Little Emperors (14 page)

Ninety minutes and forty RMB later, from a distance that usually only takes ten minutes and twelve RMB, the taxi finally rolls up in front of my apartment building. I could have walked home in a third of the time. You know what? I think I will! I have had it with the buses and taxis and crazed traffic here! From now on I will take my life into my own hands and walk!

After a day like this, I really wonder why I stay here. Some days I am certain this city is going to crush me under the weight of its concrete, its
noise, and its smog. I am sick every two weeks. I cough as if I've smoked half a pack a day my entire life. Every time I inhale, I can almost feel the heavy metals in the atmosphere settling on my frontal lobe. I am popping antihistamines like vitamin pills. It is scary.

So why don't I leave? Why don't I just pack my bags and slip out of China in the middle of the night? I have that luxury. Perhaps that is why I stay — because I know I can leave any time I want. I have the luxury of choice. The people born here do not.

There is another, bigger reason I can't leave now, anyway: my students. Somehow, when I wasn't looking, their little hands got a hold of my heartstrings. And they are not letting go.

After dinner I go to Preety Woman, a small beauty salon near our apartment, in desperate need of a haircut. I walk across the black square of a park between here and there, past benches dotted with young Chinese couples stealing semi-private moments to feel each other up in the dark.

I step into the bright salon. One of the hair washers sits me down in a barber chair, wraps a towel over my shoulders, and squirts a dollop of diluted shampoo directly onto the top of my dry hair. After the shampoo is lathered up like whipping cream, the hair washer rakes her fingers through my hair. Her nails scrape my scalp from front to back, again and again, until a blob of shampoo lather collects at the nape of my neck, which she scoops up and drops into a nearby wastebasket. After repeating this cycle a few times, she begins massaging my head and neck, her thumbs and index fingers pushing on every pressure point along my hairline, stopping to rub firmly on my temples then tug quickly on my soap-filled ears. Her fingers work the bridge of my nose, fan out across my forehead, and then, around and around, follow the bones encircling my eyes. She kneads the back of my neck and the knots in my shoulders until they are warm and humming. Finally, she weaves her fingers together and karate-chops my head and neck with a
thwack! thwack! thwack!
that sounds as if it should hurt but feels great.

A tap on my shoulder jars me from my trance. The hair washer leads me to the sink to rinse away the shampoo and her wonderful fingerprints.

I am back in the barber chair when the barber appears from behind a curtain, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, wielding his shears like
martial arts weapons. I explain what I want by miming, pointing, and grunting, and he lunges at my hair. With a few quick stabs and snips, he is finished. As I pay at the counter, I check my reflection in the dark window. The barber has done a pretty good job, and only slightly mutilated my bangs.

I step back out into the muggy evening. The air sticks to my skin as I walk back home through the small park, back past the lovers on benches. We have started two new Grade One classes at Number 1 School. The new kids are so small and giggly, and they look up at me with the most adorable of blank stares. What a chore to be back at the bottom of the mountain! Back to entire hours spent on “Hello” and “What's your name?” It makes me realize just how far my original classes have come, and how proud I am of them.

A makeshift barbershop does business on a sidewalk near the author's home
.

Bingo mania is currently sweeping the older classes. I introduced them to the game a week ago when we started the unit on school supplies. Once they got the hang of the game (“Three covered pictures in a
row
, not just any three, before you yell, ‘Bingo!' everybody . . .”), there was no stopping them. Now, as they step into class, they glance up at me on their way to their seats and ask, “Bingo?”

“Not now. Later.”

Halfway through the lesson someone will shout, “Bingo?!”

“Not now. Later.”

When I finally announce, “Okay, bingo!” the kids shout a collective cheer, shove their books into their school bags, pull out ragged bingo cards, and scramble for a strategic spot on the floor. They kneel, poised, bingo chips in hand, ready to pounce on the first picture I call. All eyes are riveted to my hand fumbling in the picture card bag. All breathing stops. The proverbial pin drops in the anxious silence. I pull out the first card.

“Eraser.”

Everyone sighs with relief. Hands move in a flutter of paper to cover the picture of an eraser on their cards. I pull out a second card to the same tension and relief. As the game reaches its crescendo, students begin chanting in efforts to increase their luck. Those who need a book to complete their cards drone, “Book, book, book . . .” as my hand dives back into the bag of picture cards. Others intone, “Paste, paste, paste . . .” willing my hand to pull out the card they need. Some students close their eyes and clasp their hands together, their lips moving in a silent prayer for “Crayons, crayons, crayons . . .” Gerry crosses himself and sings out the chorus from Handel's
Messiah
: “Hallelujah! Pencil-ah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

I pull out a card.

“Paste.”

“Bingo-ah! Bingo-ah!”
screeches someone from the back of the classroom. Those less fortunate whine with disappointment as the victor bounces to the front of the classroom, leaping over bodies and bingo cards, to become the caller of the next game. The rest of the class quickly gets over their loss and clears their cards in eager anticipation of a new game, a new chance at being lucky.

Why do they love this game so much? Why does it render them nearly rabid with excitement? I don't know. I don't give any rewards or goodies for winning, just the humble opportunity of being the game's new master. It must be simply the thrill of the game, the sheer thrill of winning and a moment in the spotlight that they love so much — the little spark of hope that luck is just the next game away.

