Shengliver’s Note: Because of the differences between the Chinese education system and its English counterpart, it is hard to find an English equivalent for the Chinese term banzhuren. In Chinese schools, a teacher in charge of a class is a banzhuren. I asked a Chinese PhD student studying in Liverpool to help me with the translation. She in turn consulted her professor, who said that no English word meant the same thing. I simply put the Chinese phrase word for word into class director. In this blog entry, Shengliver writes about his three class directors, who influenced him positively in the student days. Teachers’ Day (September 10 on mainland China) is around the corner. This entry is a tribute to my three former teachers. When it was published for the first time on MSN Spaces, Mr Quan was still there. Today, he is long gone.
From primary school through college, I had 10 class directors altogether—4 in primary school, 2 in junior high, 2 in senior high, and 2 in college. Three of them influenced me more than the others. They played a significant role in shaping my life and making Shengliver what he is today. My outlook on life and my attitudes have been moulded, to a great extent, by the ways they were.
The first to come on the timeline is Mr Quan Guangfa. He was inferior to the other teachers in status in my primary school because he was a min ban jiao shi. The term min ban jiao shi is very Chinese, meaning a teacher who is not certified by the state and therefore works like a supply teacher. Such a teacher is hired not by the state, but by the villagers whose children are under his charge. There is a big gap between a regular teacher’s income and what a min ban jiao shi earns.
Mr Quan was different from his peers in that he used to be a certified teacher employed by the state. For a blunder he had committed in the political years (the 1960s), he was stripped of his teaching position before he was repatriated to his home hamlet, where the former pedagogue did become a peasant once again. My readers might wonder about Mr Quan’s blunder that cost his breadwinning job. At a grassroots rally, Mr Quan was leading the audience in shouting a slogan in chorus. He should have said, ‘Down with John!’ Regrettably, a slip of tongue caused him to release, ‘Down with Jack!’ instead. The audience were dumbfounded. Instantly it occurred to them that Mr Quan had not done it intentionally, for Jack was the supreme Chinese leader then. Unfortunately, someone reported the incident to the authorities, who in turn charged Mr Quan with defaming the great leader. As a consequence, he was tried and convicted.
The community school in our hamlet was understaffed so the village head decided to take Mr Quan on as a min ban jiao shi. The pay was paltry. Worse still his past mistake made him a laughing stock among the folks in the farming community. Even his pupils talked about it behind his back.
Mr Quan was destitute. He wore peasant clothes, because he was a peasant and he had to toil on the farm before and after school hours on a daily basis. Mr Quan was a habitual smoker. With his wife and four kids to feed, he had no extra cash to spare for luxuries such as cigarettes sold at the village shop. To slake his craving, he put tobacco leaves on a paper slip and made a roll out of it. Tobacco was raised on the farm, and paper torn off his used textbooks. The handmade rolls brought pleasure to my master. One evening, I found he had run out of tobacco. Fumbling in the pouch, he produced nothing out of it. Out of habit making a paper roll, the miserable man puffed at it at his desk. We students were doing our lessons under an oil lamp while Mr Quan seemed to be relishing the fake cigar up there. What taste was it, Mr Quan?
His experiences cast Mr Quan into a great teacher. He was soft-spoken, approachable, and encouraging. My domineering father made me a timid boy, shy and confused about the world. Before he was my teacher, sitting in the classroom had been a torture. Lessons were dry and fell on my deaf ears. Arithmetic problems simple for my classmates were my headaches. What feedback I got from my teachers had been largely negative. They said, ‘Shengliver is a good-for-nothing. He can’t even talk.’
Mr Quan was different. I liked his style. Instead of being intimidating, he mixed with us. He listened to us and chatted with us. He even joined us kids when we were brooming the classroom floor or weeding the schoolyard. A picture pops up in my mind’s eye where he was scooping with both his hands dust and litter onto a dustpan off the dirt floor of the classroom when we were doing a weekly thorough cleaning.
Mr Quan’s explanations of the lessons were lucid. Apart from that, he taught me there be three steps to follow in studies—preview, classroom learning, and review. In the country school, no pupil did the first and the last. They simply stayed the 45-minute session in the classroom and left behind their books and lessons when school was over. After he became my teacher, I started previewing and reviewing at home after school in the evening. My parents were incredulous, finding me at the dining table writing in an improvised notebook instead of loitering with my playmates. What I did was nothing special—just copying the new Chinese characters and reading the next day’s text. This simple change transformed Shengliver utterly. I turned from a rotten egg to a golden one. Just one year with Mr Quan helped send me into junior high with flying colours. Among all the examinees sitting the entrance exams in my People’s Commune, I earned the highest grade for the composition section of the Chinese language paper.
