Little Emperors (4 page)

My terror of riding a bike in Guangzhou soon disappears as panic turns to exhilaration. All my senses are on alert as I cross the big, busy
street that cuts through the neighbourhood. I feel absolutely
alive
. I laugh as I pedal past buses, cars, trucks, taxis, motorbikes, bikes, and kids. I make it unscathed across the road and zip past McDonald's, ringing the bike's bell at those in my way. I curve to the left. Shadows from the trees lining the small street glide over my arms. I pass the Bank of China and come to the turn for Number 2 School. I am tempted to keep going, to play hooky and explore this whole crazy city by bike, but the responsible bones in my body steer the bike around the corner and through the school's gates. I park the bike and run up six flights of stairs to the music room, where I teach class and drip sweat on the kids.

Miranda has been taking me to her house for lunch nearly every day since we started working together. It's fun to sit and chat and watch Chinese soap operas with her, but this morning I decided it was time to return the favour. Before leaving for work, I made us two big, gooey peanut butter sandwiches. She has been introducing me to Chinese lunches, so I figured it was time to introduce her to a Canadian lunch.

As we leave Number 2 School, I tell Miranda about the lunch I've brought for us. “Oh! No, no. It's okay. I eat something else,” she replies. “You eat your sandwich.”

“But I made us both sandwiches . . .”

“No. I'm okay. You eat. I get my own.”

This volley of conversation continues as we walk down the street. We approach the Kentucky Fried Chicken. She points to it and says, “I think you are tired today. It's cool inside. You can eat your sandwiches there.”

I give up on the peanut butter and join her for a chicken leg and mashed potatoes. As we start to eat, she laughs, then asks, “What do you like in a man? I think you have high standards.”

“I guess I like men who are intelligent, funny, handsome . . .”

“And rich?” She smiles.

“Rich helps!” I reply, laughing.

“Yes. You want everything. You don't have a boyfriend now because very few men have all these things. You want too much.”

“You're probably right. Also, I don't have time for a boyfriend. I'm never in one place long enough.”

“I have a friend,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “Your face look
like his face. He's Chinese Canadian. In China, we say that people who looks like same will get married. I introduce you if he comes to Guangzhou.” She lifts her head. “Maybe?”

“I remind you of a Chinese man?”

“Hmm . . . But he looks like Western face,” she explains, then glances down at her tray. “Don't listen my words. I am not serious.” She looks up shyly. “But . . . maybe?”

I agree to meet him if he ever comes to Guangzhou, to see for myself this Chinese twin, and to see if there is any truth to this Chinese saying.

We eat in silence for a few minutes. As I finish my potatoes, I study the huge cartoon mural above us. It shows a group of happy black-haired children following Colonel Sanders to a KFC restaurant at the end of a golden path — the Colonel as Pied Piper. From what I've seen so far, I'd say pictures of the Colonel vastly outnumber pictures of Chinese leaders here. The Colonel is everywhere in Guangzhou — on signs, banners, and even the sides of rubbish bins. In contrast, I've seen exactly one billboard picturing Deng Xiaoping. The Colonel in this mural looks quite Chinese, though, like Chairman Mao with a goatee or Confucius in black-rimmed glasses.

Miranda gazes at the leg bone on her tray and grins mischievously. “Sometimes, China people eat dog,” she says quietly.

“I've heard that. Is it good?”

“I don't like to eat because I have dog, Lily. But truth . . . it's delicious! Also big mice. Mice meat is delicious, too. Also snake meat is good.” She pauses, still grinning. “Scare you?”

“A little, but I think I'd like to try it.”

“You want to try dog and mice meat, too?”

“Sure!” I lie.

And to think she refused peanut butter sandwiches.

The books we use to teach our students are based on
Sesame Street
. How strange to be in the People's Republic of China teaching English with Big Bird's help. How surreal to stand in front of a classroom under the red flag of China, a Bert and Ernie puppet on each hand. All those years of watching
Sesame Street
have finally paid off! My mind boggles at the twists of historical and geopolitical fate that have brought us together and replaced Mao's Little Red Book with
Big
Bird's Yellow Book
in Guangzhou's elementary schools.

The new books excite most of the kids. The colours and the strange new cartoon characters on each page enthrall them. They unclip their English name tags from their uniforms and painstakingly copy the foreign letters onto the inside covers of their books.

The only class not excited by the new books is the Grade Six class, the big kids. They are a class of only eight students. Most of them are taller than I am and have studied English in one form or another for four years. I feel ridiculous handing out baby books to preadolescents. They snicker as I give them their copies of
Big Bird's Yellow Book
.

“What's so funny?” I ask Miranda. “Are these books too babyish for them?”

“No,” she answers. She also starts giggling. “It's just that in China, yellow —” she pauses to stifle her laughter “— means ‘sexful'! Like ‘yellow movie' is ‘sex movie,' or ‘yellow magazine' is ‘sex magazine,' and this . . . this is ‘Yellow Book.' Same in Chinese as ‘Sex Book'!”

“You're kidding.”

“No!” She bursts out laughing, as do the students who understand what she's explaining to me.

