Teacher Rips Off Boy's Face!

I saw this article in the news feeds today:

Chinese schoolboy has 52 stitches after attack from teacher
A primary-school student in central China had to have 52 stitches in his face after he was beaten by his teacher for not doing his homework.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Last Updated: 2:44PM GMT 08 Jan 2009

Zheng Chaoqun, 10, is still being treated at a hospital in Henan province after his teacher tore away a strip of flesh. Zheng told a local newspaper, the Dayang News, that his assailant, 37-year-old Guo Yabin, had picked him up by his cheeks after he failed to hand in his work."She was very angry at the time," he said. "She ripped and tiwsted my cheeks with both her hands and then she lifted me off the ground."

The boy said he felt his face ripping off and fell back to his seat. "She still had my skin in her hands, and my face was bleeding. She looked anxious and sent me home," he said.
Doctors in the hospital sewed up a five inch wound. Zheng's father has reported the case to the police and is expected to press for damages.

But no action has yet been taken against Mrs Guo, a mother of two. The authorities said they, and the police, were still investigating the incident. However, graphic pictures of Zheng's injuries have circulated on the Chinese internet.
Mrs Guo's relatives have reportedly produced a hospital certificate to show the teacher is mentally unstable. "When she tore off his face, we were horrified," another student told the Dayang News.

The teacher got so pissed at this kid for not turning in his work, that she actually picked him up by the face. Some of my students here have told me their teacher hits them or their classmates with a ruler or something, which I find to be inappropriate and unjust (although sometimes tempting...,) but this is way out there.

And as if ripping his skin off isn't nasty enough, she had the nerve to send the kid home. What did she say to him? "Zhang! Get the herr out of this classroom! Stop bleeding all over the damn place! Come back when you finish your homework and put your face back in order!"

EDIT: Now with photo. Warning, not pretty. Scroll down,

Summertime in Taiwan

It's officially summer in Taiwan. That means typhoon season is upon us. So far, the rain hasn't been that bad, but every Monday for the last month, as if it were a big "eff you" joke, it has rained all day.

Aside from that, June is a pretty eventful month for me. My kindergarten class is graduating at the end of the month, so I've been busy teaching them their performance for the ceremony. The frustration of trying to coordinate a play, a dance routine, and a speech for fifteen little kids is akin to trying to teach a team of cats to play water polo, or something equally as stressful.

My girlfriend, Ariel, has gone to work in Missouri for several weeks, and I'm looking forward to joining her stateside in August. It will be great to see everyone again, and to relearn things like driving a car, eating a burrito, and speaking English in a normal cadence and tone.

One of my best friends from college, Nick Dietsch, is set to fly over here to Taiwan next week. He's packing all of his stuff as I type, and is planning on living here and teaching English for a year. We will most likely find an apartment together in Taichung, about two hours South of where I am now.

So after I return from America in August, I'll have a new location and a new job to look forward to. That plus the fact that I have more friends, more experience living here, and I can speak more Chinese than I did a year ago all add up to the potential of an awesome second year here.

I'll post again soon, as I anticipate a lot more going on in my life in the next few weeks.

Anti-Taiwan Rant in 3...2...1...

I'm having one of those weeks that the Hess training staff would call "culture shock." I don't know if I even like that term, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to be content with my life right now.

I'm ill with something. Maybe the flu, maybe an upper respiratory infection, maybe something else. I don't know. All I know is that I haven't had any energy or appetite in three days and I've had all kinds of aches and pains. I went to see a doctor yesterday, my first time since I've been in Taiwan. I was initially hesitant to go to the hospital, because everyone has told me that it's such an ordeal. Boy, were they right. After waiting to check in, finding my way to the elusive section 3D, and waiting to get my blood pressure taken, I then waited another couple of hours to see the doctor. Imagine a room full of red faced, runny nosed people, some of whom have the worst hacking-death-rattle of a cough you've ever heard. They are all waiting for their number to show up on the sign next to their assigned doctor's door. My number was 49, and I waited from the number 20. When I finally saw the doctor, he barely checked me out, didn't take my temperature, and didn't even really listen to what I was telling him, but instead suggested symptoms I was having and proclaimed it a viral infection. This whole examination took approximately seven minutes. Ten minutes maximum.

Prescription for God-knows-what in hand, I headed down to the pharmacy to collect my meds, and was again greeted by a long line of sick people. I haven't seen Michael Moore's new movie yet, but it will have to be pretty damning of the American health care system to make me think socialized health care is at all effective after yesterday's ordeal.

So I got home from the hospital and was immediately called in to work. Sure, someone with a viral infection or... whatever can teach a group of kindergarteners, no problem. I also got the news that three of my weekly classes were inexplicably dropped from my schedule, reducing by 24 my monthly hours. Great. After lots of prodding and pleading, I finally got an explanation. I guess I'm not doing as well in my classes as I should be. The only explicit criticism I've gotten yet: I've been teaching too long on my last class of the week (something I was sure I corrected months ago.)

