April 28:

Live from Lanzhou, It's Saturday night!

In our China, the holiday giveth and the holiday taketh away. May 1 is Socialist Labor Day*, and we get some much-needed time off, but not without sacrifice. Early last week we finally received the “make-up” schedule for this holiday. We will not teach from Tuesday, May 1 through Monday, May 7. But we are teaching our Friday classes on April 27 and again on April 28, and our Monday classes on April 29 and again on April 30. This results in eight days of nonstop teaching. For me, it means that I will have taken only three full days off since the first of April. Ugh! (*Ironically, Labor Day heralds the beginning of Golden Week, a time that is designed to be a consumer feeding frenzy.)

I am in the midst of giving midterm exams, so I was reluctant to start a new teaching unit, or even take on serious content, for the four classes who are getting an overdose of me this weekend. Not to mention that I'm exhausted, and secretly hoping that some of my students will opt to leave early for the holiday – any sign of rebelliousness in my Chinese students gives me a little thrill of happiness. So I'm hauling my heaps of back issues of China Daily to the classroom, along with scissors, glue sticks, magic markers and big sheets of newsprint. I'm inviting the students to make collages. A few are freaked out at the idea of “wasting” the newspapers, butchering up their icon of information and intelligence. But they get over it. A good mess has been made by all – I'd be in trouble with the cleaning staff, if there were one! And the collages are gorgeous.

April 27:
“You think too much, that is your problem.”

Zorba the Greek

Recently I had one of the most discouraging experiences of my time in China. It all began innocently enough. As part of the inspection hysteria everyone is working six days a week; for me, it's optional. But on many Saturday mornings the teachers in the English Department are giving demonstration lessons and critiquing each other. I welcome this chance to see them teach, so I’ve been dragging my weary self to campus. On one morning, the young woman was teaching a reading lesson based on a textbook selection titled, “Farewell, My Unlovely” (apparently a play on Raymond Chandler's “Farewell, My Lovely”), written by Caskie Stinnett (1911-1998). I, for one, had never heard of the latter American writer. I later discovered that he was a humorist and travel writer of the fifties, sixties and beyond. I should note here that English textbooks in China don't typically give background information on authors or original sources of the selections.

I'm guessing that “Farewell, My Unlovely” was written in the 60's. The narrator is moving out of New York city, and he recounts his reasons. The city is filthy, but worse, it is indifferent. “Mainly I don't understand why the city has no soul,” he writes. In an eleven paragraph essay he describes six acts of criminal brutality, including the disembowelment of a woman in the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the rape of a teenaged girl on the subway. He rounds out this portrayal by describing a number of nonviolent instances of callousness.

The young teacher whose lesson we observed used Mr. Stinnett's essay to explain grammar, syntax and vocabulary. She was careful to clarify the meaning of “disembowel” with special animation. Not once did she direct attention to the meaning of the passage, or invite any critical analysis. I wasn't surprised. Critical analysis won't score anyone any points on a standardized test; performance on such tests is the goal of instruction in China.

To her credit, the young teacher rushed over to apologize to me as soon as her demo was over. I felt sorry for her. She had no way of anticipating that “the foreigner from New York” would be present that morning. At least she had the good sense to recognize that I would be offended, as indeed I was. During our conversation, every head in the room turned our way. There was great curiosity over my reaction. I hope I didn't disappoint, in my effort to be tactful. I noted that the reading selection was outdated and exaggerated, and that students should be encouraged to question the bias in EVERYTHING they read. End of story? Not quite.

It got back to the Dean that I was offended by the reading selection. Over the next few days she sent several emissaries scurrying to placate me. I was provided with a copy of the textbook. I was reassured that the essay is not really anti-American. I was reassured that Chinese students don't really believe what they read in their textbooks. I was reassured and reassured. I did my best to explain the reasons for my discomfort.

In the end, I just felt heartsick. First, this fresh, vivid evidence of the anti-American bias in Chinese textbooks (I'd seen a lot already) reminded me that as a proponent of goodwill, here, I'm just a drop in the ocean. For every student I know and love, a few hundred thousands more in China get only Caskie Stinnett's version of America and Americans. In addition, this experience reminded me of how limited are the resources of my colleagues. They have no choice of textbook, and are required to “cover” everything and give a common, objective final exam with other teachers of the course. They never have the luxury to teach selectively or even to invite critical analysis. If they don't make it perfectly clear what “disembowel” means, their students' grades will suffer. Further, even if they did have the freedom to take or leave a reading selection, or to invite students to question an author's bias, they themselves have such a narrow scope of experience that critical analysis is out of their own grasp.

Things are changing in China, albeit slowly and unevenly. This story in the China Daily also made me sad. The teachers, bound by the limitations the system has imposed on them from the start, don't deserve to be ridiculed by young, savvy students. Even in our remote outpost, I see evidence of students outstripping teachers in their command of spoken English, their use of technology, and their willingness to question authority. These are good changes, but the growing pains may be excruciating.