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Shirley
Shirley, Head of the English Department at the Jian Qing Experimental school, is quite an awe-inspiring woman. She takes charge of the English classes in the school which caters for ages all the way from 3 to 18. I think that's why its called an experimental school because most schools teach certain age groups. It is the school I am most frequently at, teaching 10 lessons over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
Jian Qing Middle school entrance
She found me in the office today. I'd just taught 3 lessons on the trot, and was having a rest. It is very common in China for Chinese people to 'take a rest' or for them to tell you to 'take a rest'. It is a cat nap that will take place anywhere. So you see teachers with heads on desks getting shut-eye and a lot of commuters on trains with their eyes shut, snoring. In fact on the date, I was actually told to stop talking and go to sleep for a bit when we were on the bus heading to what I thought was the skating. I feel like I have adopted this 'Anywhere, Any place, Sleep'.
After asking how I am coping in Shanghai, lessons, etc, we walk to the lunch hall.
In the lunch hall, I always sit with other Western teachers. It is a chance to talk about anything. It is common knowledge that there is a English teacher table who have an amnesty on the way you eat your rice.
However today Shirley had sat down on a free table of 4, what was I to do? Follow suit? We were talking in the queue, that technically means that we were to sit together, right? Following suit, I walk over, bowl of soup, chopsticks and tray in hand. Getting to the table, where do I sit, straight across, surely not, or maybe I should. Too many decisions. All I wanted to do was just shovel rice with the sweet sweet and sour sauce that had come with todays meat.
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Pre-Shanghai Boom
Sitting diagonally across (I felt we both could do with the leg space), we talked about Shanghai. Then in a pure Louis Theroux role I asked her the more delving questions about her life.
She told me how as the second of eight children in her family, she was programmed to look after other siblings. The one child policy doesn't allow for children nowadays to develop this natural skill. She complained how children nowadays are 'eating from their parents wallets'. They don't have to work as hard because it is all handed to them. They are the only child so all the riches from their parents, grandparents, and their family above them in the tree is passed to them as well as love. How are you meant to teach a child who receives things on a silver plateur?
She had one child, a daughter who was doing very well for herself having just graduated from Stamford University doing Business. This I congratulated her on. But she said she was scared. Her own mother who is 94 gets a lot of help from her 8 children, who will help her when she grows old. She only has one daughter who she predicts will grow up to be very busy. I liked how she had identified her family as the key carers rather than employing a professional carer to come in. She also told me of the tragedy one colleague had had befallen on them, a teacher the same age as her had lost her only child to a freak illness. I could not imagine how inconsolable she would have been. These are problems facing China she says.
She had lived in Shanghai her whole life (I didn't ask her how old she was). She told me of the times when all types of technology were unheard of and buying a simple electric fan for her sick Father was a simple fantasy. When you went into a shop, you not only had to have the money for accessories like this, but you had to have a ration card as there were not enough to go around in China.
She grew up with 3 generations living in the same house, no idea of material goods we take for granted, never travelled, now she owns 3 houses across the city, TV's in each room and has visited places all over the world. She felt people never wanted to go back to what it was like, so they teach the children what China was.
She tells me that Shanghai provides for the rest of China in technology, management and money. I felt inside that Shanghai in some parts may also want to leave the rest of China behind.
I feel that Shanghai was like a caged beast. Now free, the head zookeeper is allowing it to feast, so that he can show it off to its daily visitors coming to see it.
After our conversation today, I'm looking forward to visiting China to experience the more backward parts of it.
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