YANGZHOU IMPRESSIONS #3


Hi folks,
 This is a long one; ten pages, so you might want to print it out. IÍll
be off in Kunming for the National Day vacation from Oct. 1-6. Remember
to try to send email to my ChinaNet address at (Fray@Public.yz.js.cn)
instead of my AOL address if at all possible.


ItÍs Saturday night, a little before midnight, and IÍve just returned
from the TeacherÍs Club here on campus. ItÍs been two weeks since I last
wrote and my adventures since then have included a night in a Yangzhou
disco, a long weekend in Souzhou and Shanghai as well as some great
times with my students, both inside and outside of the classroom. My
karaoki medley this evening included ñSometimes When We Touchî, ñSing
(Sing A Song)î and ñMoon Riverî. I was also given a lesson in Chinese
3-step slow dancing, but IÍll talk more about that later.
 IÍm growing to really appreciate these get-togethers. My colleagues are
so welcoming and I love watching their warm interaction as they glide
across the hardwood floor in an escape from the pressures of a demanding
work week, the men in button-downs and khakis, the women with colorful
skirts and blouses and impossibly high heels. In an adjoining room, Mrs.
Ding, the English Department head, barely notices the drooping ash of
the cigarette dangling precariously from her mouth as she surveys the
new hand sheÍs been dealt. My neighbor, Wang Xiu-fang, has emerged from
mourning the recent death of her father from lung cancer and seems
determined to learn how to dance. Ji ChunhongÍs husband has graciously
stepped in to help her learn the moves as her own husband doesnÍt appear
to be the dancing-type. Their son, nine-year old Zhu Peng-fei, is fast
asleep on a make-shift cot of three wooden chairs after a quick English
lesson from yours truly. Next week is only a three-day work week as
National Day falls on a Thursday, the realization of which seems
apparent in the crowdÍs blithe banter and easy smiles.
Now, as for my Chinese 3-step dancing lesson. Hmmm, how do I explain
this one to you? Well, letÍs start with one of the ways in which China
is cultural different from the United States. Even though I was warned
about it, I still ended up injuring my neck my first two weeks in
Yangzhou from whipping my head around to stare every time IÍd see two
men walking down the street holding hands. Such a display of affection
is perfectly acceptable in China between two close male friends.  That
said, during my second time at the TeacherÍs Club, the karaoke DJ put on
some disco so that I could demonstrate to everyone how Westerners dance.
Sensing that I was a bit reticent, the schoolÍs young, handsome gym
teacher came up to me and invited me to dance with him. When I looked
around, everyone was smiling at me and urging me on. Another surreal
moment in Yangzhou. So we got up and boogied to the approving glances of
the other teachers. As you can imagine, when it came time to learn the
Chinese 3-step slow dance tonight, I was taught by one of the male
teachers. After doing my best to follow his lead and being relatively
successful, I joked with Ji Chunhong that had Chip been there, he would
have been jealous and she laughed.
I didnÍt go to the TeacherÍs Club two weeks ago, but instead went to a
local disco upon the invitation of one of my colleagues, ñAliceî a
pretty, married woman in her mid-20s. Along with a male colleague from
the Chinese Department, we arrived around 8pm and ordered some drinks
and chatted before the music got started. Alice talked  about having
grown up in what we would consider real poverty„no TV, phone, washing
machine, oven„and how our students at Yangzhou Middle school really
donÍt seem to have a concept of how much things have changed in China in
the last fifteen years. I was a bit surprised when she expressed her
opinion that Western girls are prettier because they have a variety of
hair and eye colors whereas ñhere everyone has brown hair and brown
eyesî. I asked her the reason why all the department store mannequins in
Yangzhou are Caucasian, which she didnÍt seem to know. I then asked here
why whenever you saw a poster of a man and a woman kissing„one hung
right above our heads„it was always two Westerners. I couldnÍt quite
grasp the depth of her response, but she said something to the effect
that Westerners are more free ñlike thatî and would pose for such a
picture whereas in her estimation, a Chinese wouldnÍt do such a thing.