So let's recap. For doing too much, or upsetting a delicate timetable by 10 minutes a week, I received a schedule reduction of roughly 25%, with no explanation given upfront, and no way to argue my case. I'm not only pissed about the reduced number of hours, but also with the total lack of any communication, which I am told is part of Chinese culture. No one will ever tell me that they have a problem with my work or anything. They may mention something in a nice, suggestive way to one of the other teachers that may eventually make its way back around to me, but when I try to ask anyone about these things, I'm always met with this attitude like it's the first time they've ever heard of any problem, and I'm uniformly given the response that they will talk to someone about it.

I hope I can start to be positive soon, or it will make my life here much more difficult than it needs to be.

Good morning, Lucifer.

I'm constantly surprised by some of the English names that kids (and even adults) have here. At our kindergarten, we have a kid named Soccer, a kid named Seven, and another named Lucifer (really.) There are also students named Cicada, Virginie, Pony, Dabby, Queeny, and Alvis that roam the halls of Hess.

I've heard of friends teaching kids named Computer and Free Pizza (because 'everybody likes free pizza!') and I've met adults with such unusual English names as Ariel, Maximo, Buster, and Allister. I talked with a woman last night named Taco (I even checked the spelling.) I think with the kids, their English names are picked out by their parents or English teachers and they stick. With the adults though, they have the ability to pick their own names. After all, it's not like their English name is their legal name, but rather a convenience for English speaking Chinese when talking to other English speakers.

Still, with any sort of fluency with another language, you would think that they would pick names that sound a little more normal in conversation. I laugh every time I hear Christina tell little Lucifer to stop running or sit down, and I think about what it would be like for him if he lived the rest of his life with that unfortunate moniker.

Fright Night

Last night was the kindergarten Halloween party. Teacher Lilly and I were the hosts, and the night was a success, I think. The kids and their parents showed up, most in costume, and we scared them in our scary costumes before we put on our little spiel about being demons from the past who hid treasure in the school for the kids to find.

The kids went out around the block where we had different activities set up for them to do, and after each they were given a piece of the ancient treasure map. Then they came back to the school to find their treasure (candy.)

Here are some photos of the night:

Hess Kindy Halloween '07

Kindergarten Field Trip

Today was a special day for the kindergarteners at my school. Today they took a field trip. We started the day with the usual Exercise Time followed by Sharing Time, where the kids are encouraged to speak English to me and each other. We then took a bathroom break and headed out to the vans which would carry us to our destination.

Where would we go? The zoo? The park? A museum or exhibit? No, we went where all kindergarten classes of young achievers go: the local brewery.

Okay, so it's not strictly a beer brewery. They also distill sake and wine. And they make other things, too. Like crackers. And cigarettes.

We met Mr. Wang, who would shepard us through the labyrinth of laboratories, distilling machines, stock rooms, and factory areas. He spoke all in Chinese, so I really couldn't tell you if or how he managed to make the distilling process interesting to a group of five and six year olds. There was a flow chart involved, though. That much I know.

Along the way he showed us the various stages of the distilling process, from raw product to distillation, research and development to bottling and shipping. We even got to visit the factory store, which sells foods and cigarettes in addition to all the booze.

Overall, I enjoyed this trip. I don't really understand why we took little kids there, but I guess learning about the distillation of alcohol is just as educational as fine art or child-centered science.

Join me next month, on our next field trip. Where will we go? The crematorium perhaps? Or the taxi dispatch center? Or maybe the solid waste treatment plant? Who knows. Keep checking back.

Until then, you can check out all of the photos from today's trip here:

October '07 Hess Kindy Field Trip

Mini Me

Last week, I got a new student in my Kindergarten class. He of course can't speak any English, and he's the only kid in the class without a Western name. Yilun (I know this is how it's spelled because I was charged with the task of transliterating his name-- like I'm supposed to know) is a head taller than all of the other kids and is happy to sit there and chatter off in Chinese because he doesn't know what the rest of us are talking about. He cried for about five minutes on the first day, mostly due to the fact that he was starting school in a strange place, with strange kids (some of them are very strange) and a big hairy scary Westerner teaching him. He got over it remarkably quickly, though and is now very content in class.

The thing about Yilun is that he's actually a pretty bright kid. He speaks almost no English, but the phrases he knows ("thank you", "no", "may I go to the bathroom?") he uses willingly, in a loud voice, and with surprisingly fluent pronunciation. He sometimes gets lost in class procedure and protocol, but to his credit, it is a bit complicated and not at all standardized.

At first I thought of him as just kind of an odd amusement. The one that stands out. I've realized recently, after comparing his English skills with my Chinese, that his experience in Hess Kindergarten is actually a microcosm of my experience in Taiwan.

I speak only a few key phrases of Mandarin (almost the same ones as Yilun, plus "one beer please") and like Yilun, I'm about a head taller than almost everyone else. I was a little unhappy at first too. It's a big adjustment, and it's not always easy being in a new place with strangers. Yilun is encouraged to speak English while I am teaching, but he gets to speak Chinese the rest of the day. In that sense we differ. I get to speak English with only a handful of people every day. Those I work with, those I talk to on the phone, and the few English speaking people I've met here.

I hope both Yilun and I can learn to cope with learning a new language and being forced to speak it as a matter of conformity. It will probably be easier for him, with that sponge-like brain that most kids have. Mine is already full of useless knowledge like how many ounces are in a pound, and the theme song to Gilligan's Island, but I hope to be able to pick up at least enough Chinese so that I don't look like a kindergartener on his first day of class.