From Mr Quan, I learned what difference an encouraging teacher can make to his pupils.
The next who stands out in my memory is Mr Yu Zhengsheng. Well, is should be was, for he is no more. He died years ago of cancer, and yet I had no time to attend his funeral. I wish he would have forgiven me.
Mr Yu was my class director for two years in senior high. He was my geography teacher as well. In retrospect, I realise that he was my role model then, but I was unaware of it when I was his student. For one thing, he was fair to all his pupils regardless of their family backgrounds. For another, he was knowledgeable. His geography lessons fascinated me. This is a lifelong benefit. Still interested in the discipline, I read about world geography in English these days.
Mr Yu trusted me. He chose me as his assistant from the very beginning. I helped with his teaching routines, collecting assignments from my classmates. In the second term, a student leader in my class, who broke the code of conduct by being intimate with a girl classmate, was sacked. I was substituted right away. The new role saw me taking charge of academic studies for my class. Meanwhile I was still the assistant to him in geography lessons. It boosted my self-esteem and confidence beyond measure.
Each time I carried our homework over to his office and put the books on his desk, I was struck by the tidiness he maintained. His books stood in a row between a pair of bookends, his drinking cup and pens and pencils in a holder arranged in an orderly fashion. The desktop itself was spotlessly clean. His personal work space made a sharp contrast with the neighbouring ones, which were pigsties.
Even after leaving high school I still kept in touch with him by correspondence. His mentoring urged me on in my college years. I didn’t waste my time then, to a large extent, thanks to those words of his.
Years later, Mr Yu was promoted to head of the County Education Bureau. He almost always fully booked, I seldom managed to visit him. Then the out-of-the-blue news of his being taken ill and his consequent departure left me sad, empty and lost.
Mr Yu taught me to be fair, to be knowledgeable, and to trust my pupils. And on top of all those, to be tidy and organised.
The last on my list is as inspiring as, if not more than, the first two. She was my class director for just one school year in college. After teaching us, she went on to pursue her further studies elsewhere in China.
Ms Huang Qin was also my tutor in Intensive Reading, a course that English language majors in China have to reckon with. Freshly graduated from university, she radiated enthusiasm for her career. I pronounced horribly when I enrolled in college. Studying with her for one year saw me laying solid foundations in English pronunciation.
I remember the many hours that she took to drill us in those sounds we could not distinguish: Egg/Add; Fun/Fang; House/Horse, and so on and so forth. It was tedious and she was patient. A bit harsh, she was ready to point out the faults in my pronunciation. If no improvement was detected in my reading the next day, her harsher criticism would be piled upon me. As very much ashamed as I was, I was mentally strong enough by then to stand her reproach.
I made up my mind to better my pronunciation whatever the cost. In the spare time, I retreated from the college crowd to a secluded wood by a pond on campus, where I drilled like crazy: Egg/Add; Fun/Fang; House/Horse, and so on and so forth. Twice a day, before breakfast in the early morning and after supper in the evening, I read all alone in the wood. I persevered with my effort, weather permitting. Some evenings the gathering twilight saw me still practising. I did not quit until I could not make out the texts any longer. Occasionally some college sweethearts visited the private corner by the pond. Their intimacies, however, had no effect on my reading the texts aloud. We seemed to be oblivious of each other’s presence.
One day, while listening to me enunciating in class, Ms Huang Qin all of a sudden became all smiles, ‘Aha, Shengliver has progressed. Listen, boys and girls, Shengliver has progressed!’ Praise from someone critical does not come easy. I intensified my efforts in the remaining days of college.
Ms Huang’s ways showed me that there is no limit to what academic excellence I could achieve if I set my mind upon it. She heightened my awareness that, to teach others, I would have to train hard, really hard. Thanks, Ms Huang.
Upon graduation from college I landed a job at a prestigious local high school. I met Ms Huang again when I went on my further education program around 1996 at my alma mater. She was an instructor on the program. Because she did not teach my class, I took time one day just to attend one of her lessons just to relive the memory. After I was finished with the program, I lost contact with Ms Huang. Later on I learned that she had found a new teaching position at a university elsewhere in the country, but the details were unknown.
We live in a small world, as is popularly believed. Then in June, 2010, I was assigned by Hubei Exams Authority to check the National Matriculation English Test (NMET) at HUST in Wuhan. One evening I went on a stroll on campus, which took me to the Foreign Studies School of the university. To my amazement, I found Ms Huang’s photo in a showcase introducing the faculty. Ms Huang was already a professor of English there by then.
I am not a class director, but I will try to be a good teacher. The three masters, Mr Quan, Mr Yu and Ms Huang, will always stay a beacon to Shengliver in fair weather or foul.
Shengliver Studio 