We then talked politics a bit, and Alice said that she thought Mao did
many good things and that he was a ñgreat leaderî, but that he did make
some mistakes and that she was not afraid to say that. ñHe was very good
at destroying the old things, but not as good at what to do next, how to
build up a new society,î she concluded. After some more talk, we got up
to dance.
 The music was actually quite good and the 20-somethings who surrounded
Alice, the Chinese teacher and me on the dance floor moved with little
restraint. It was the first time that I had really seen any non-Chinese
en masse and I wondered about them. I also noticed two young Chinese gay
men there, perhaps boyfriends, who seemed aware of me; as we passed each
other at one point, they both gave me a heads up and I smiled back at
them. After dancing until about 10pm, I excused myself to the bathroom
and on the way back bumped into an older man who turned out to be from
Istanbul, Turkey. He satiated my curiosity about the other Westerners by
telling me that they were mostly Brazilians who worked with him at a
joint-venture oil refinery plant in town. We ordered a beer and sat down
to chat.
 As it turned out, he was quite cynical and somewhat drunk and as a
result, some parts of our conversation turned out to be a real downer.
He had been in Yangzhou living in a hotel for the last three months and
was scheduled to be there for at least nine more. ñThe only thing they
understand in this whole damn country is money, money, money. Otherwise,
forget itî, he told me as we watched the dance floor clear and two men
carry a towering object to a spot in front of the DJ. It looked like a
row of shoe boxes eight wide and ten high with their ends covered over
by brown UPS paper with numbers written on them. Alice came over to
explain that for 10 yuan (about $1.25), you could poke your hand through
one of the numbers to see if there was a prize inside. Just then, Celine
DionÍs ñMy Heart Will Go Onî began to play as the gamblers lined up to
try their luck. ñMy Brazilian friends, they donÍt understand. Why would
you stop the music to play a silly game?î my Turkish acquaintance
continued, ñAnd thereÍs that song again!! You know, itÍs the new Chinese
National Anthem, you know, that and ïEvery Sha-la-la-laƒî, you know, the
Carpentersƒ.î Soon after, I made an excuse to leave as this guyÍs
cynicism was beginning to wear on me. By 11pm, I was out the door,
peddling my way back home.
On Monday, I received a desperate email from ñLucyî who had been one of
the four students who had led me through Slender West Lake Park just two
days before. Lucy had studied some specialized English vocabulary that
Saturday morning just so that she could explain to me some of the more
interesting aspects of the park. Lucy, ñAliceî, ñBallî and ñPenelope
Pitstopî and I strolled through the large park on an overcast afternoon,
tourist boats with wooden carved roofs painted bright red and yellow
forming the backdrop along with ancient bridges, pagodas and pavilions.
I enjoyed my very first Chinese mooncakes on Five Pavilion Bridge
courtesy of the girls. They explained to me, however, that we were
celebrating a month too early since Autumn Festival falls in October,
the time when  the round, tasty snacks are devoured on the bridge, the
full moon reflecting off of the lake. I later thanked them as we parted
company and promised them I wouldnÍt mention our visit to the park to
the other students which seemed of particular concern to them.
The urgent email message read as follows:

 ñMr Fray,
    The school leader Mr Ji  knew that we went the bark.We will       be
punished.Please help us!Tell us how to do.HELP!HELP!
Lucy Alice Ballî

My first reaction was, ñOh, shit, not this damn police state crap
again!î As a student at the University of Leningrad in 1985, I had
become accustomed to being followed by the K.G.B., to having potential
Russian friends avoid me because of my foreigner status, and once being
indirectly responsible for an acquaintance being thrown out of a
military academy simply for having met with me one time. As a result, I
was at the most scared for the girls and at the least, just annoyed. I
immediately called  Ji Chunhong, my friend and helper, and she herself
seemed quite surprised at the situation. In the end, to make a long
story short, the whole incident turned out to be one big
misunderstanding and the girls were quite embarrassed and wouldnÍt come
to my Office Hours for a week. And yet the situation informed me as to
the psyche of a Chinese teenager and to the ways in which some of my
students perceive authority.
