After spending much more money than we could afford during spring vacation, we decided that we had to do something different for the summer. We therefore signed up to teach a four-week English course in Zibo, a medium sized city in Shandong province, near the coast and southeast of Beijing. We left Xiangtan on the midnight train to Qing Dao. Earlier in the evening a friend, Frank, had invited us to dinner and then to his home. He has twin girls, aged twelve and twelve, who greatly enjoyed playing with Taalan and Tariqa. They had some very exuberant card games as we waited to leave for the train. Frank came to the station with us, in his delivery truck that he uses for his business. Because of his presence, our journey and the negotiation to collect our tickets at the station were very easy. Both children slept the sleep of the dead, sprawled across two chairs apiece in the train waiting room.
When boarding time arrived, Taalan was a walking zombie and Tariqa was an extra piece of limp baggage. We were traveling light, but were still challenged getting the bags and children onto the train. When we arrived at our bunks they were already occupied. One woman packed up and moved, but the other two showed every intention of staying. Tim got the attendant, who promptly ousted the remaining people, so we were able to fall into our bunks, Taalan in a middle bunk, Tim in a bottom bunk, and Tariqa and I in a middle bunk. Around 5:30 in the morning people started stirring, and further sleep was soon impossible. We spent the day playing games with the children, and talking to the lady across from us, who lived in Calgary, my hometown. She and her 10-year-old daughter, Jenny, were visiting relatives. Jenny could speak Chinese fluently, though she had left China when she was only two. This was due to the large Chinese community in Calgary, which provided Chinese lessons on the weekends. The trip passed quickly, with the children laughing and chatting, while playing Uno with Jenny, their new friend. Through our friend's help we were awake and ready to go when our 2:30 a.m. stop in Zibo arrived.
The owner of the school was at the station to meet us, so the transfer to the hotel occurred without mishap. We were soon trying to get back to sleep. For the next five weeks, the hotel room was our home away from home. The room was fairly large and by pushing one bed against one wall, and the other two together against the other wall, we had about 8 feet in the center for a small table and chairs. Tariqa, Tim and I slept in the doubled-bed and Taalan in the single one. They actually found an old washing machine for us to use that was installed in the shower stall of the bathroom. We had to fill it by using a small basin as a bucket, 15 basins per load for each wash and rinse cycle, and had to hand-transfer the wash from the tub to the spinner after each wash cycle. The spinner sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. When it didn't, we had to ring out our clothes by hand. As we were wearing Zibo Foreign Language School T-shirts every day during class, as well as on the weekend, we often had wet T-shirts hanging all our hotel room, adding to the special ambience of our room.
On our first full day at Zibo, in a replay of our spring vacation, we made a visit to the hospital. This time we were on our way to the office of the school. Tariqa's babysitter, Wendy, was holding her hand and she was walking on the low decorative rock wall along the sidewalk. The next thing we knew, Tariqa was in tears and screaming. She had tripped, her hand jerked out Wendy's hand, and she pitched forward onto her head. As you might imagine and as our luck would have it, she landed on the sharp corner of a rock. The school manager and Wendy were horrified as blood ran down Tariqa's forehead. We hustled her to the office, into the school van, and off to the nearest hospital. I'm sure they were wondering what they had gotten themselves into by hiring our family for the summer.
The hospital in Zibo is a little more modern than in Xiangtan. It was cleaner and brighter and, well, it was recognizable as a hospital. We were ushered into an examining room and shielded behind a bamboo door screen. Tariqa was laid on a table. The lady doctor took a look and announced that she would need stitches. Tariqa had settled down a little until she heard that, then the tears and yells began again. We finally calmed her down. Tim held her head and I her chin so she had to stay still. They arrived with a sterile pack which they carefully opened, and proceeded to put a drape over Tariqa face, leaving a 4-inch opening over her forehead. Her eyes were completely under the cover. The nurse then took a needle of cleansing solution and proceeded to inject it into and around the wound. No anesthetic, no nothing. Tariqa shuddered, then took a deep breath and never moved again until it was over. Tim didn't handle it so well. He said faintly, "Could someone take over here please?" We looked at him, puzzled. I asked him if he was OK, to which he replied, "No, I need someone to take over here please." Since his hands were under the cover no one could replace him so I ended up holding Tariqa by myself. Tim gets woozy sometimes in hospital situations, and needed to sit down for a few minutes. Meanwhile Tariqa finished getting her three stitches, and a large plaster patch, and was undraped. We then went to the IV area, China's remedy for all ills. They tested her for a penicillin-type IV drip, but she reacted unfavorably to it. No penicillin or amoxicillin for her, so they gave her some other medicine to take. One week later the stitches came out and all that remains is a very small scar. Most people write travel guides about famous places. By the time we leave, we can write a travel guide to the hospitals around China. We are now on our 7th.
Work started on the weekend with opening ceremonies. The classes were being held at four locations around the city or nearby areas. On both Saturday and Sunday we attended two opening ceremonies. Several were videotaped and the final ceremony was broadcast over the local television. Tim was asked to speak on behalf of the teachers. I think his graying beard made him look distinguished. There were about 20 teachers teaching at the school, mostly foreign students from Beijing. The other teachers came from all over, many from African countries: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Pakistan, and Zambia, as well as the Dominican Republic and the US. At our school we worked with Sirag from Ethiopia, Habibu from Nigeria, and Nelani from Ghana.