After the Sex Book class, on our well-deserved break, Miranda and I stay at school to eat. We take our tin lunch boxes to the bottom of the stairs, to the tiny window of the school kitchen. The cooks scoop our meals from huge blackened woks, woks so big that if you propped them on the roof they'd pull in satellite TV. Back in the science room, we open our tin boxes to see what we've got. Today's menu is fried rice with vegetables, peanuts, and cubes of Chinese-style SPAM. It's pretty good.

I'm quickly learning that lunchtime is sacred in China. This huge country has only one time zone, so every corner of China simultaneously grinds to a halt at 12:00 p.m. and goes for lunch. You want service at a department store between noon and 2:00 p.m.? Forget it. You want to order food at a restaurant? You'll have to wait for the staff to finish theirs. Disturbing Chinese people during their midday meal and nap will get you nothing but sleepy, dirty looks.

The schools are no different. At twelve, parents and grandparents arrive at the school gates to take some children home on the backs of their bicycles for the two-hour lunch and nap. The students who don't go home begin lining up at the school kitchen window at 11:30 to ensure all six hundred of them have their lunches by the stroke of twelve. After they
eat, they are released onto the concrete playground for half an hour of skipping rope, screeching, and running around. Then it's back to their classrooms, where they push groups of desks together, spread out blankets and pillows, and snooze for an hour on top of their desks. Teachers unfold fabric deck chairs and sleep soundly in the hallways outside their classrooms. The whole school snores.

Except, of course, the hard-working souls in my English class.

On Saturday, Miranda and I go to a Chinese fast-food place between morning classes at Number 1 School and an afternoon class at Number 2. I slump into an orange chair and spoon greasy vegetables onto a plastic plate filled with rice. “I think I made a big mistake,” I say as Miranda sits down.

“It's no matter. Don't worry.”

For homework, I had the kids draw pictures of their families so they could come to class today and explain, “She is my mother,” “He is my father,” “He is my brother,” “She is my sister,” and so on. But at the end of the day yesterday, the most obvious of thoughts occurred to me:
This is China. This is the land of the one-child policy. These kids don't have brothers and sisters! Why didn't I think of this while I was writing the lesson plan last week?

A tile poster promotes one-(girl)-child families in China
.

I was confused, then, when almost every student came to class this morning with a picture of Mom, Dad, and two or three siblings. “They're kids' cousins,” Miranda explained to me in class.

“But now they all
think cousins are brothers and sisters,” I continue to protest as we start our lunch. “A month of teaching and I've already scarred them for life!”

“No worry,” Miranda says again. “Now in China with one-couple, one-child rule, kids very close to their cousins. Very like brother or sister. My parents had many brothers and sisters, so I have many cousins. Same with students.

“Did you have many toys when you were young?” Miranda then asks, veering the conversation in another direction as she pushes rice around her plate with a plastic spoon.

“I had quite a large collection of stuffed animals. Teddy bears and things.”

“You're very lucky. I had no toys.”

“None?”

“None. China was very poor in that time. I played with rocks and sticks and things in the country at my grandmother's house. Usually climb trees or play in the river with other kids.”

“And never any toys?”

“No. But my grandmother was very kind woman. Only one time she yelled and spanked me.”

“What happened?”

“I thought chickens could swim. Like ducks,” she giggles, turning pink at the memory. “So I threw three of the neighbour's chickens into the river. They didn't swim.” Her eyes widen. “They
died
! My grandmother was very, very angry. She punish me. I was so foolish. But I was just a little kid!

“She was my mother's side grandmother. My other grandmother die when my father was little. My grandfather — remember picture with movie actor face? — he was rich from silk business. Then one day government said, ‘No one in China can be rich!' My grandmother had heart attack and pass away when she heard this news. The government took my grandfather's money and put him in jail for two years.”

“Couldn't they go to Hong Kong when they heard this news?”

“No. It happen very sudden. Also China government told the people, ‘You must love your country. You must stay in China.' It was difficult to leave then.”

“If your grandmother had passed away and your grandfather was in jail, who took care of your father?”

Miranda looks at me with a twisted smile. “Himself,” she answers simply. “One day he's rich boy, ten years old, and the next he must work
hard to survive. He collect papers in the street. He grew up so quickly. You know, that time, medium salary in China was forty yuan a month. My father made
eight
. Can you believe? That is
nothing
.”

I glance down at my tray and realize my horrid lunch costs more than that. I suddenly appreciate it a lot more.

“Later, the years 1966 to 1976 were terrible for China,” she continues. “In those ten years, China lost so much. Nothing moved forward.” She gestures out the window with her plastic spoon. “Look around you now. You see people ten years behind in thinking and goods. It's terrible!”

She pauses for a spoonful of rice. “My father had very difficult youth. He experienced many things. He has no sons, so he raised me like a boy-girl. I learn to work hard for money. He don't give me. He want me to learn from his experience — don't treat money easily.”

Her story amazes me. I am speechless at how different our nations' histories — our lives — have been up to now. “Your stories are fascinating, Miranda,” I tell her. “I wish I could take notes while you talk. I wish I had a tape recorder!”