Expert Immigrant Labor –September 11, 2009

I’m not wanting to be awake at dawn thinking of if and what to do about work! I click on npr and hear the president’s address remembering those lost on 9/11. Had I really forgotten? I’m again sitting on last evening’s 10″ stool in front of seven five-year-olds, pointing and singing, “Today is Friday…All day long…” oblivious to emotional ties to the 11 on the calendar.

We roll a big red ball, saying the English name of the recipient, singing repeatedly. “Roll it to a friend…___!” They catch on. We move on to plans for red/yellow/blue legos. I open the closet for the 250-yuan tub of legos. They’re gone! Frantically, I search the other three closets–nothing. Oh great! The first week, I’ve allowed my most expensive new toys to disappear. My Chinese assistant is speechless and the natives are restless, so I go to Plan B–coloring a rainbow. They’re fascinated as I mix yellow and blue for green. We build rainbows, naming colors. They leave smiling. “Hey! I’m a good teacher,” I tell myself.

I go before dinner, full of dread, to boss, Zoe. “The legos are missing. Do you know…?” She laughs. “Oh, I took them for my Asido to play with.” Bear, her husband, laughs. I mime the heart attack they almost gave me, make a mental note to ask her to leave a note when she borrows something. Zoe had been my assistant for the first kindergarten class September 10, pronounced the color lesson with legos “most professional,” then made my next one near-disaster. She asked, “Do you think Abdul’s demo lesson more suitable than Mark’s for grade 3? Mark’s students say it is boring and difficult to understand.” I tell her, “I’ve never seen Mark teach. He’s experienced. I know he can adjust his style. Did you talk to him about it?” “No.” “It seems fair to talk with Mark before you make a decision or talk with other teachers.”

 ”Oh, Mama Virginia, you must go to your 6:20 class!” “I thought you said it was 7:30…?” “No, it is now posted 6:20.” “You promised to show me before the schedule was set, but I’m glad of this change.” I run upstairs to two expected pre-schoolers, marching in with mothers. The Chinese assistant is nowhere to be seen. I wave forcefully “Bye-bye!” and moms scurry out the door, anxious mice. The boys are mirror opposites–one almost catatonic, the other chattering Chinese.

We start scribbling with red. I’m using a mirror, my marker, moving their hands, touching their mouths, and the noisy one says, “Red.” A star on his hand, and the other one whispers “red…” The door opens. Assistant Heather, “Virginia, those are not your students. They are for a demo class. Here is your one student.” I recognize a sweetheart I’ve seen before. “Tell them in Chinese to please sit here and watch.” Moms come back to hover and coach, along with the adult with my paid student. We shift to legos, and I cajole the children into repeating “red.”

Assistant repeats everything I say in Chinese. I ask her to stop. She then repeats my English words. I ask her to remain quiet, just “Help me with your actions.” How will they learn to listen to me with Chinese direction at every turn? I busy her with recording names, newly-given English names, telephone numbers. They match yellow/blue to earn lego pieces. We build houses, trains, robots. Active Lon cries and wanders, taciturn Matt begins to speak, and Sara whispers and generally follows my mimed actions.

I tell the assistant to bring Lon back when he explores my desk, supplies, CD player, shelves. She does it once. Big red ball comes out, and I invite grown-ups to play too, so we repeat all names several times. After 30 minutes, we’re all tired, only halfway through. Toilet break (no “bathroom” or baths here) and “Wash your hands” chant. I make a mental note to have snacks next session. We try to sit in a circle on the floor. “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes” was never sung slower. Assistant bellows off-melody, “Eyes, ears, mouth, and nose” until I ask her to sing softly. Then they echo one-word–at-a-time.

They watch me draw myself–hair, eyes, mouth, a few details. They look in a mirror at themselves, fill ink/blue/yellow/green eyes in the circle I draw on each paper. We identify hair in the mirror, and they each reach for black. Success! We admire our faces again, choose a color for another star-on-hand, and say “Bye-bye.” Lon’s permanently welded around his mom’s neck. Matt’s mom wants an interpreted chat about “How’s his pronunciation?” I assure her he’ll say “red, blue, green” like me if I teach him, like her if she teaches him. She smiles happily, “Tsank you!” Then she has him tell me, “Tomorrow…is my…birthday!” I draw him a cake with 4 candles. They confer, and he repeats her words, “I love you!” The woman has really good English.

Sara’s Nana (grandmother? nanny?) gives her over to mother, who arrives with a lot of questions, all in Chinese. I never did get anything interpreted beyond assuring Mom that Sara could–and did–”open her mouth.” Both Sara’s family and Heather subscribe to the “Louder means better” school of learning, I guess. “Please interpret that Sara showed understanding when she did what I said. She’ll speak louder when she knows me better.” I escape to teacher’s room, where Mark sits at his computer–and three of his students play games on mine. I pull rank and shoo them out: “I need my computer.”

The owner’s daughter comes in to see if I’m off “her” computer yet. If off, I’ve no place to sit. The kids burst in like tennis balls out of a sealed can, while parents chat and argue their child’s chances of success in the lounge, oblivious to the chaos. “Let’s get out of here,” I tell Mark. I know Mark was a CA Middle School teacher, admire his laid back ways and easy smile. We’ve just come through three days when I nursed him (he lives next door) while he lay flat with back spasms, then two days of my sleeping off severe allergy reactions when he brought me yogurt and instant noodle cups.

Sipping tea by the nearby campus lake, when well enough to walk, he reminds me philosophically when my sense of justice and opinions about what constitutes good teaching practices rise to my heated surface, “We’re just immigrant workers in China, Virginia,” and I calm down. We bike home under street lights. “I’m liberated until Tuesday evening’s classes, Mark!” I’m jubilant. I hear Mark’s philosophy that planning lessons is useless, since Zoe just gave him a text at the 11th hour. We stop and watch impressive swing dancing in two parks.

My phone rings. “Mama, you know you have two hours tomorrow?” (I had just e-mailed friends my Tue-Friday pm hours. envisioning the delicious three-day-weekends when I’d visit Xuzhou, Hangzhou, Yellow Mountain, read, dine, sleep…) “What two hours?” “I put it on the schedule. And I have your texts ready.” “What age? What texts?” “The same as last time (only one class has texts, to my knowledge).”

By the time I got home, I figured it out. She’d added a first-second grade class on Saturday afternoons without splitting their two hours/week. They’re offspring of the movers and shakers of Lin’An, excellent students in the demo lessons. What’s a foreign worker to say but, “Yes, boss.” I push down fear that the most ADHD kid I’ve encountered in China has also been added to their mix. What did I do to deserve this? Left a comfortable job in paradise. Got a pay raise promise (not forthcoming until October 10) with an apartment like one I admired with balcony (didn’t happen), took on the challenge of “beginning a kindergarten program” (I’m touted as expert, but not clued in on schedule/expectations/materials/activities until last minute, if then). Left a boss who said “waiting until the last minute worked” for her and gained a boss who stomps out of shouting matches in faculty meetings and doesn’t appear for a day, tells me one thing later swears she said something else, and works hours on micro-managing inefficient details.

They clearly need help, but I’m getting too old for this kind of flying blind! Not one to look back too far, once my hand is to the plow, I’m awake at 4:30 a.m. and e-mailing Zoe. “I’m frustrated…Can we talk?” Stay tuned.