That week saw some interesting developments in the classroom as I
engaged my students in some group work, a concept that is unfamiliar in
China. With 50-60 students in a class and only 45 minutes to complete a
lesson, itÍs understandable why most teachers seem to primarily lecture,
occasionally calling on students and then answering questions. In
planning my lesson, I found that the logistics were somewhat difficult,
but that the outcome was relatively successful. I noticed especially
that the students seemed to really enjoy getting up out of their seats
and having discussions with other students.
    My office hours, of course, are far more informal and over 20
students showed up that Tuesday to discuss topics ranging from the
amount of studying American students have to do and how they get into
college,  to President Clinton, their own teachers, house music, teenage
drunk driving in America and historical places in Yangzhou. One girl
even asked me about ñravesî, a sort of  floating dance party/concert
that American teenagers attend to dance, drink,  drug, and get away from
their parents. I imagine she must have an American pen pal or at least
access to the Internet to have picked up on this piece of Americana.
Before we left, we agreed to all try to go to a dumpling house that
Friday as my office hours on this day seem to have become a luncheon of
sorts.
 Twenty-two students were waiting on their bicycles outside my office
that Friday. Wary of making the students use their pocket money for
something expensive, I asked for suggestions as to where we should go
and someone suggested a particular dumpling house and offered to lead
the way. With the exception of ñForrest Gumpî, who didnÍt have a bike
and decided to run alongside his friend, we all set off pedaling amidst
the lunch-hour rush of a sunny, frenetic, tree-lined Huaihai Road.
 ñI donÍt understand why you are going to a dumpling house when there
are so many other more interesting things to see like historical
sights,î sighed fourteen-year old ñLindaî, who gives the adjective
ñprecociousî new meaning. Linda is not my student and a full three years
younger than the others. Ever since Teacher Appreciation Day, however,
when she gave me a grammatically correct, wonderfully worded letter
saying that she wanted to be my friend, IÍve gotten to know and
appreciate this serious-minded young lady. She and her best friend
ñJudyî, an absolutely adorable, androgynous-looking girl with a pageboy
haircut whoÍs a full head shorter than Linda, often seek me out when IÍm
on campus. Now, as we arrived at a packed dumpling house with nary a
free table in sight, Linda piped up that her father works in one of the
new hotels in town and that he would be glad to welcome us for lunch.
After assuring me that the meal wouldnÍt be too expensive, we all set
off again, Forrest Gump huffing and puffing in the afternoon heat as he
tried in vain to cool himself with a fan that he waved in his face as he
ran alongside his friendÍs bicycle.
 The hotel was rather fancy and I began to get nervous as we were
ushered into a side banquet room off of the main dining room with two
large tables. ñWhy, of  course it wonÍt be too expensive and anyway, my
father will probably give us a discount,î Linda reassured me. As the
waitresses in their shimmering long, red dresses with silk embroidery
brought in plate after plate, I noticed that Forrest Gump seemed to be
holding court at the other table. When I approached him, the other
students giggled nervously and bowed their heads as though they had been
caught doing something against the rules. Forrest explained to me that
he was doing ñcrosstalkî, a traditional form of Chinese entertainment
which involves two men using highly precise, squeaking language whose
intonations loll back and forth, up and down, riding a comedic wave of
satire, anecdotes and put-downs. The fan he had used to cool himself
down earlier was now used as a prop for his act. He told me he had
learned the dialogue by watching it on TV and was clearly the life of
the party, delighting his classmates in a role that seemed natural to
him. Tall and chunky with thick, horn-rimmed glasses, Forrest is a
nerdy-looking eccentric who stands out from his Chinese classmates in
his uniqueness. Angela, ForrestÍs perfectly beautiful classmate who was
sitting at my table, told me soon after that Forrest Gump sits near her
in the back of the classroom and really annoys her by singing all of the
Disney songs which he knows by heart, including all of the ñLion Kingî,
ñBeauty and the Beastî and ñSong of the South.î Trying to be charitable
in her usual cheerful manner, Angela added that ñwhile heÍs very funny,
he sings so that the teacher canÍt hear him and I can and sometimes it
really annoys me.î
 Before the check came, I asked Forrest to sing a song to entertain us.
