lines of: “What?? Living alone with no TV?? Sooooooo boring.”

Still, I persisted, and instructed each child to write a composition creating their own ‘celebration of nature’. Every single composition involved destruction, killing, or shopping. The first handed in was the ‘fear of nature story’ – in which entire forests were burnt down by raging lightning. Henceforth, we have Lightning Day – a day for extended prayers that no lightning will ever strike Earth again.

The highlight came though in a story about visiting an aviary of brightly-feathered birds - each bird was intricately described, and I felt hope. The story then moved to a point outside the aviary where a wayward bird stole the favourite pen of the student, and dropped it into a lake. The bird was promptly stoned by the child. So we now have Bird Day – a day to kill birds, because as the student concluded: “I hate birds soooo much!”

I was then given: Buy a Cactus Day and Squirrel Killing Day. On this day at school, I seriously lost it!
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teach the chinese way

My first job was intolerable, so after four months, and much confusion about my legal status, I began employment at Immanuel English Academy (the love I have for Jesus in my heart). Here I was instructed to TEACH THE CHINESE WAY.

My first class was part of the summer program and had four students; three of them were four, and the youngest, Timmy, was three, and on his first day at school ever. My job was to keep them seated for six hours of NO CHINESE and gruelling pencil-pushing, and this is not an exaggeration. They had a five to ten minute break each hour, and after three hours, a short lunch and nap break.

Timmy did not know he had an English name, let alone that he was at school, and not part of a kung-fu film. For the first day he screamed in Chinese for three hours straight, and finding the results ineffective, set about fly-kicking me at every opportunity. Only the great Buddha knows what profanities were leaving his mouth; I can only assume it was: “I need to go pee-pee, why don’t you take me stupid lady who can’t talk?”

After about a week his father came in and asked me if his son spoke English yet. I told him “your son can say rabbit,” (which came at the great cost of gluing five sticks of glitter to a paper cut-out). The inner dialogue of course raged in screeching inflections: are you fucking crazy??? Your son doesn’t even know he has an English name, drops his pants when he needs to pee, and thinks he’s a Bruce Lee action figure … I’m covered in bruises, and he’s three! – No-one can acquire an entire language in four days!!

Oh, the expectations of some parents!
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i will not adjust

The Taiwanese penchant for living life in fast forward (other than dating), and spending most of it working, is best described as incompatible with the Australian spirit.I spent my first twelve months here chanting in mantra style: “I WILL NOT ADJUST – I will never find a six day working week acceptable - I will not adjust – working at 8am on Saturday is not acceptable - I will not adjust!”

After arriving to Chang-Kai Shek International Airport (recently renamed Taoyuan International Airport) at 10pm on a Sunday evening, my presence was expected in the Kojen English Head Office the following morning at 9am sharp. From here I was whisked to the hospital for a thorough check-up to ensure I had all my teeth, and wasn’t trying to infect the Taiwanese populace with HIV. On this day I learnt there is no time for privacy, let alone empathy in the Taiwanese hospital. Blood testing is done at a long counter where ten nurses work in perfect synchrony – one patient per minute. Patients pressing bloodied cotton swabs to their arms, huddle together on a bench for five minutes in case of faintness, before rushing off – past the hospital staff waving people’s swab tests around like air freshener - and back to work.

The next day I started teaching six day a week.
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