YANGZHOU IMPRESSIONS #9



After leaving Chip at the Shanghai airport, I hightail it over to the
Shanghai Railway Station and just barely make my train. I am happy to
discover that my soft-seat ticket offers me a space in a sleeping
compartment. I sit across from a young Chinese man named ñChrisî whose
wide eyes are teeming with the excitement and expectations of a life
just beginning. He is traveling to Suzhou with two young Japanese women
whom he had befriended and for whom he is acting as a guide. ñIÍm going
to sleep outside tonight so that I can see the stars thatƒ the stars
that dance across the night sky.î I smile at his lyricism and ask him
what time we can expect to see the stars over China. ñThe newspaper says
from 1 to 4 at the night time,î he answers. I then help him with his
English grammar homework until we arrive in Suzhou. I wish him and his
Japanese friends a pleasant journey and lay back in the comfort of a
sleeping compartment all to myself.

 That evening, though I still have remnants of a cold I picked up in
Shanghai, I make plans to see the worldwide meteor shower that is
predicted to be most visible over Asia. My neighbor, Lao Zhu, confirms
the 1-4 am viewing ñwindowî told to me by Chris on the train that
morning. I look up off of my porch at 1:05 am and see only a star or
two. I then turn off my computer, dress warmly in a winter jacket, scarf
and gloves and head out. Today happens to be the first day of cold
weather this season.

 Near the hollow of the campusÍs unfinished apartment building, lying
cemetery-still, I come upon two slinking figures. They are mere boys, 12
or 13 years, no more, I think to myself. We communicate with each other,
my Chinese nearly frozen and their English sputtering. They are 15 and
16 years old, without gloves or scarves, and have obviously sneaked out
of some apartment on campus. The three of us seem instinctively to know
to head to the school sports field.

 The sky is veritably starless there. We see one other dark shadow, a
young woman who exchanges a curt acknowledgment of presence with the
boys and eyes me either curiously or suspiciously. The boys then run in
circles to keep warm, the edges of their smiles uplifted due more to the
cold than to any desire to display their white teeth in the moonlight.
We hear a great shouting from outside the school gate, although no
shooting stars are in sight. I excuse myself to track the source of the
merriment.

 Both the front and back gates are locked, my very first awareness of
the school curfew and of being penned in. I think of the manmade passage
in the school wall near the construction sight, created to facilitate
the entrance of men and materials. Using my flashlight to avoid falling
into the foundation, I make my way to this temporary construction gate.
Shining the flashlight in my periphery, I am surprised to discover an
outhouse for some of the older apartments that house retired residents
of the school community.

I try to scale the locked gate at the construction sight, but am wary of
the commotion IÍm causing.  A nearby hut with a light on inside attracts
my attention. I call to the shadowed inhabitant, a guard I assume,
loudly whispering, ñNi hao! Ni hao!î (ñHello! Hello!"). To assuage any
potential fear, I hold a flashlight to my face and say, ñWo shi mei guo
ren.î (ñIÍm an Americanî). After coming out of the hut and studying me
for several seconds, he appears relieved and manages a smile. I then
succeed in communicating with him my desire to go outside of the gates.
He consents, unlocking the makeshift gate, and I promise to be back in
20 or 30 minutes.

 The streets are more desolate than I would have imagined. I walk in the
opposite direction of the shouting in order to check out the city. A few
people on bikes ride past, but no one seems to quite know where they are
heading. The alley across from the schoolÍs back gate appears veritably
still, with two people scurrying into their apartment buildingÍs
entrance. Wen He Lu, one of YangzhouÍs main streets, is also motionless:
a few taxis and a couple of bikes, but no more. Near the K.F.C., a sole
street vendor with his wares covered by a tarp is too caught up in his
endeavors to notice me pass by. I head towards the sole lit building on
the street from which all of the noise seems to be emanating.