Without missing a beat, he started belting out ñZippety Do Daî and I
immediately joined in, the image of Mr. Annechino, my elementary school
music teacher who taught me the song, dancing in my mind. The students
were thrilled at my participation and clapped loudly afterwards while
LindaÍs father came into the room and took candid pictures of us all. I
next asked for a song from the whole group and both tables immediately
broke into the new Chinese National Anthem, with me having to follow
their lips to be able to sing along to ñMy Heart Will Go Onî. When the
check arrived, it turned out to be 35 yuan ($4.35) per person, a high
amount for a studentÍs budget. With resignation, the studentÍs forked
over the cash, trying not to grumble too much at the high price as Linda
slinked off to use the ladies room.
 As I packed that night to leave for Suzhou and Shanghai the next
morning, I made sure to include my copy of ñWild Swans: Three Daughters
Of Chinaî.  This true story of three generations of twentieth century
Chinese women, reportedly still banned in China, was given to me by my
colleague, Christina Glidden, and is one that I highly recommend to
anyone. Not only is it a fascinating account of the end of the Qing
Dynasty, the Civil War, the Communist takeover and the Cultural
Revolution. ItÍs also an incredibly detailed account of life in
twentieth century China that often answers some of the questions I ask
myself as I navigate my way through life in Yangzhou. One passage, for
example, explained why Chinese men squat down on their haunches when
theyÍre resting and another, the origin of the tea kettles with five
foot long spouts that were used to serve me tea with pinpoint accuracy
at one of the parent-teacher banquets I had attended. In one chapter
about the Cultural Revolution, the author explained how politeness and
niceties such as ñPleaseî and ñThank youî were denounced as ñbourgeoisî
and were therefore discontinued. When I had strolled through the park
with my four students, they had beseeched me not to use ñXie, xieî
(ñThank youî) with them as it implied an unnecessary formality and
seemed to create a gulf between us. Was this a legacy of the Cultural
Revolution? I wasnÍt sure, but it certainly made me contemplate the
cultural impact of that time period on language. In general, the book
highlighted my woeful ignorance on the Cultural Revolution, a period
that I associated merely with teenagers waving little red books at
Chairman Mo on Tiananmen Square.
 The three and a half-hour bus ride to Suzhou, the City of Gardens, was
amusing. It started with my neighbor graciously exchanging his seat with
me since a covered part of the engine came up through the floor of the
bus, offering me little leg room. Having a heavy knapsack on my lap, I
gladly accepted. Then, as we set off, a twenty-something year old young
man with shoulder length hair kept bopping his head and singing to the
Chinese music videos which were showing on the television screen that
was suspended above the driver. When the martial arts movie began, I
tuned out with my walkman as these violent movies make a film like ñTo
Live And Die In L.A.î seem like a Disney animated feature length film. I
was rather startled when the bus suddenly lurched onto a ferry, but
being that Yangzhou is at the confluence of the Grand Canal and the
Yangtze River, I shouldnÍt have been too surprised. When we finally
arrived, I was met at the bus station by Mark, a fellow American teacher
in my program who will be in Suzhou for the entire year. As we walked
back to the apartment heÍs sharing with Dennis, another teacher, I
re-acclimated myself to a wonderfully clean, beautiful city that I had
been fortunate enough to visit twice before, once in 1990 and then again
in 1994.
