Shakespeare Was a Gweilo

By Clive Nixon

From aspiring Miss Hong Kong beauty contestants and predatory menacing butterflies,

to addressing an empty quad and concealing a

provocative Marilyn Monroe tie, enter the hilarious world of teaching English in Hong Kong - with all its charms and frustrations!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483682631

Book preview

Contents

Arrival

Staffroom

Miss So

About the School

English Treasures

Roger

Bo Lin

Picnic Day

Crime and Punishment

Homework (!)

Mr. Lau

Minor Staff

Rickey

Sports Day

Exam Invigilation

Amusing Assembly

Sun Generation

Blue Hotels

I Very Hate You

What’s in a Name?

Parents’ Day

Shakespeare was a Gweilo

Ending

For Shena, Clementine and Valentine

—who were present while all of this was taking place.

The people and events depicted

in the following narrative are fictional.

Any resemblance to persons,

living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Arrival

Rivulets of sweat rolled from my brow. They gathered at the hairline and seeped through my eyebrows and trickled agonizingly down my face, to drip to an already sodden shirt. I licked the sweat from my upper lip—tart with salt—and swallowed down a dry throat. At intervals I dropped my bag on the inclined pavement, arched my aching shoulders and wiped my brow with the back of my forefinger, snapping the sweat to the ground. Innumerable crickets ridiculed with their mocking click.

At that point no cunningly devised, sadistic torture could have been more efficient, or more effective, in compelling me to reveal the deepest of secrets. The hilltop remained a far-off goal, shimmering in the high-summer haze: a liquid mirage dancing as a silk curtain on a balmy breeze, my heavy steps seemingly making scant impression on the summit.

An endless convoy of lorries and buses lumbered past. Their expelled plumes of diesel hung motionless and choked the still, moist air. Each vehicle successively disappeared into the hazy distance. In the outside lane luxury cars purred silently past, their aloof occupants oblivious in their quiet, cool cocoon. And all the while the vicious, impersonal sun beat unrelentingly onto my unprotected head.

After twenty minutes (it seemed like three hours) of stop-start progress I arrived at the top-hot, out of breath, flustered and irritable. Had I known then that I would ascend this hill on countless more occasions in the months ahead, but never again on foot, that would have gone some way to assuage the ache of the moment.

Before me rose the vertical, cliff-face ramparts of my destination—as impregnable as any Crusader castle. The irregular, conglomerate blocks of its foundations, fitted with Machu Picchu precision, towered skyward and were breached by impressive green, iron gates with the citadel of learning sitting imperiously on the top. I staggered through the portals, the final stage of my entry being a dozen, wide well-worn marble steps.

Once inside, the shade was welcome and my eyes slowly adjusted to the light. I paused and took stock.

‘ALL VISITORS REPORT TO THE OFFICE’,

read a faded, green sign and an arrow pointed to the right.

As I entered the room, the cool air was a welcome hammer blow. I stood for a few moments, luxuriating in the caressing air, taking long, deep breaths. At that moment I cared not for anything in the world—the cool air was my sole reason for being.

After a few seconds I opened my eyes as the hubbub around me subsided. So startled seemed the people about me that I felt as awkward as would an actor who had stumbled onto the stage at the wrong cue.

‘Good morning. You must be Mr. Nixon. Please sit down. I will inform the principal you are here’, said a soft voice with a heavy Cantonese accent. I was reporting for duty at Chong Chai Chung College, and my arrival had been noted.

Mrs. Wang, the school secretary, returned a few moments later with a glass of cool water—one of the many acts of little kindnesses she was to show me during my time at the school.

‘Mrs. Liu will see you soon’, she continued and I thanked her for her thoughtfulness.

I sat on a comfortable pastel-green, leather sofa, my shirt sticking to the surface, and looked around the administration office. It was a large, oblong-shaped room with numerous smaller offices leading from it. Somewhat shabby with faded cream paint peeling from the walls and the linoleum on the floor worn and bubbled. Ceiling and wall-mounted fans kept the air circulating. People rushed in and out holding papers in agitated, waving hands. Some noticed me and smiled, others noticed me and looked away. Telephones rang repeatedly. The three or four office staff worked at their computers occasionally throwing glances my way to inspect this odd, dishevelled stranger. Everything seemed to be taking place quickly and noisily—the perfect microcosm for Hong Kong.

‘We meet at last’. The words came from a small, impeccably-groomed woman—the principal. There was an air of relief in her voice: it was justified. It had taken months of negotiation and much frustration to arrive at this point.

‘I’m Mrs. Liu’, and she held out a pale, soft hand in greeting. It was the weight of a feather with the texture of crimpled silk. My hand, big and clumsy and still moist, shook it reverently.

‘Did you find us easily?’

‘Yes, quite easily’, was my less than candid reply.

She ironically added, ‘Don’t miss the stop. It’s a long walk up from the bottom of the hill. (!!) Would you like anything before the meeting? Sometimes they are quite long here’.

How her understated, prophetic words would return to haunt me in the innumerable meetings ahead.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ I innocently replied—though in hindsight a thick cushion would have been a far more apt response!

