Country Driving [101]
“No,” said Wei Jia.
“It’s not like last year, is it?”
“No.”
Inside the schoolyard, a teacher named Yang was arranging the first-graders into lines: one for boys, one for girls. The children were quiet—they listened intently as the teacher gave instructions. Slowly she moved through the line, greeting each child individually, and at the end she came to Wei Jia. “Good morning, what’s your name?” Teacher Yang said.
“Wei Jia,” he said, and then he spoke in English: “Good morning, teacher!”
“That’s very good!” she said in Chinese. “Who taught you that?”
“My Uncle Monster,” he replied.
“Who?”
“My Uncle Monster!” The boy’s face was so serious that Teacher Yang couldn’t help laughing. And that was where we left him, standing in line in the schoolyard, the smallest child among all the first-graders.
DURING THE FIRST SIX weeks of school, Wei Jia distinguished himself by an early interest in English, an unruffled demeanor, and a complete refusal to sit still. In a Chinese classroom, the group is the foundation for every endeavor, and each child always knows his place within that organization. Some positions are formally assigned to kids: the Homework Monitor collects assignments, the Politeness Monitor reports on bad behavior, the Class Monitor helps the teacher organize fellow students. In dormitories, each room includes a Room Monitor and a Vice Room Monitor, who make sure that daily cleaning is carried out. Peer discipline is crucial—children who misbehave are often asked to stand before the class, where other students help the teacher criticize the guilty party. At the beginning none of this seemed to faze Wei Jia. Having missed kindergarten, he had no concept of school routines; he talked out of turn and he played with pencils at his desk. He lost school assignments and he forgot homework. He wandered the classroom during lessons. One morning, the entire student body gathered outside to listen to a speech by the principal, and as usual the children were instructed to stand at attention—knees locked, heads up, arms stiff at their sides. All kids obeyed except for one: Wei Jia, who became bored by the speech and finally knelt down to play with pebbles in the dirt.
These infractions, along with a host of others, were described at the first parent-teacher conference. In Chinese schools, such meetings are communal: all of the parents attend at once, and all of them listen as the teacher summarizes each student’s performance. The good students are praised, the bad students are criticized, and the listening parents are socialized in much the same way as the children: by the power of the group. There is no greater loss of face than hearing in public that your child does poorly at school. And the bad ones always receive the most attention. At the first Shayu parent-teacher conference, certain children emerged as prominent subjects of public discussion. Zhang Yan was a bully. Wang Wei cracked jokes. Li Xiaomei was a dormitory bed-wetter. (“She doesn’t do it at home!” the girl’s mother said, at one of the many subsequent conferences that harped on the poor child.) And Wei Jia—he was the fidgeter, the classroom-wanderer, the kid who played with pebbles in the principal’s presence. The boy’s father was forced to listen to all of these infractions in excruciating detail, and then he made his way back to Sancha.
That evening I had dinner with the family. Wei Ziqi was quiet throughout the meal, eating quickly and avoiding eye contact. He had a sharp temper, and his outbursts were usually preceded by silence—that heavy dead air before a storm. Nobody knew this weather pattern better than Wei Jia, but now he did his best to feign ignorance. After dinner he sat on the kang, looking at a picture book. His father stared at him for a good five minutes, and I could see the boy tracking him out of the corner of his eye.