 As I approach, itÍs clear that all of the noise is indeed coming from
this single building, encircled snugly by a tall brick wall. I circle
this four-story protected fortress, this shining beacon in the still of
night, looking for an entrance through the towering, menacing wall. I
suddenly feel like a bored college student, trying desperately to crash
a party. But the walls are too high to scale and the guards at the
gateÍs sole entrance have gone to bed. I circle back around the building
after standing on tiptoes on sidewalk curbs in search of life. But there
remains only noise from a party; and lights, such bright lights. There
are no visible signs of life.

 I look to the sky. Still, there are no shooting stars. The lights from
the building make it hard to contrast the sky from the city heights,
hard to decipher the stars. This is when it begins to strike me that
Yangzhou is an enclosed fortress at night, secured from outside
invasion, like City Walls of centuries past. Now walking down newfound
alleys, even the tarps on bamboo posts that secure construction sites
are impenetrable.

 I circle back again. And there stands the building. Still lit and still
housing the bacchanalian fete. As I stand in the cold, watching, the
gleaming, brick edifice appears as a vision of Brigadoon, of Rip Van
Winkle and of a Edgar Allan Poe short story all rolled up in one. This
is the haunted building that holds a costume ball only once every twenty
years, invisible revelers reliving the folly of youth. And I can only
bear witness to this phenomenon.

 I walk back and bang on the school construction gate after having been
gone well past an hour. ñNi hao?î I call hopefully. The guard quickly
lets me in. ñNi leng bu leng ma?î (ñArenÍt you cold?î), I ask, noticing
for the first time his open-collar shirt and light jacket. The guard
shakes his head, smiles and goes back to his hut, a light and flimsy
tarp his only protection from the cool night air.

 I stand outside of my apartment building, incapable of bringing myself
to go inside. I stare at the sky, unable to tell if my eyes are playing
tricks or if one of the few visible stars is dancing for me. I make
several wishes just in case. Then a noise distracts my attention and I
see three people returning to my apartment building. My watch reads
quarter to four. Noticing me, a woman walks right up to me for closer
inspection. I identify myself and she smiles, recognizing me from the
numerous times IÍd passed her on my bicycle, smiled and said ñNi hao!î
ñXing, xing zai nar?î (ñWhere are all the stars?î) I ask her. ñMei youî
(ñThere are noneî) she answers, her smile still evident as she throws up
her hands. I smile back and head up to the warmth of my apartment and
the comfort of my bed.

 I awake after only several hours of sleep to the prospect of a very
busy day. Margot Landman, China Program Director for ACLS, the
organization that is sponsoring the teacher exchanges, and Ciao Siping,
MargotÍs Beijing counterpart, are in Yangzhou for a dayÍs visit. Lunch
at a local hotel is a somewhat formal affair with pleasantries exchanged
between program representatives, school officials and Yangzhou Education
Commission representatives. Principal Chen brags that my students have
voted me ñMost Popular Teacherî and I try to look and act appropriately
modest in a manner befitting the Chinese. In the afternoon, Margot,
Ciao, and Ji Chunhong come to visit one of my classes.

 TodayÍs class is called ñChinese-American Restaurant Skit.î IÍve
brought fake American money from the local CVS and take-out menus from a
Westport Chinese restaurant along with me in my suitcase to China. The
assignment is to work together in groups of four, writing, directing and
acting out a skit in English that might take place at a Chinese-American
restaurant. The results of the studentsÍ efforts astonish me and
MargotÍs wonderful laugh can be heard loudest above all the others.