 After a quick lunch, we hopped a bus to Shanghai and were there in an
hour and a half. We admitted to each other how good it felt to be in a
big city, away from the adjustments we had each had to make in settling
into our lives as teachers and expats. We were ready to party and spoil
ourselves! After checking into an inexpensive hotel, we headed for Tony
RomaÍs Rib House and then off to a dance club, Time Disco, which we had
read about in our guidebook. Even in a city like Shanghai, we attracted
attention as we entered the disco, especially with Mark being 6Í6î. A
short, chubby older man offered to set us up with prostitutes before we
could get in the door and didnÍt seem to want to take ñNoî for an
answer.
When we finally did get in, three young women in black, low-cut dresses
immediately latched on to us, asking us to dance. We tried to ignore
them as best we could, and one finally said, ñWe just want dance. No
money, no money.î Hmm, hmm. Sure. The three of us finally hit the dance
floor where the DJ was spinning some hot music and a few ñlao waiî
(ñforeignersî) were thrown in for a little flavoring. Just as suddenly
as the music had begun, it suddenly stopped and the lights went up. It
wasnÍt pretty. Presently, an MC started calling out numbers like at a
raffle and all the Chinese looked at their entrance tickets. After what
seemed like an eternity, there were five random couples on the dance
floor. Their task was to stand back to back with two balloons between
them and to see who could pop the balloons the fastest: Beat The Clock
meets Studio 54. I still havenÍt figured that one out. We went back to
dancing eventually and then took a taxi back to our hotel, our driver
thrilled that we were Americans. My last memory of that evening is the
driver simulating intercourse with his fingers and saying, ñClinton,
huh, huh, huh, Clintonî and then giving a high pitched laugh.
 The next morning, we had a fabulous brunch at an American sports bar
called Mallones. After an Eggs Benedict and pancake pick-me-up, we hit
the foreign bookstore, and the Western grocery store where the key
acquisitions were PlanterÍs Cocktail Peanuts, NewmanÍs Own Tomato Sauce,
and PlanterÍs Peanut Butter, Next we were off to the Bund, where the
waterfront views combined with the incredible pre-Communist architecture
were truly splendid. Satisfied, we took a train back to Suzhou and slept
quite soundly.
The highlight of the next day, aside from strolls through the incredible
gardens of Suzhou, was dinner with Madame Ting. Mark and Dennis had
already told me a bit about her: her family had been persecuted in the
Cultural Revolution, denounced as ñclass enemiesî due to their wealth
and family background. She had evidently told Mark and Dennis how the
Red Guards in Suzhou had forced her father to destroy every trace of his
family heritage, some of it heirloom pieces that were 800 years old.
That was the night her father almost went mad. This was all I knew of
this incredible woman who came to cook dumplings for us.
 She wouldnÍt eat with us but insisted that we have our fill as she
stood in Mark and DennisÍs kitchen turning out these delicious
dumplings. When she finally sat, eating one small dumpling with a quick
chuckle, we began to talk more about her past. After her father had been
forced to destroy all traces of his familyÍs attachment to the past, he
was arrested and sequestered somewhere in another part of Suzhou. For
the longest time, she said, he did only two things: wrote long
confessions concerning his ñanti-revolutionary crimesî and performed
crushing manual labor. Only the youngest of Madame TingÍs five sisters,
a little girl of eleven, was allowed to sporadically visit her father.
Mme. Ting would give her sister clothes to bring him, sewing little
notes in the hem assuring her father that everyone in the family was
fine This, of course, was a white lie as in truth their mother was
confined to her bed with a nervous breakdown.
 Soon after this, Mme. Ting was yanked out of her second year at Suzhou
UniversityÍs English Department so that she could move to the
countryside to appreciate what it was like to live as a peasant. She
spent the next seventeen years of her life in a rural town in the north
of Jiangsu Province. At first working in the fields, she was eventually
assigned to teach English in the local middle school. Some of her
students had been torn from their families due to the purges and it was
these students who were often the victims of added abuse from their
classmates. Having herself been victimized in a similar fashion, Mme.
