School Rules and Regulations

1. Devote your love to the motherland, the people and the Communist Party of China.
2. Observe laws and regulations and develop awareness of law. Observe the school rules and regulations and observe social morality.
3. Love science; study hard; be always ready to think, to ask and to research; take an active part in social activities.
4. Treasure life. Observe safety measures. Keep fit and hygienic.
5. Develop self-respect and self-confidence and keep healthy and civil living habits.
6. Take an active part in physical labour; keep industrious and frugal; do whatever you can by yourself.
7. Be filial to your parents; respect your teachers and elders; be polite to others.
8. Care for the collective, get on well with your classmates, help each other and care for others.
9. Be honest and always keep to your word; correct your errors once you find them out; be responsible.
10. Love nature and care for the environment we live in.

No thanks

The Chinese take the piss out of foreigners because we say “Thanks” for everything. Xie xie this, xie xie that. They think it highly amusing because for them “thanks” is something you say when there’s something worthwhile thanking someone for. Or to put it another way (as someone did recently to me): “If you say it all the time, how will I know when you really mean it?” So where we say “That’s okay” or “It’s a pleasure”, the standard Chinese response is Bu yong xie – no need for thanks.

(Thank you for reading, by the way, you were great.)

A corner that is forever England

Wherever in the world that English is ‘taught as a foreign language’ there’s a phenomenon called ‘English corner’. It’s a gathering, outside of school hours (and, often out of school entirely) where keen students can come together and talk, you guessed it, English. The other day Bick and I got invited up to the local university to be guests at one. It was quite exciting to begin with: we were treated like pop stars and literally mobbed by about a hundred students – happily, mostly girls which was nice. An hour and a half followed having more or less the same conversation about whether I like China, what London’s like (“Is it really foggy all the time?”) and (sorry, Winston Churchill, Wellington, William Shakespeare, et al) David Beckham.

A long way to come to avoid Cliff Richard

Let’s face it, “Misteltoe and Wine” is the worst Christmas song ever. Funnily enough, you don’t hear it much here. Nor any of the other dozen or so tunes that take over the British airwaves before the big day. That’s not to say it’s a Xmas free zone though; I heard stores pipe carols like “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” to the heaving hordes of shoppers (rather memorably back-to-back with “Small Dick Man”). Some make no effort at all; others dress their windows elaborately. Department stores, tea houses, karaoke bars – I’ve seen them all with the same, curious, fifties-style happy Santa face and Merry Christmas script swathed in pretty raggedy bits of tinsel.

However, there’s no official Christmas holiday; my school doesn’t mark it and, perhaps, frowns a little on too much being said about it at all. In general, it’s just an excuse to spend lots of money for no good reason (sounds familiar, huh?). Similarly – for no good reason – the thing to do at Christmas is buy an inflatable hammer and hit people with it on Christmas Eve. I’ve asked and asked but NOBODY knows the significance beyond the assertion “It’s fun” (which is also debatable).

We were given Christmas Day off by the school (only, I think, because we asked for it) and tried to make the most of what we had: duck legs instead of turkey and a melange of winter vegetables expertly cooked up by Rachel in her tiny kitchen. Wine, beer, presents and an afternoon of playing cards followed. Perhaps it was the hangover from the previous night’s session or perhaps it was just inevitable given our situation but an air of gentle melancholy had sunken upon us by the time we parted. We were back to work the next day.

Some of the kids had marked Christmas at home in the weekend (by “marked” I mean they got some presents). But I noticed no real excitement about the whole business either in the run up or in the aftermath and I decided not to devote too much time to it in lessons. Rachel set aside no less than four weeks for it up to the 25th culminating in cutting out snowflakes which the kids got to stick on the windows of their classrooms.

Said snowflakes were torn down, however, along with the cut-out Christmas tree posters. The teachers felt she’d overstepped some invisible mark: even a pretty secular snowflake was too much apparently.

I did just one lesson on the subject (there was no way I could compete with snowflakes) and it was a lot less controversial. With my pedagogic hat on, I began with a quick discussion about Christmas to gauge, as much as anything, what they knew already: “Old Man Christmas”, “Christmas socks full of presents” and “Christmas postcards” was about the sum of it – along with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. So, with my Santa hat on instead, we played that old Christmas favourite Pass the Parcel (Yes, I know, I know…). Hours and hours I spent wrapping fourteen Christmas presents in layers and layers of festive paper (Note to self: NEVER do this again. EVER.) Bafflement reigned to begin with but slowly, and once I’d explained things more clearly, they got the idea so that in most cases the game was a hoot. And that even when I couldn’t find the ‘Xmas Tunes’ on my Walkman so we passed the parcel to George Thorogood and the Destroyers singing “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”. All very Christmassy.

Or – it just had to happen, didn’t it – the power went off in one of my classes so, highly trained as I am, I improvised… by singing.

Those poor, poor kids, is all I can say.

Also unchristmassy, I was tempted to corruption by stopping the music when the best behaved kids (or the ones who’d given me Christmas cards) got the parcel. But, in the end, I did it fair and square. Invariably it was the class troublemaker, bully or loudmouth who won it that way every time. A lot like life really.

What other Christmas things could I do? How about getting them to listen to a seasonal song a couple of times and fill in the missing words? Brilliant! But carols? Too religious I’m afraid. Pop tunes? The lyrics are all way to complicated. So: something slow, simple, with clear lyrics and an unmistakable Christmas flavour.

Hmmmm, let me think.

I may have avoided Sir Cliff but this year, for eight times a day, every day for a week, there was no getting away from White Christmas and bloody Bing Crosby.

Good excuse No. 4028: There was an earthquake…

Honest! The recent hiatus in my blog was caused, not by laziness as is usually the case, but by the earthquake near Taiwan which left the whole of China without the internet and email. Funny, fifteen years ago we’d barely heard of the www but take it away now and it doesn’t half leave you feeling isolated and out of touch. Still, I bet I didn’t miss much. No doubt Chelsea just went on winning. And I bet you they’ll never go ahead and execute Saddam...

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