The school had a spare, functional, Bauhaus-like appearance which appealed to me. Situated as it was atop a hill it was not hemmed in as so many buildings, especially schools, in Hong Kong and had a rare spaciousness. The most frequent epithet applied to it in countless later discussions was ‘clean environment’. I was later informed that it’s design had won an architectural award, and though now after twenty years it was a little tired around the edges, it was still an attractive place in which to spend one’s day.

I accompanied the principal, a polite half pace off her shoulder. We climbed four flights of smooth, shallow steps and arrived at a green door—green and gray were the school colours—with ‘Physics Lab’ written in red on a yellow, plastic plaque.

‘I’ll introduce you to Mr. Chang,’ the principal continued, and once inside the room raised her finger in the direction of a group of older men seated at the back. We were introduced and the principal turned and took up her seat at the front table. Mr. Chang and I went to the rear where a seat had been reserved for me.

Clearly my arrival at the school had been anticipated, being the first ‘gweilo’ (white ghost) to have taught at the school and I felt the acute gaze of fifty, future colleagues fixed on me.

After a few announcements in Cantonese I heard my name mentioned and before I could blink, a microphone was thrust into my hand. Stunned, I looked up to see the open, expectant faces of the staff trained upon me with the alertness and expectation of zealous followers at a religious rally—and I was to deliver the keynote address!

I stumbled, fumbling for the right words. I do not remember what I said—some garbled utterances about being glad to be there and looking forward to meeting them personally—the usual. It seemed to do the trick and I ended to a burst of excessive applause and smiles. My introduction over, the meeting moved on to more pressing matters, and I was able to relax somewhat with the luxury of being an intrigued though ignorant observer.

The benches for the meeting were arranged in a large square—it was always so in my time there—with the teachers perched somewhat inelegantly, on small wooden stools of a design and vintage which would not have been out of place in a Dickensian poorhouse—an incongruous anachronism given the other hi-tech equipment of other rooms. Bottoms tumbled over edges and after a short while people were constantly wriggling, adjusting their weight and posture to counteract the unforgiving stool.

My observations, made over several subsequent meetings, which ominously began to occur all too frequently, were that colleagues generally had their position on this square according to affiliation, both subject and personal, and perhaps—more importantly for some—their desire not to be in full and direct view of the principal.

I observed my colleagues. I did a quick count: thirty-three women, seventeen men, and all seemed disconcertingly young. Some of the younger ladies staring at their new work-mate, quickly diverted their gaze when our eyes met, with all the coyness of a novice nun, lest the Devil snatch their soul. Some colleagues scribbled dates and the like, both in Chinese and English, on notepads.

When not writing the pen remained active in a conjuring trick, which despite my strenuous later efforts to copy, I was never really able to fully master, my fumbling fingers just too big to cope with the necessary adroitness. The pen was flicked around the thumb with the middle finger to be abruptly reversed with a quick click from the little finger and propelled back again for the process to begin anew. All done seemingly unconsciously. Variations were for the pen to be sent along the remaining fingers and back again, dancing and tripping across the knuckles with the ripple of a caterpillar—a sort of legerdemain with a pen, executed with all the dexterity and fleet of hand of any professional magician and the flair of a cheerleader’s baton. An involuntary act carried out with aplomb. I had never seen anything like it before and was in awe of the most proficient exponents—who were many—and was kept entertained during some of the more tedious moments of this and future meetings—which alas were many. One or two of my colleagues had truly set the standard for this activity and were able to carry out the trick with both hands—simultaneously! In my eyes a truly remarkable skill. Whether I have led a sheltered life, or my education is lacking in this regard I cannot say. Of course, people fiddle with pens the world over.

I have since learned that the practice is Asia-wide with an annual competition held for the most expert exponents. I felt sure that several of my new colleagues would not disgrace themselves in such august company.

One such exponent was Lora, a fellow English teacher to the junior classes. I was sitting next to her on a later occasion being entertained by her abilities, performing the task first with one hand, then the other. Her fingers rippling like the crazed legs of a millipede. A truly virtuoso performance. On a subsequent occasion I leant a little closer and whispered,

‘You are ambidextrous?’

Puzzled, her perfect brow pursed in knotted confusion. I scribbled the word on a piece of paper and slipped it to her. Her index finger followed the syllables and her lips silently sounded the unknown word. Out came her electronic dictionary and she tapped in the letters. A smile spread across her face and she nodded with pride. She copied the word and meaning on a new page of her pad. Lora’s friend had been taking an interest in the goings-on and she too jotted down the word for future usage. Before long the word had circulated our end of the table and eight person’s vocabulary had been extended.

I hasten to add that after a short while I learned that this skill with the pen to be a Hong Kong wide activity beginning early in school days, the bank clerks at HSBC were equally adept, though this knowledge did not diminish its impression on me early on that first morning.

