On the Tables

Take a seat at your desk in the office of one of the top high schools in China. You work at a semi-private center attached to the school, where students can pay large sums of money to get extra classes after school and on weekends. Several of the classes run by your center are run through the main school as electives, taught once or twice a week. It’s roughly 4:40 p.m. on a Wednesday, and a student from one of these classes comes running into your office.

She’s trembling, about to cry if she isn’t already. When you ask her what’s wrong, she explains that her teacher grabbed her homework for another class and destroyed it. She has this teacher for two classes and is terrified of him. She doesn’t want to go to any more of his classes and wants her money back. When she’s done explaining this, she runs out of the office and out of the school.

Fifteen minutes later, the class is over. The teacher, who has been rather difficult to deal with before, claims that he did nothing wrong and would repeat his actions if faced with the same situation again.

The next morning, the student’s parents come into the office. They are likely very important people in China and very upset at what happened. They want their money back and to pull their student out of the classes unless they feel appropriate measures are taken. They leave and await your call informing them of your decision.

That evening, the teacher comes in early to meet with you before his evening class. You explain the situation, but he does not offer any reasonable solutions. He feels that it is still the student’s misbehavior and refuses to apologize. With no other solution, you are forced to terminate his employment.

It is important to make this student feel comfortable in class, and this stubborn teacher was giving you no other options.

At least, that’s the story my boss seems to think she’s telling.

Let’s back up. It’s Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at roughly 4:35 p.m. I’m going around the class asking my students simple questions and listening to their responses. I get to one student, Lisa, and ask her “Do you have any siblings?” This question is fairly obvious due to China’s one child policy, but the exercise was about the answer, not the question. The student looks to her friends for help, since she didn’t know what the word ’sibling’ meant. I quickly explained, “Brothers or sisters.”

She looks up and says, “Oh. No.” I look down at her desk and I notice a packet of homework, 20 sheets or so stapled three times on the side, open on her desk. I pick it up, but she grabs it too. I tell her to let go, but she refuses. We both held on for a few seconds, then the staples gave in. The book separated into two parts. Lisa throws her part across the room, stands up, and storms out of the room. I continue the exercise.

Actually, let’s go back to 4:30 p.m. I am lecturing on impromptu speeches. I’m explaining how when you answer questions, you are really giving short, unprepared speeches. I explain the exercise: I give you a simple question, and you think of what other information I would want to know, besides the direct question. For example, if I asked, “Do you have any pets?” you might respond, “No, because my family lives in an apartment that doesn’t allow pets. I have always wanted a dog, though. I think it would be nice to have a loyal companion.” The idea is that even in a yes or no question, you can give a short speech that is informative and shows your confidence.

After asking questions to several students, I ask a simple question to Peggy. She has a stack of other books and homework on her desk that she closes shortly before I walk up to her. She gives me an insufficient answer, so I pick up her books and put them on the floor next to her desk and ask her to give me a better answer. Instead of answering me, she stands up, retrieves her books, and sits back down. I was annoyed at her disobedience, so I take her stack of books and walk them to my desk at the front of the classroom. She gets up and follows me, demanding her books back. I tell her to sit back down and that she will get them when class is over. Reluctantly, she obeys.

A few students later, I get to Lisa. I ask her a simple question, and she responds with a one word answer, making it obvious she wasn’t paying attention to my instructions five minutes earlier. I pick up her open homework so that she might pay attention while I repeated the instructions for her benefit, but she grabs on and continues the situation three paragraphs ago.

After she left the room, several students were slightly shocked at what I did. “That’s her homework!” they informed me, as if it weren’t obvious. I had to explain to them why it was called “homework” and not “otherclasseswork,” and that it was an obvious distraction for her. Then I continued my class until it was time to go.

I should also point out that this is an exceptionally rowdy class on an unusually rowdy day. During the break at 4:10 p.m., two people from the office had to come to my room to tell the students to be quiet because they were hindering other classes from learning. After this, I felt the need to make an extra effort to keep the students under control.