In my favorite skit of all, a student named ñSouthî is posing as the
waiter and before he delivers the food to ñNimitzî, the hungry customer,
he turns to the audience and feigns taking a huge bite out of the
chicken dish. When Nimitz complains to the waiter, ñBut my chicken is
missing one of its legs!î South deadpans to Nimitz, ñWhat do you want to
do? Eat it or dance with it?î

As with any teacher, I learn a great deal right along with my students.
This lesson teaches me a great deal not only about the Chinese studentsÍ
perceptions of America, but also their feelings about and reactions to
elements of their own culture. Here are some of the recurring motifs and
cultural elements that I learn about from the studentsÍ skits: the old
ïfly in the foodÍ routine; not having enough money for the bill; pimps
and prostitutes; having a respectful, successful and RICH boyfriend to
present to oneÍs parents; the thief-robbing-the-restaurant shtick; the
omnipresence of Yangzhou Fried Rice; running into someone in America
from oneÍs hometown; cheating on oneÍs spouse; tipping the waiter; the
value of U.S. dollars, etc.

 That evening, I share a more low-key dinner with Margot, Ciao, Chunhong
and a member of the Yangzhou Education Commission. After the meal, I
accompany Margot to her hotel room and attempt to help her retrieve her
email on her laptop. Although our efforts are unsuccessful, we do manage
to share some wine and watch our months-long cyber friendship take on a
three-dimensional quality. We chat and laugh for hours and I come to
realize that without Margot at the helm, this fledgling, worthwhile
exchange program would have a snowballÍs chance in hell of being
successful. My cold begins to act up and so a little after midnight I
take my leave and go out into the chilly evening to hail a cab back to
Yangzhou Middle School.

 While waiting for a taxi in front of the Yangzhou Hotel, I watch as a
speeding car comes very close to running over a pedestrian on a bicycle.
This is not the first time that IÍve witnessed such recklessness. In
fact, as I wait for a cab, I begin to reflect on my own close calls and
on the hazards of negotiating traffic in Yangzhou and China in general.

 I recall a documentary I once saw on the building of the New York City
subway. There was some vintage footage of Manhattan streets before the
subway was completed with pedestrians on foot, bicycles, in horse and
buggy and in an increasing number of automobiles. Everyone was trying to
be the first to proceed through busy intersections with no traffic
lights. And this, in a nutshell, is traffic in Yangzhou. People ignore
traffic lights, cut each other off regularly, pull out in front of
oncoming traffic with little care and generally go about their busy
lives with little thought for safety. Ji Chunhong complains how in the
New China, motor bikes and cars are beginning to overtake bicycles in
number and how air and noise pollution from traffic is accelerating at
an alarming rate.

 I must admit that I find the insanity of riding my bike in Yangzhou
traffic rather exhilarating. I have always been a daredevil in my own
right. My father tells the stories of standing at our familyÍs picture
glass window in absolute terror as he watched his three-year-old
toe-head son come zooming down the steep driveway on his little green
jeep. I would always narrowly avert catastrophe by turning the wheel
only inches from the fender of the family car and then put the brakes on
with the soles of my shoes, costing my father plenty in replacement
shoes at the local shoe store.

As I presently approach each intersection in Yangzhou, I zoom directly
into traffic, an eager if green participant in a county square dance who
only upon entering the circle on the callerÍs first shout realize that I
donÍt know the steps. I look to other bicyclists to take their lead.
When in doubt, I forge ahead and stay to the right. When IÍm approaching
a busy street and there is traffic coming at full speed from the right,
I pick a fellow cyclist and use them for cover as I proceed straight
into the intersection at an accelerated speed. Surely theyÍll slow down.
WonÍt they? While visiting Yangzhou, my mother assessed the traffic
situation, looked me up and down, and warned me to be careful on more
than one occasion as her face took on that dread expression that only a
mother can muster.

The day after MargotÍs visit is a full day, with four classes to teach
and dinner with Wang Jing, the wife of one of WestportÍs Chinese
exchange teachers. I now refer to it as ñBlack Thursdayî. While
instructing my Class 8 students on the Chinese-American Restaurant Skit,
I notice that ñJaneî, one of my ïOffice HoursÍ students, has her head
down on her desk. Jane will always stand out in my mind as ñThe Singerî.
Once, when I was videotaping some students in my apartment, I asked the
assembled crowd what plans they had for the future. Jane said she wanted
to be a singer and when I asked her if she had a song for me, she belted
out Celine DionÍs ñMy Heart Will Go Onî with hesitation. Her voice was
quite beautiful and we all clapped when she was done. Now, her
classmates are being very protective of her, telling me that she isnÍt
feeling well and saying that she canÍt take part in todayÍs skit. I
asked her if she wants to go to see a doctor, and she just shakes her
head at me, zombie-like.