After a few more notices the microphone was handed to a tall, slim, middle-aged woman seated two along to the principal’s right. Her gleeful acceptance should have alerted me to the labours ahead. I was later to dread this act for it was the harbinger of a speech delivered with the pace and vocal monotony of which I have rarely encountered.

Mr. Chang nudged me with his elbow. ‘Miss Tong. Discipline Committee. Likes to talk.’ His words, as I was about to find out were never truer! Would that she were as sparing with her words as Mr. Chang!

Miss Tong was the most loquacious of speakers and appeared to take no rest between sentences. Put a microphone within ten feet of her and it seemed the temptation was too great to resist. She looked upon the microphone with the relish of a starving man before a banquet—and it seemed she was most reluctant to relinquish it.

Miss Tong would talk interminably and begin each new point with a heightened gusto. On this first occasion she accompanied her speech with a series of bar graphs, pie graphs and bounteous statistics to validate her points. Cantonese people love to talk and do so on any occasion, anywhere. Their gregariousness is recognized throughout China. Miss Tong seemed to possess this virtue in double measure. Her sheer delight in talking was plainly evident, and, as usual with such people, she was equally convinced that her entire audience was as delighted to listen. She took the microphone no fewer than seven times throughout the meeting. She had a irritating and highly frustrating habit of slowing her pace and dropping her tone at intervals, and this coupled with my lack of understanding of the content, produced a false expectation that she was about to conclude. No such luck! This was a trap waiting for an ignorant foreigner to fall in. Off she would enthusiastically set on another point to the approving nods of her Discipline Committee colleagues seated on either side, leaving her uncomprehending new colleague, then, and numerous times later, to adjust his position on his uncompromising stool! I soon learned not to be so duped and learned to adopt a stoic resignation, to accompany my wandering attention, whenever Miss Tong reached for the microphone.

From time to time Mr. Chang would lean closer and give me a cryptic summary, but all I was concerned about was a comfortable seat. I tried to conceal my feelings, though I suspected Mr. Chang too had similar thoughts. It was too early to say anything.

It was reassuring to later learn that I was not alone in my frustration. On numerous other occasions, I would catch the eye of different colleagues. They would let me know in countless subtle ways, that they were as bored as I: a slight, almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders; a tightening of their lips; their eyes thrown with muted exasperation to the ceiling, was enough to console me and lessen the pain of the present. At such moments I did not feel quite so isolated, as though I alone was suffering, and felt a bonded camaraderie with the sender of the message: kindred spirits, united in our mutual boredom.

I should add, lest my appearance at such meetings be viewed as a weakness of will, that my attendance at this and numerous other meetings where the content was equally mysterious, was mandatory. This was required as a response to the Chinese teachers—Hong Kong wide—who viewed the Native English Teachers’ exemption with suspicion and no doubt great envy. For the sake of staff harmony, I was willing to put up with this inconvenience. Some lucky NET teachers were exempted. I was not offered that option. I might add that many of my Chinese colleagues sympathized with my plight and thanked me for my solidarity and forbearance!

A succession of others spoke, obviously setting out procedures for the first day’s arrangements, but by then due to my state of tiredness, I was beyond caring and merely blankly nodded when informed of the content.

We arrived at the final agenda item A.O.B., one which I’d reasonably assumed to be over quickly,—and one which in future meetings I would again come to dread. Once again, no such luck. Several speakers spoke on different topics, none of which concerned me.

Finally, the microphone was handed to the deputy principal, a Mr. Li. He spoke for an additional ten minutes. His subject? Justifying his choice of colour for the new notice board recently installed inside the main staffroom! When I turned to my informant on my right, Eva, a young woman in the English department, (the previous occupant, an older man, had sensibly excused himself half an hour earlier and not returned) and asked the reason for this, she merely shrugged her shoulders and resignedly replied, ‘That’s what it’s like here’. What had I come to?

I have never had a great deal of tolerance to sitting, but when perched atop an antiquated, hard-wood stool with no foot supports that tolerance plummets to zero. I had a premonition that my tolerance would become sorely tested in the extreme. I made a mental note to bring that cushion next time!

With the benefit now of hindsight I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies, for my plight, as much as I might have bemoaned it at the time, was not as bad as several of my future NET colleagues. A number were condemned to suffer such three-hour ordeals once a month—on Saturday mornings no less!!

Staffroom

The meeting finally ended and I was shown to my desk in the staffroom two flights of stairs below. There were two such rooms at the school. A small, long, dimly lit one on the first floor, with windows at one end only (I was told it was a refurbished toilet!), which housed a dozen or so. This room was favoured by some colleagues as it was comparatively quiet and allowed them to work undisturbed. The other room, a much larger one, on the floor above, was the one to which I was assigned. It was a large bright room with windows on two sides: one side looking onto the large internal quadrangle and the classrooms opposite (Forms 2 and 3 from whence potential trouble might emanate); and the other side directly above the main entrance to the school and having an open view of Hiram’s Highway and beyond to Clearwater Bay. A view of such openness is not common for schools in Hong Kong, hemmed in as many are on public housing estates.

Because of its greater number of occupants this main staffroom had a positive, busy verve. It