At 4:55, I dismiss the students and return to the office. I stop by one other foreign teacher’s room on the way to tell her what happened, then I go to sort out some papers and pack up my things. At this point, I am informed that I destroyed her homework and frightened the student. She had left the office and nobody could contact her. They try and make me understand that I am an abusive teacher, but I insist that it was merely discipline and that I would do it again if the situation arose a second time.

I leave the office and walk to the mall, where I meet up with Caitlin for dinner. She’s had a pretty stressful week of finals and other issues, so she’s been pretty worn thin. I inform her that there has been some big drama at the office, but I first tell her other things before I forget about them. We start walking toward where there’s food, and she gets a call from Irene, my official boss. We spend a little while discussing whether or not to answer the phone, and since I think it most likely that she’s calling to ask if Caitlin wants to teach over the summer, I encourage her to answer the phone to get it over with. I turned out to be pretty wrong.

They speak in Chinese for several minutes, eventually leading Caitlin to watery eyes then tears. When they hang up, I ask for a summary. Basically, Irene feels that she can’t communicate with me and was asking Caitlin to tell me to be a better and more cooperative employee. I found this interesting, since Irene hasn’t spoken to me about anything important in about a month and had not said a word to me about the incident. She was merely diverting her responsibility.

I pick up my phone and call her back. When she answers, I yell, “You do NOT call my girlfriend!” I go on to explain, rather aggressively, that it is extremely inappropriate to talk to anyone unrelated to the incident, especially someone from my personal life. She seemed in no way affected by my remarks. I try to reason by analogy. “How would you feel if I talked to your daughter and made her cry?” at which point she expressed that it was ridiculous and irrelevant.

After several times of repeating my main point of not calling Caitlin, she says, “If you have just called to say this one sentence, we are done.” I respond by asking her if she will ever try to contact my girlfriend again, and she replies, “If I feel that I cannot communicate with you, then I will talk to whoever…” I interrupt her with my main point again, and she hangs up on me.

I felt pretty good.

The next afternoon, I get a formal email, the gist of which is, “Come in to work a little early so we can talk about whether or not to fire you.” I tell them I’ll be there at 4:45 unless they need me earlier.

At 4:40 p.m. on Thursday, June 4, 2009 (coincidentally the 20th anniversary of another massacre in China), I arrive at the office for the official meeting. There are four of us in the room: Irene, my boss with intelligible but broken English; Miss Wang, the coordinator of the students with no understanding of English; and Liu Yufei, the only one in the office who would dare think to defend me, stuck in the meeting to translate because his English is far better than Irene’s.

Because of the language issues, all of the discussions happen in Chinese for the sake of Miss Wang, while I am left to understand everything through the softening interpretation of Liu Yufei, who is likely also under judgement to see whose side he takes.

The meeting starts off with Irene asking if I have anything I want to say. I mention that nobody has asked for my side of the story, making it obvious that they value the word of the student over the word of the teacher. I tell my side of the story and reiterate that the student disobeyed me. The homework was not destroyed, and one of her friends picked it up after class. The discussion is not about a teacher destroying a student’s homework.

I inform them that the class is routinely disrespectful. In the past, I have taken MP3 players, cell phones, and other textbooks which were being used during my class, and I have always returned them at the end of class. There wasn’t any confusion about what my intentions were with her homework. This particular day, they were being so disrespectful that others had to come in and reprimand them. Their disrespect is common and has needed discipline.

Irene tells me that if it has been a problem, I should have told the office and had them help. While this is true, the problem wasn’t unmanageable, and I would rather deal with the situation myself than have a babysitter in my classes.

Because I felt I had no other options, I ask Irene what a Chinese teacher would do if in my situation. She explains that a Chinese teacher would never touch a student or kick a student out of class because the students always obey the teachers. It was a nice answer but completely irrelevant to my question.