Culturally, IÍm at a disadvantage. Jane looks to be in awful shape to
me, but IÍm not clear about the student protocol for seeking medical
help. I walk across the room and ask ñCandyî, who was there the day that
Jane sang in my apartment, what Jane should do if sheÍs feeling sick.
ñJaneÍs not sick,î Candy tells me somewhat downcast, if
matter-of-factly. ñHer father was killed in a traffic accident three
nights ago.î I give Candy a double-take and look absolutely stunned.
ñJane says she wants to be in school, not at her home.î Candy adds.
 I instruct the class to continue working on their skits and walk over
to Jane. I squat down eye-level to her expression of transfixed gloom
and say, directly and quietly, ñJane, IÍm terrible sorry about what
happened to your father.î She blinks twice in acknowledgment, and shifts
her head on her outstretched arm. ñThree more minutes,î I shout too
loudly to the class. I then go back to the lectern and write a short
note to Jane, encouraging her that she wonÍt always feel this badly and
telling her again how sorry I am about her loss. As I call the first
group to perform their skit, I quietly slip the note to Jane.

After class, I am walking across campus when little Linda comes up to me
with a slightly frantic look in her eyes. ñMr. Fray,î she says, ñMy best
friend Judy is in the hospital!î I have a fleeting image of adorable,
petite Judy with her delicate features and pageboy haircut lying
despondently in an oversized hospital bed somewhere in Yangzhou. ñWhat?
When? How do you know, Linda?î I ask, bracing myself for this next
shock. ñWell, she went to the hospital on Monday because her leg was
hurting her,î she explains. ñWhen I called her parents yesterday, they
said Judy will have to be in the hospital for a whole month!î Trying as
always to speak perfect English, LindaÍs facial expressions take on
exaggerated proportions. ñWell, Linda, I must teach my classes until
4:15 today, but maybe after that, we can go to visit Judy in the
hospital.î I offer. Her eyes blink and Linda takes the few seconds
necessary to translate what IÍve said and formulate a response, like an
old film projector righting itself with a quick snap as the reel gets
back on track. She nods her head up and down vigorously. ñOh, OK. I will
speak to my Head Teacher and ask if it is OK.î

At 4:20, Linda and another of her classmates come join me by my bicycle
in the campus courtyard. ñMr. Fray, this is my friend from Class 2. HeÍd
like you to give him an English name. In Chinese, his name means
ïHandsome and cleverÍ.î I briefly look the handsome young man up and
down and notice a ïNikeÍ emblem emblazoned in large blue letters on his
windbreaker. ñOK, Linda, his name is Handsome Mike. Now weÍd better
hurry to the hospital.î

The Yangzhou Northern Hospital is a quick ten-minute ride from Yangzhou
Middle School. As we approach the entrance gate, Linda tells me how her
father is still in Germany and will be visiting several other Western
countries before he comes home. I ask Linda if her father is a member of
the Communist Party out of a deep-seated curiosity. For once, Linda is
at a loss for words and finally mumbles that he is. She then looks at me
carefully as if trying to gauge if sheÍs done the right thing by telling
me this piece of information. I momentarily feel bad for putting her in
an awkward position, but she suddenly rebounds and announces that she
doesnÍt know where JudyÍs room is.

