A WAY OF LIFE - Notes from a Small Chinese Province

By Maria Linnemann

Whilst writing down these memories for the first time since leaving China I found myself immersed once more in the busy atmosphere of the lecture halls and classrooms, the canteen full of the chatter and clatter of noisy, cheerful students and the comparative quiet of the countryside where I visited my students and the farm of my little "Hope Project" daughter Cai Zheng. It is all as present and alive to me now as on that dull November day when I left my home in Nanyang for the last time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: Sep 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9783347407411

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

An Early Letter Home

Xi’an, February 2001

Dear Ma,

It was lovely to hear you on the phone – what a treat! I hope the email will work for us in Nanyang as it did for the previous volunteers.

The weeks here in Xi’an have been very full and busy, and the last days of preparation are now in sight. Tonight we’ll have drinks with the VSO programme officials who will come to visit us in our placement several times a year. There’ll also be a pub quiz this evening, whatever that is (I know they had one in the Archers!).

Well, it’s midnight, and I’ve just returned from the evening’s very enlightening entertainment (the quiz!). I don’t think I stopped eating all day today. We were invited to lunch at a Chinese family’s home, where we were fed almost to bursting. I had eaten some biscuits beforehand in case my chopstick technique let me down – but it didn’t. At six o’clock we had dinner in our hotel and snacks during the evening’s proceedings. Here on my return I’ve had a drink and biscuits because it’s what I do of an evening when I get home. A habit I intend to keep whatever the hour! I’ve already discovered some good vegetarian food, by the way – a marvellous aubergine dish, and brilliantly seasoned tofu, for example, so I’m sure I won’t go hungry here.

Today I managed to play a little South American piece from memory that I hadn’t played for years; it’ll make a good little contribution to the university concerts that we’ve been warned – I mean, told – about!

Have I mentioned that in some banks here one finds spectacles on the counters for the short-sighted, instead of the usual pens – isn’t that a great idea!

I asked today about cycling here, and was told that the cycles never have lights and that it is rather hair-raising to cross the road in the evening.

Why haven’t they any lights? I asked.

They are not allowed to have lights in case they dazzle the motorists.

The other volunteers looked as surprised as I felt, but that’s how it is. Mind you, with the large numbers of bicycles on the road, there is something in that reasoning! We have been practising the experience of crossing the road at dusk from time to time whilst here in Xi’an, but I’ve decided that it’s an undertaking to be avoided whenever possible.

Three of our group have suffered a foot or leg injury – some of the paths in this beautiful old city are very uneven and it’s quite easy to sprain an ankle. A few are down with flu; the hotel is fast becoming a clinic. Fingers crossed that the rest of us stay healthy!

Having just had lunch after our last Chinese lesson I’m enjoying a quiet break with Nescafe and digestives, and in a moment there’ll be the BBC World Service to listen to. Half the students were too tired to attend some of the lessons, or too ill to attend at all; it could be caused by the air pollution here that is pretty bad most days.

I have luck in the VSO partner who will join me in my placement. Roy is a very likeable young man from London, a SOAS graduate. He is a non-smoker, doesn’t drink and is a vegetarian like myself. So, some common failings there!

That last line was written yesterday, before the afternoon and evening became busy again. I’ll send this letter off tomorrow morning when I have the chance to get to the post office. This afternoon we are due to have a talk given by the VSO officials, which we think will be a mixture of: Behave yourselves and You’ll be on your own from now on, except for when we visit you, and if you should need any help from the VSO with ‘communication’ – a kind of pep talk. Following that we’ll have a lesson in Chinese cooking, which should be enjoyable!

Time for lunch; I seem to be permanently hungry. Luckily, there seems to be an unending parade of meals!

My next missive will hail from Nanyang, and I’ve decided that now and then I’ll put a copy of my latest diary notes in with my letters to you, to keep you in touch with my goings on!. Hopefully I’ll find a post office in the university or the town very soon.

A big hug and love from Xi’an.

Our House and Residential Compound

We arrived today in our new home in Nanyang on a cold, misty February morning. The four-storey house is occupied by teaching staff of the university, two of the flats being reserved for foreign teachers. Roy’s flat is on the ground floor, mine on the first floor. The Waiban – the lady whose job it is to look after the welfare of the foreign teachers – felt that I would be safer upstairs. Very reassuring! All the windows of the house are fronted with thin, wrought iron bars, presumably against intruders. Doubly reassuring! This is to be my home for the next two years.