Ting stood up for these students and eventually came to the attention of
her principal, a good-natured man who kindly advised her that she should
cease this youthful foolishness. She told him that she could not in good
conscience let some of her students be psychologically terrorized like
that and she continued to stand up for them.
 Eventually, she was ñinvitedî to a Party meeting to make a
ñself-criticismî. The Red Guard grilled her and kept her up until
midnight trying to get her to agree to come to the meeting to admit her
mistakes but she defiantly claimed that she had done nothing wrong.
Irate, they decided she should be punished and sent her and eighteen of
her students out into a field and told her she had two weeks to dig a
well. Mme. Ting had no idea how to dig a well, but she knew that she had
no choice. For the next two weeks, she stayed up nearly round the clock
to get the job done, sleeping only two or three hours a night. She knew
that if a student had gotten injured while she was sleeping, sheÍd be
put in prison. After two weeks, the well was dug and she was
begrudgingly accepted back at her old school. Even today, Mme. Ting says
that had she been older at this time, her ïnaiveteÍ would not have been
excused and she would have inevitably been sent to prison where the
chances of coming out alive were slim.
Mme. Ting eventually married a local and had two children, both of whom
were essentially raised by her mother back in Suzhou, the educational
and medical facilities being much better in her hometown than in the
countryside. ñI donÍt blame the Red Guard. They didnÍt know what they
were doing. They were simply peasants who were being manipulated,î she
tells us with her by now familiar chuckle. ñI canÍt carry all of that
hate in my heart.î  She looks then at the three of us very meaningfully.
ñGod gave me two things in life,î she says with a giggle. ñHe gave me
the ability to laugh and the ability to forget. And the more important
of these two is the ability to forget. I donÍt remember anything!î She
gives one last high pitched, ironic chuckle before sipping her green
tea.
 The next day, I went alone to The Joyous Garden while Mark and Dennis
taught, marveling at the beauty and serenity of this refuge. I thought
of Mme. TingÍs story as I walked along the picturesque bridges and
pavilions of a garden that had at one time belonged to wealthy Chinese
family. I wondered how her family could have sustained themselves in the
midst of such tragedy and then marveled at the resiliency of the human
spirit. I wondered how Mme. Ting could have risen to the occasion and
triumphed over adversity when others had simply given up. I thought of
how this incredible country, with a civilization over five thousand
years old, had simply been turned upside down and how so much had been
lost. How does one go about picking oneself up and moving on when nearly
all of oneÍs past has been erased? For me, Mme. Ting was a true heroine
and I was thankful that our paths had crossed, however briefly.
 When I got back to Mark and DennisÍs apartment, Mark told me that he
had received an email from Chip for me saying that I was to call home as
soon as possible. Without pausing, I dialed our number in the States,
knowing that he was certainly asleep. ñChip, itÍs Chris. How are you?
Are my parents OK?î not even giving him a chance to wake up. ñChip, I
have some bad news for you. Your cousin Bruce killed himself. He shot
himself in the head last Friday. Your parents and brothers are down in
South Carolina with your Aunt Judy and Uncle Jack. The funeral is in
about twelve hours. IÍm really sorryƒî I thought fleetingly of Mme.
Ting. How does oneÍs family move on in the face of such tragedy? Bruce
was a sweet, handsome 30-year old man who had been suffering from
bipolar disorder for nearly ten years. He was always on some sort of
medication, but we were all hopeful when he married Camille two years
ago, wanting to believe finally that he had turned the corner. When he
couldnÍt see living any further with the depression, he went to the
local hospital so that he could donate his organs, put a gun in his
mouth and pulled the trigger. He left two notes, one for his wife and
one for his mother, asking them to forgive him, that he just couldnÍt
live with the pain anymore. And so mental illness has claimed another
member of my family: my grandfather, uncle and second cousin had
suffered or are still suffering from schizophrenia. How does a family go
on? One just has to look ahead, I knew. I packed my bags and got on the
bus back to Yangzhou, popping Joni MitchellÍs ñBlueî into my walkman and
bracing myself for the long ride home.