In the higher grades in Boston, something tightens in a teacher’s stomach when she hears “Parental Involvement.” It means calling through all the parents’ phone numbers of students in your classes, 60 or more numbers. Boston parents generally hate hearing from teachers; they only hear about their kids getting in fights or failing their exams or skipping school. Many of them remember not getting along with teachers when they themselves were in school and take their child’s side. Other parents will say, “Don’t call here, he doesn’t live here any more,” or “I don’t know where she is,” or you’ll only reach a sibling, or the parents won’t speak English.
What a different world in China.
Last night, the mother, father, and “uncle” of one of Laura’s students took three teachers and our spouses out to dinner, that is “dinner” – tiny servings, in little sauce bowls smaller than a saucer, of vegetable or noodle bits. Dessert, other than fruit, was a chewy, gummy mold of corn. They kept insisting we drink white-wine glasses full of bai-jiu (buy-geo), a vodka-like booze that tastes of rubbing alcohol. Excited by the election results, we joined in in celebration.
The ritual of passing the bai jiu began with Jimmy, a Chinese teacher who acted as our translator, having already drank more than a frat boy in all his glory, poured half his cup into the host’s cup. Jimmy says, “you are a real man, you can handle this.”
Now, it is safe to say Matt is drunk at this point. These people just won’t allow you to be anything than less then one drink shy of falling over. Matt see what Jimmy is doing and tries to do the same with the Uncle who is sitting next to me. Matt is not allowed. He can’t give up his bai jiu because he have to be a real man; he has to save face. Here’s where the ritual of passing the bai jiu begins.
The Uncle explains to us that he’s Matt’s friend, and Laura is his sister. Mind you his English is about as good as our Chinese, and we’ve been drinking heavily, so this conversation is slow moving. He goes on to explain that Matt may share his bai jui with Laura. So matt pours some of his goblet into Laura’s shot glass. Laura doesn’t want to drink anymore either, but this is all part of the ritual. Now he tells us that since Laura is his sister he can help her, and he motions for Laura to pour her shot glass into his. She does this, and the motions continue. Around goes the bai-jiu (germ-squeamish need not attend “dinner.”) Matt can’t directly pour this swill they drink into the Uncle’s glass because he would lose face. So we went on like that, Matt’s into Laura’s shot glass and then Laura’s shot glass to the Uncle’s glass. By the end Matt only has half a goblet to down. We all cheered by saying “Gam bei” and drank more in one swallow than many do in a whole night. This is parental involvement in China.
China is emerging from years of being an unstable country, and unstable countries rely on bribery and connections for survival and for their family’s progress. Our students have told us how they hated some of their Chinese teachers because their families would have to take the Chinese teacher out to dinner and shopping and give the teachers money. Otherwise, the teachers would not correct the student’s exams or would ignore the student in class. While most positions at universities are determined by exam grades, a letter from your teacher will also grant you a position at the top colleges.
Jimmy, Chinese teacher, translated for us what the father said to Laura throughout the night,
“I hope you take care of James (his son) like a little brother.”
“I hope you help James in class.”
“We will take care of you.”
A little spooky.
He insisted we come visit him in his hometown near Xuzhou and see his shoe factory, and Matt is eager to go. While I’m eager to see a Chinese factory and the red-necked cranes in his hometown, I’m nervous – does this make make me corrupt, or appear corrupt? We want to meet more Chinese people to learn about the country, but how close is too close?