Walking through the grounds of this large hospital, I instruct Linda to
ask various personnel how to find JudyÍs room. Eventually we enter one
of the buildings and climb to the fifth floor. ñHandsome Mike says this
is the first time that he has ever been in a hospital,î Linda informs me
as we round the third flight of steps in the stairwell. Pandemonium
seems to be reigning in the hallway on the fifth floor. Patients are
shuffling down the hall attached to IVs, nurses are scurrying past beds
lined up along the wall and visitors are sitting in decrepit chairs,
blocking our way. Linda slips ahead of me and Handsome Mike and suddenly
shouts, ñHere she is, Mr. Fray, right out in the hall!î

A murmur starts to ripple through the crowd as visitors notice me. I see
Judy lying still in the oversized bed I had imagined earlier in the day,
her expression of restrained terror virtually the same as JaneÍs earlier
that morning. Linda introduces me to JudyÍs parents who are grown-up
versions of adorable little Judy, neither much taller than 5Í. Her
father speaks a few words of welcome in English and her mother smiles
kindly. I look directly into JudyÍs face and say to her, ñJudy, I donÍt
want you to worry. YouÍre going to be fine.î She nods her head. ñYes.î

ñMr. Fray, I think these people think you are our teacher, but I did not
tell them that you are really the teacher for much older children.î I
look around and see that relatives, other visitors and hospital staff
have crowded around to witness this latest hospital spectacle. I smile
at everyone and announce, ñNi hao! Wo shi laoshi cong Yangzhou Zhong
Xue.î (ñHello. I am a teacher from Yangzhou Middle School.î) As they
giggle and chitchat amongst themselves, I pull out my camcorder from my
knapsack. I open the slide-out screen and begin to show Judy a skit I
had filmed from class that day. In the skit, there are two older
students whom Judy knows from Office Hours. In the opening scene, Angela
plays the unsuspecting wife eating a meal in a restaurant. In the next
sequence, a flamboyant Forest Gump comes waltzing into the same
restaurant with his new girlfriend. By the end of the skit, both Angela
and the girlfriend have thrown a cup of water in Forest GumpÍs face and
Judy smiles for the first time. I then show JudyÍs parents the video
clip and they smile and nod their heads.

I announce that I have to go as I realize that I will be late for dinner
at Wang JingÍs apartment. JudyÍs father takes me down the elevator and
walks with me out to the courtyard. As we walk across the hospital
grounds, JudyÍs father has run out of available English words and I
realize how insincere small talk such as ñTianqi hao.î (ñThe weather is
nice.î) must sound in this situation. The man is clearly worried sick
about his daughter. As I was to find out later from Linda, Judy had just
had an operation on her leg the day before. We walked quietly to my
bicycle but a feeling of goodwill and mutual respect permeated the
distance between us. JudyÍs father shook my head after I unlocked my
bike and I was off to my next appointment.

I arrive at Wang JingÍs a bit late and meet Joel and Arline Epstein, two
Westporters who have recently moved from Long Island. They are on a four
day visit to Yangzhou and want to meet me.  Joel and Arline are active
in the Westport Sister City Committee and have come to Yangzhou to scout
out some potential activities for the Committee as part of a
larger-scale visit to China. This dynamic couple used to live in Taiwan,
speak Chinese, and the three of us are surprised and delighted to
discover that we have combination facilities in speaking Chinese,
Russian, French and/or Spanish. Needless to say, Wang JingÍs dinner is a
great success and we spend most of it discussing China and the potential
of future exchanges between Westport and Yangzhou.

The next day only Linda and a new classmate show up for Office Hours. My
Senior 2 students have three exams the next day, Saturday, and are
cramming in every spare moment. I invite Linda and her friend, who IÍve
just named Autumn, to my apartment for lunch and to make a card for
JudyÍs class to sign and present to her. Once in the apartment, I tell
them that we are going to have a typical lunch thatÍs much loved by
American children. I pull out the Skippy peanut butter and WelshÍs grape
jelly that ChipÍs brought me and make PB & Js, served with Pringles
potato chips and tall glasses of cold milk. As I watch from the kitchen
as Linda and Autumn eat their sandwiches and make their card, I feel as
though IÍve never so strongly embodied a part of my motherÍs 1970Ís
suburban housewife persona. I then think that Linda and Autumn are much
better behaved than my brothers and I ever were.

