Further life and times of *liltayinchina*

Remember how I mentioned an English competition and that I was going to be a judge for said competition? Well you wouldn't even believe the drama circling this event. No, seriously, you wouldn't.

First of all, the competition was postponed due to a panic between the head principal and Mr. Ye's boss and our big, big boss: Mrs. Li. Apparently, at the final dress rehearsal, it was deemed insufficient in terms of glitter, glamour, flash, finesse, and panache. You know, in Chinese terms and terminology. (Um, terms meaning something other than terminology here...I'm hopped up on cold medicine! Leave me alone!)

So, I mentioned everything that was a part of the original program, but since then, my poor students, the ones that are just presenting a song and dance routine, have been practicing over and over and over again, in the cold, on the weekends and during their lunch periods every day to get the exact look and feel the leaders are going for. Of course, the Chinese co-teachers are worn ragged about now, and us trying to prepare for English finals only a week away. I’ve already missed more than two classes, and Julia more than four since this thing got off the ground.

Apparently, the fact that huge investors in the school, not to mention reporters and parents will be invited to this thing and it has got to be top notch. Now, in comes the drama. (See, you thought that all that was the drama but that was just leading up to the truly absurd part of my little story…)

The school held the first-ever English Day competition in 2005 and apparently, the cut of their foreign teachers at that time was quite different from now. You see, the foreign teachers at that time, of their own volition, prepared a delightful song to sing as a surprise for the school (of course it was approved by several members of the school leadership and was only a surprise to the audience), but nonetheless, it exuded unity and a sense of satisfaction and quality. Mrs. Li wanted desperately to replicate said sense for this year’s English Day, but sadly, she’s got a sorry bunch on her hands. None of the foreign teachers wanted to participate and some have even out and out refused to participate. I see it as something we should do to show that the ill feelings among us have nothing to do with the school, but there are some who just don’t want to show any hospitality of themselves at all. In fact, it has been said on more than one occasion, rather sarcastically, “Well, SINGING isn’t in my contract, so they’re not gonna get a note outta me!”

We had already had one uncomfortable meeting where Mr. Ye, through Michael, one of the Chinese co-teachers, asked us to come up with a song for the show…to sing at the end. After that meeting, it was apparent that no one was going to do a thing and that something awkward was going to occur on the day of the show so I went to Mr. Ye and told him that the foreign teachers, as a group, were having a difficult time coming together and seeing eye-to-eye on the song-singing situation.

He called another meeting, this time with a co-teacher and without a leader present. The co-teacher, Jade, was polite and tactful and just repeated over and over, “So, what song should I write down that you all will sing at the English Day competition?” I think the low point for me was when one especially negative co-worker of mine practically spit out the suggestion that the only reason we were being asked to sing was to show to the public that the school had a huge band of performing foreign monkeys. And just as immediately, my high point came when Jade shot back, “No one in this room is a monkey, or any other kind of animal. Why don’t you look at it as an opportunity to have fun and let loose a little bit. It might do you some good.” Jade: 500, Negativity: 0.

You see, I don’t like the idea of singing any more than Mr. Negative. And no, it isn’t usually customary to make your employees sing in front of large audiences in America (unless alcohol is involved), but I’m not in America and I can take myself lightly, so why can’t everyone else? And, even if this IS a circus act and we are being paraded out as performing monkeys, at least there are children in the audience, students from each of our classes, children that will see us as their teachers that they like and nothing else. At least we could do it for them.

And we are.

Some of my other foreign cohorts put their brains together and came up with the Beatles song, “Hello/Goodbye”. And boy do I feel like I’m saying “Hello” to someone else’s “Goodbye” these days! And you know what? I don’t know why they say goodbye when I say hello, hello, HELLO!