Near the entrance and under the stairs is a store of round, black coal bricks used to provide heating in all the flats save those of Roy and myself. Our flats are fitted out with two small electric heaters.

My study is comfortably furnished with a sofa, a low table and low shelves on one of which stands a television and a DVD player. Beside the long window there’s a table with a computer and small printer.

Taking up much of the bedroom space are a double bed and roomy cupboard. Happily, the bed is wide enough for me to have my cassette recorder next to my pillow, and I think that the audio-cassettes of Jane Austin, Dickens and P.G.Woodhouse will provide the same pleasure and escapism before sleep as they have done in my ex-pat home in Europe.

My kitchen is simply and minimally equipped with two electric plates, a large wok and an electric kettle. Once I buy myself a microwave, I think I’ll have all I need. The large, low square sink is familiar to me from pictures of European kitchens in the 30s. Its sides become stained yellow within a day and I scrub it clean every evening, since this is my washbasin, my so-called bathroom having no basin. Actually, I did have the option of having a washbasin in there, but that would have meant having no room to dry myself after showering. The loo would deserve a chapter all of its own – I will not enlarge here; perhaps later. There’s a drinking water dispenser in a corner of the study. I have already developed the habit of boiling all the water again, just to be sure.

A paved courtyard separates our house from the building opposite, which we have discovered to be a recreation facility for retired employees of the university On the first Saturday morning I heard voices coming from the courtyard and left my computer to look out of my study window. A group of women of about my age was engaged in Tai Chi exercises, and as I looked I saw the Waiban, Zheng Ping, appearing from around the corner and making for our entrance. I went down to meet her.

Would you like to join them in Tai Chi? she asked.

Before I could answer, I noticed that one of the ladies, evidently the leader of the group, was looking at me with an expression of open scepticism. She spoke very quietly to Zheng Ping, who then turned to me and said rather quickly:

But not today, I’m afraid. And perhaps you will have no time for that, she pursued, leading me back into the house. I couldn’t help feeling that I had failed some sort of test out there on the courtyard. Had I looked like an old crock with stiff knees, I wondered? I didn’t think so, and repeated the mantra to myself that I had uttered so often since becoming a teacher: Think positive, and smile! I now silently added: And try to look a little more sporty!

The following day, I was enjoying a relaxed Sunday breakfast when the sound of unfamiliar music drew me to the window once more. Not being able to see from whence the music came, I went downstairs to investigate. Just around the corner from the courtyard, and seated under an awning erected against a wall of the recreation building, sat a group of musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments. I stood a little way off, listening. I recognised an erhu – the Chinese violin . and a paiban, the Chinese claves. As the music momentarily ceased, the Erhu teacher greeted me with a smile. He held out his instrument, inviting me to take it. Had he already heard on the university grapevine that I played an instrument? My years spent with the violin were distant enough to make me un-cautious, and I sat down, if somewhat gingerly, with the Erhu on my knees. Slowly, I scraped a pentatonic scale, giving an excellent imitation of a cat on heat. The erhu teacher reached hastily for a cigarette and lit it with a slightly shaky hand. I discovered that I can read smoke signals. I ceased plying the bow and stood up, feeling myself blushing. Instantly the teacher stubbed out the cigarette and reached for the mistreated instrument, this time with a slightly paler smile. Being forgiving and generous, however, the musicians allowed me to take photos whilst they continued their Sunday morning ritual.

As already mentioned, my flat was on the first floor, at the front of the house. In the flat below mine that was occupied by a couple and their two daughters, the front windows were permanently open regardless of the time of day and outside temperature. It appeared that the father was a chainsmoker whilst the mother and daughters were all for fresh air. The younger daughter, I also discovered, was learning to play the GuZheng, the Chinese equivalent of a cimbalom and a fiendishly difficult instrument to play. The young girl had a lot of problems with her instrument – as did the instrument with her, as I gathered from the sounds of battle that emanated daily from their front room. As I listened unwillingly to the dire struggle, I didn’t know whom or what to pity most, the student or the instrument. Or, come to that, myself.

To the right of our building and leading off from the courtyard was a path into the campus proper. This was practical, since it meant being able to avoid the loud and dusty street which ran past the main campus gate.