I would love to take these kids on a church basement tour of Canada where they could bingo to their hearts' content. I imagine them sitting in the back of a Canadian bingo hall in their green-and-white uniforms, legs swinging from tall chairs, rows of cards on the table in front of them,
ink daubers in both fists, their eyes glazed in concentration as they stab at numbers until one of them cries out in triumph,
“Bingo-ah!”

The weather in the past few days has gone from hot and sticky to cool and breezy. Yesterday evening I wore my favourite black sweater, and at night crawled under my comforter — the first time I have slept under the covers in five months! It is also the perfect temperature for walking to and from school, which I do now almost every day. It takes about fifty minutes along roaring Guangzhou Da Dao, under its many concrete overpasses, and is very good exercise for my reflexes.

Walking helps me better feel the rhythm of the city, too. Every morning, I pass three young women selling fruit under three skinny trees. They crouch next to their baskets of green oranges or hack at pineapples with large knives. Meanwhile, their babies totter around on the sidewalk or in the yard of the adjacent sheet metal shop, with their pants split open (in lieu of diapers) and their little bums peeking out, occasionally plopping down in a puddle of oil or playing with shards of scrap steel.

On Saturday afternoons, fortune tellers sit on fold-out chairs under a stretch of leafy trees, their charts and diagrams laid out on the sidewalk, ready to inspect lines on palms or faces and predict futures. Most evenings, as I push my way through the bicycle jam and try to avoid sharp fenders and hot motorcycle tailpipes, I pass two police officers sitting on chairs under one of the overpasses. They occasionally stop cyclists or motorbikes during rush hour to check papers, but most of the time they just sit there, pick their teeth, and watch the world go honking and beeping by. Only a few blocks up the road from the police, a crowd gathers every night in front of a noodle shop to buy and sell used (possibly stolen) bicycles.

On my walks home, I've also discovered that Chinese habits I once found repulsive have given me a new-found freedom, a liberation from the restrictions of Western decorum. Walking home, under the cover of darkness, I now pick my nose with impunity. I am also getting pretty good at coughing up substantial phlegm goobers, spitting them, and missing my shoe.

Walking home tonight, I see two
gong an
grab two men in front of a bicycle repair shop. The men must have stolen money, because one of the
policemen reaches into one of the men's pants and pulls out a fat roll of bills. The man quickly kneels on the sidewalk when the cops tell him to get down. The other man starts yelling and walking away, obviously not going to go quietly, so one officer kicks him in the back of the knees.

In the late afternoon, bicycles jam Guangzhou Da Dao
.

The man fights back. He turns and pushes the cop and walks away again. The officer runs up behind him and tries to put a choke hold on the thief, but the man struggles and shakes him off. The other officer comes up and punches the man in the stomach. The man staggers back, reeling from the blow, and yells at the cop. A crowd quickly gathers to watch.

The police finally get the man under control. They force him to take off his pants and kneel in his underwear next to his accomplice. He does, reluctantly, screaming at the cops as they use the man's own belt to secure his hands behind his back. A Jeep with
GONG AN
stencilled on its doors pulls up on the sidewalk. The two men are dragged into the back seat and taken away.

The female vice-principal at Number 1 School gives Echo and me each a tin of moon cakes for the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. After the last class, I ask Echo to recommend a Chinese tea to go with the cakes. She thinks for a moment, then writes the name of one in both Chinese characters and
pinyin
on a small piece of paper.

Walking home, I take a detour through the market below my apartment and stop at a tea shop. I step up to the counter and ask in broken Mandarin for
yi bai
grams of
li zhi hong cha
and show the smiling old lady behind the counter the scrap of paper. She squints at the characters, nods, and begins scooping tea leaves out of a large plastic bag into a smaller one. Then she drops the small bag onto the tray of her weigh scale. As she taps the weights across the bar, I am not quite sure if she is saying “thirty-four yuan” or “three yuan forty,” so I hand her a fifty-yuan bill that fills her face with horror. I put it back in my wallet and offer a ten, which seems to relieve her a bit, but it still takes her a few minutes to dig change out of a deep wooden drawer filled with tiny, worn bills.

The woman points to a small tea table on the other side of the shop and motions for me to sit down. Tired, greasy, and smog-covered as I am, I decide to postpone going home and stay for some tea. I nod my thanks and sit on the small stool in front of the table.

A young woman comes out of the back room and sits across from me. She heats a small kettle on a hot plate on the table between us. Red clay cups — two large ones with lids and two tiny ones just a bit wider than thimbles — and a miniature teapot also sit on the table, on a bamboo grate placed over a deep ceramic tray. The older woman brings a glass canister full of twigs over to me. She runs a finger under the inky characters on its label to show me the name of the tea.

While we wait for the kettle to boil, I glance out at the people pushing
their bikes through the market, moths dancing in the orange light above their heads. My eyes scan the rows of large tea jars on the tea shop counter, then admire each little clay teapot in the cabinet below. I look up at the shelves along the wall, shelves full of ceramic Buddhas and dogs. The women murmur to each other as the water bubbles in its pot.