School began every day at 9:00. We would meet in the lobby of the hotel at 8:30 and walk to our school, about 3 blocks away. We taught from 9:00 to 11:00 in the morning and from 3:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon. Tim taught high school students, teaching American idioms, twice a day, and I taught grade 9 in the morning, and high school in the afternoon. Many of the students had never met a foreigner before. I taught from a local book. You may be interested in some of the new modern English vocabulary I was supposed to teach. Some new words are: usedn't, amn't, shan't, and the old standby ain't. We were also supposed to teach sentences like: "Would you be good enough to find me a book about English literature? He used to get up at five in the morning, usedn't he? You ought to go by bus, oughtn't you? and Let's have a cup of tea, shan't we?" Needless to say, I was incapable of teaching such refined language, so I concentrated on simple, functional English. We definitely left a favorable impression, often teaching moral values in class as well as language and American culture. Long will the students live in our memories. They were a delight to teach and we feel honored to have gotten to know them and some of their families.
On the weekends all the teachers would gather back together and visit tourist sites. One weekend we went to Qing Dao, a seaside city famous for its beer (Tsingtao) and beaches. At one time, it was a German colony. We enjoyed a wonderful day at the beach; Tim and Taalan ended up with a sunburn to remember the day by. The principal arranged for a big dinner at a seafood restaurant. I can't even begin to describe the variety of sea creatures that graced our table with claws, tentacles, and other forms of maritime beauty.
On another weekend we went to a lake in the mountains, which was very refreshing. Four of us went bushwhacking up the surrounding hills. After climbing and scrambling through very dense scrub and underbrush for an hour we came out on the top of a ridge, in a small pine forest. We felt like we were the first persons to ever walk there, until we noticed that all the trees were in straight lines. The last weekend was spent at Qufu, the home of Confucius. Tariqa ran one of her high fevers the evening before at three in the morning, so I stayed in the hotel while Tim went on the tour. He really enjoyed the trip and said it was well worth seeing. Most of the time we had to leave for the tours at 5 in the morning, so were not very rested when school started up after the weekend.
The children usually stayed in the hotel. They had a wonderful young lady named Wendy who cared for them while we were teaching. She helped Taalan with his Chinese lessons and both children with their spoken Chinese, and played games with them all day. They really came to love her a lot. It was hard to leave her behind.
We ate a lot of peaches (local to the area) and bananas (from the south). We like to sample the breads in the local markets, and found that most of them were different from the market breads in Xiangtan. We patronized the vendors who have freezers on the sidewalks, buying lots of cold water and ice cream bars during the hot days of July and August. Because there was no way to cook in our hotel room, we frequented several restaurants. One of them was a classy restaurant with nice white tablecloths. A special attendant refilled our teacups from a pitcher with a 2-foot-long spout, expertly aiming a jet of boiling water past our fingers and into the cups. Much of the live food was on display, including eels, assorted seafood, and a big open basin of scorpions. I have heard they have medicinal value but, being vegetarian, we were spared the temptation of trying them.
Several college students became good friends. One of the students, Iris, arranged for us to talk at her old high school. In China there is a lot of pressure on high school students when it comes time to take the college entrance exams. Many feel that they are in a dead end situation if they are unable to attend college, either through low grades or lack of money. She felt that our way of looking at life and its struggles would give hope to many of those students. She was always looking for ways to help others. What a pure heart she has.
Several of our students also came and visited us in our hotel and played with the children after school, playing ping pong, taking us swimming at the people's park, and out to dinner at their homes. Taalan especially loved the pool at the park. There was an overhead cable with a triangular handle attached that you could grab hold of and ride down the length. When you let go you fell about 10 feet into a pool of verrrry cold water. Taalan spent over an hour riding the cable again and again. Two of the boys became especially good friends. When we left they asked if we would agree to be their American parents, so when we left Zibo our family had grown by four—Korey, Andy, Wendy, and Iris—all of whom are unofficially adopted into our family. It was with tears and many hugs that we parted to attend the final dinner and then catch the 1:00 a.m. train to Beijing.
Several teachers were leaving on the same train, and the principal drove us all to the station. Instead of using the main entrance, though, he drove around the back and parked in a deserted alley. Tim remarked that it was an appropriate location for a gangland-style execution. The principal said it would be easier than going up and down the stairs in the station, and that he had done it many times before, during his student days. He darted off into the shadows of the train yard and we all followed, feeling like hoboes or commandos or fools, or possibly all three. We carried, rolled, and dragged our bags and boxes along a broken pavement, across the main tracks, along some more broken pavement, up onto the platform, and waaaay down to the far end. We waited. One train came and went. Another came; it was ours. We boarded and found our berths, only having to remove one person this time. A teacher named Wendell was with us. The berths were sold out, and he had only a "platform ticket" for the train—no assigned seat or berth. He had to negotiate with the stewards to find a spot, otherwise he either would have been put off the train or would have to stand the entire 8 hours to Beijing. Fortunately, the steward found someone who was willing to give up her berth to exchange with Wendell, and he slept well that night. Such is travel in China.
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