Some months after our arrival, however, a brick wall was erected and the path from the courtyard to the campus was blocked. Apparently there had been numerous thefts of computers and other expensive items from the university buildings, and the authorities decided that all entries save that of the main gate should be closed off. One morning, Roy and I heard unusual sounds coming from the right side of our house. Looking out of our respective front windows we saw two gentlemen dressed in suits and wearing gloves, who were quietly engaged in laying brick upon brick in a most dignified manner. Bemused, we watched as a wall arose, stretching from the side of our house to the corner of the recreation building opposite. Within a day, the edifice was completed and our convenient entrance onto the campus was no more. Our only way to work now lay along the noisy main road made dusty by the constant heavy traffic that roared by during the day and half of the night.

To get to the main road one walked along a wide path to the high, wrought iron double gate where two bored guards watched who came and went. On the way one could be sure to meet a granny or two with a babe in arms, and occasionally an elderly retired teacher. Now and then I passed a small child playing in a colourful toddler’s chair complete with table and a multitude of plastic toys. I remember one particular day when a stray leaf from goodness knows where fell onto the table of such a toddler’s chair. The little boy, abandoning all the toys, played with this fascinating thing that had fallen from nowhere with a great smile on his little face.

Along the short road to the campus, one passed a row of very small shops that leant against the campus garden wall. There were also one or two tiny eating places which Roy and I at first frequented. The dirt and dust from the road, however, evidently made the job of keeping the little places clean quite impossible; summer whites could not be worn there and more than once I found an atom of grit in my soup. After a short while we took to eating in the campus restaurant. Still, it was rather a shame to see the whole row of businesses disappear almost overnight, when the university leaders decided that the immediate surroundings should present a more worthy facade for their institution. About the road however, with its dirt and constant noise pollution, they could do nothing.

At the main gate of the campus there were also two uniformed guards, similarly bored but with somewhat more daily diversion. Behind them stood a small hut, which as I learned before long was the initial reception office for the daily post, before it was forwarded to the main office within the campus. These guards were evidently avid stamp collectors. Much of my welcome post from home was given into my hands minus the upper right hand corner, but I was usually too relieved that it had arrived at all to protest about its stampless state. I did once venture to mention the curious fact and even offered to cut off the envelope corners myself, but this was met with blank stares and I did not pursue the matter further. There’s a song in Strauss’s operetta: Die Fledermaus that goes something like: Happy is he who can forget what he can’t change! It is a ditty that I often found myself humming in Nanyang. Now and then, when there was a changing of the guard, the letters arrived intact, and that brought an added pleasure to the contents.

CHAPTER TWO

First Teaching Days

March 2001

Dear Ma,

Sorry about the inky pen! I haven’t managed to find any replacements yet.

Well, the first teaching days are behind us, and all went well. We have large classes: each of mine number about fifty students and I’m already thinking about splitting them into two. The classes, not the students. I found the lessons very enjoyable. This week Roy and I made a register of all our classes and spent the rest of the time introducing ourselves. I illustrated my account with photos from home, which the students were delighted to see. They were all thrilled to see your beautiful bungalow and garden.

We don’t have gardens here, one student told me, gazing at your front garden with its rose bush in full bloom. There are so many people in China and we don’t have the space for gardens.

When the students in my first class heard that you have ten children, there were screams of disbelief from the girls and gasps from the boys. Have I mentioned the fact that young people here are called boys and girls until they marry, as a student kindly informed me after I had greeted his class with: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen! and earned a stifled giggle. The news of your long row of offspring (photo taken in your garden!) swiftly travelled from one class to the next, so that very soon I was asking the students to tell me about my family – that was fun!

Two parcels have just arrived – brilliant! Thank you so much! Please thank the post office ladies who put kind messages on the back of one of the packages, and tell them I’m doing fine and am well supplied with Chinese and English biscuits!

The Waiban, the lady whose job it is to make sure we have everything we need, is very kind and helpful and has made our first week a lot easier than it would otherwise have been. Roy and I were invited to tea in her home one afternoon and we met her husband and their lively little daughter, Wei Wei, whose English name is Bella. Most children and young people who are learning English give themselves an English name, or are given one by a parent. English is in!

We also had dinner with the Dean of our faculty and other dignitaries one day this week during which Roy firmly defended his non-drinking habit. After making a few pointed remarks, accompanied with a smile, about a real man and his drink, the Dean,