On Sunday, Candy, Angela and Forest Gump come to my apartment at my
request to make a card for Jane. After showing them the video clip of
Jane singing ñMy Heart Will Go Onî, we decide that this song about
persevering in the face of loss is an appropriate message to send Jane
in the card we are about to make. Candy and I then sign on to the
Internet to search for the lyrics to the song while Angela and Forest
Gump get busy making the framework for the card. These teenagers,
students at YanghouÍs most elite middle school, one that is known
throughout the province, never cease to amaze me with their eclectic
talents. Angela and Forest draw pictures and make a professional-looking
paper cut after which Candy and I add the lyrics to the card. Angela
leaves the card on JaneÍs desk at school so she will see it first thing
Monday morning.

Over the next week, I go to Suzhou to spend a wonderful Thanksgiving
with some American teachers from the program and one of them, Thom,
comes back to Yangzhou with me for the weekend to get a much-needed
break from his life in Luoyang. Thom speaks Chinese and when I bring him
to some of my classes, the students are thrilled and duly impressed. The
day after Tom leaves, I go to LindaÍs Junior 2 class to teach her class
for the first time. The lesson is on the past tense and I decide to have
the students practice what theyÍve learned by working in groups to write
messages in the past tense for Judy in the hospital. I then film them in
groups of four and these thirteen-year olds turn out to be quite the
hams. According to Linda, Judy is making progress in the hospital and
Jane smiles for the first time when she thanks me for the card. I am,
however, understandably still worried about her. I invite her for lunch
at ñThe Dumpling Kingî on Sunday with three of her friends, but she
still seems extremely distracted. Wang Jing tells me that Yangzhou
Middle School doesnÍt have the equivalent of a school psychologist and I
wonder who is attending to JaneÍs emotional needs.

Soon after this, I receive an email from Steve Baranski, a focused and
enthusiastic Bedford Middle School Music teacher from Westport. He is
interested in working on a cross-continent musical composition project
with both his students and mine. He would like my students to write
original poems in English about their lives in so that his students can
compose songs from the poem lyrics on a computer keyboard. I ask my
students to voluntarily give me their original poems within a week and
share my amazement with Steve at the response that we get. Not only is
the English in the poems of a high caliber, but the depth of their
emotional articulation about their lives as teenagers in China is
startling. Steve shows the poems to English and Art teachers at his
school. As a result, the American students end up making artwork from
the imagery created in the Chinese studentsÍ poems. When Steve reads the
poems to his students, he tells me that even the normally rambunctious
students sit perfectly still and listen.

On the last day that IÍm accepting poems from my students, Jane comes up
to me before class and wordlessly hands me a poem. I read the poem that
night before typing it into an email for Steve. Her father has been dead
for a little over two weeks and she seems to be using the poem as a
vehicle to express some of her loneliness and lingering grief. Steve
emails me back that when he read JaneÍs poem, ñLonely Teenagerî to his
class, you could hear a pin drop. The students were silent afterwards
and then said, ñWow!î and ñThat was really intense.î

Here is the poem as Jane gave it to me:




Lonely Teenager




When I get home, I put down my heavy school bag
My demanding daddy brings some examination papers and asks me to do more
exercises
I write under the table light, write and write
When I was looking up at the moon, silently
It seemed to be daddy's demanding face

When I  finished my homework and wanted to turn on the TV set
My expectant mommy opens the piano and asks me to play the opus several
more times
I play under the light, play and play
When I was looking up at the moon, silently
It seemed to be mommy's expectant face

Daddy, oh daddy... mommy, oh mommy
How large is the world?
I want to look for my own friends
No longer to be a lonely teenager

           by Jane.... Senior 2, Class 8