Irene also reprimands me for not dealing with the student when she ran out of the class. I tell her that I would rather remain in control of the 20 other students in the class than chase after one who already doesn’t want to deal with me.

Irene explains the current situation, that one student is upset over what happened and does not want to return to class. She asks what I will do to solve this problem. I explain that after she left, I told the class that they would no longer be allowed to have anything on their desks, save for a pencil or pen. All non-class materials and bags would be against the wall so that everyone could focus. I tell Irene this and ask for the office to help make this happen. If the students aren’t allowed to have homework in front of them, there is no homework for me to take away. It would be impossible for the situation to arise again.

Irene and Miss Wang agree that this would solve the problem, but the do not feel that it is enough. After several discussions back and forth, I finally ask what they would want me to do, and as expected, they feel an apology is in order.

I tell them that I am more than willing to apologize as long as the student promises to keep her other work away from her desk so the incident cannot happen again. I feel this is reasonable and beneficial for all parties. Unfortunately, they don’t see it the same way.

They think that I am entirely at fault and that I am not in the position to make demands. Irene says that if one of her Chinese staff said that to her, she would fire that person immediately. It’s a different situation, but she doesn’t see it that way.

I rephrase my demand so that I will apologize to the student if I can have someone from the office make sure that all of the students have their backpacks against the wall — something that minutes earlier everyone agreed was a good idea and promised to enact. Unfortunately, this is also too much of a demand, so Irene says she has to suspend my teaching at the center.

I ask her what she thinks is the best thing for me to do, and she replies that I should not teach classes for the time being.

We finish the meeting discussing the payment for the serviced I have already provided as well as other items in the contract, then I pack up everything else I have in the office, shake some hands, and walk out of the office.

At the other end of the hall, I run into Liu Yufei, who apologizes for everything. He tried his best to argue for my side, but I think we both felt Irene had made her decision before the meeting. I tell him that we should have lunch sometime in the next month, give him a hug, then hop in the elevator.

When I get off at the ground floor, one of my students for the class I was about to teach was waiting to get on the elevator. I tell her that I won’t be teaching the class in 15 minutes. She was also in the class the day before, and jokingly suggests that I got fired. I confirm her joke and explain the situation, then I wish her good luck and exit the building.

Oddly enough, that was the most relaxed I have felt in a long time.

I feel the given situation was mostly an excuse for them to get me out of their hair. The reason I wanted to work in the office in the first place was because when I was teaching in the fall semester, I hated the way the office treated me and all of the other teachers too. Foreigners are used to having certain rights in the workplace. I get the feeling that Chinese companies think they own their employees.

When I started working in the office, I thought my job was to act as an intermediary between the Chinese office and the foreign teachers. I thought the reason a foreigner was the foreign teacher coordinator was because I would be able to understand how foreign teachers expect to be treated. Where I come from, it is NOT okay to change the class time and date with a few days notice every time a holiday comes up. If a student cancels the class, it is not the responsibility of the teacher to make it up. I thought my job was to tell the center that these things (and many more like them) were not acceptable. I gradually learned that the center thought my job was merely to pass on the same information in better English.

I get the feeling that Irene is not used to hearing “no” as a response. I think she expected to give me orders and I would fulfill them. This was a big misunderstanding in my job. As a result, I feel that there was a lot of tension between me and the center, and they didn’t want to have to deal with me anymore. And now they don’t.

I find it funny that they fired me to keep one student happy. I wonder what will happen when the other 50 students learn that their teacher was fired for taking away a student’s homework.

i would expect to be even mildly upset by being fired. Instead, I’m relieved that I no longer have to deal with their ridiculous antics. I only had 7 classes left to teach, which in the long run wouldn’t have amounted to that much more pay. I probably feel the best I have in months. It turns out I don’t hate China, I just hate working for a Chinese company.