Wednesday 24^th January, 2018 0005

Today at least, I have swept and sort of mopped. I even swept the loose stuff off the dining room ceiling (a first) because I knew when Joan got here she wouldn't believe I cleaned, she knows me well. Haha! Already there is more snow so if I sweep tomorrow I can guarantee it will again before we return. Steph and Annie keep insisting I report it to the school (because my complaints are rectified whilst as volunteers nothing is done about theirs) but my attitude is that the “fix” will be the usual bodge using no fixers and merely putting up more stuff to rain down. So far thankfully it has not actually had the audacity to tumble into any of my dinner parties, once it is down it cannot come down again.

The case is nearly packed, just last minute stuff to go in like medicines and a bottle of HP for our English breakfasts and so forth. I confess I am like a puppy on a polished toilet seat with anticipation and I really ought to stop, keen anticipation of an event in my experience normally leads to disappointment when it occurs.

While I was shopping Saturday night I had a text from an ex student of mine. Long-term readers may recall Tony. He was in Amy's class and indeed featured in the video of my life in Chizhou, the one I told “You shall die”. For a teacher he was an arsehole. He could have been very, very good but as only one of two boys in a class where the other was a wallflower, he craved attention. And at all the wrong times.

Professionally I hated him, personally he reminded me a little of me. Except he was more so. Kevin I am sure would have failed him for class disruption but my view is that, stuff the attendance and classroom activity (unless it helps a struggling student to pass – I try to be kind), if someone's English is good I cannot in all conscience fail them for not attending, not being active, being overactive or for being an arsehole. So as much as I threatened him behind the scenes using others as conduits (and by God it put the fear of Bejaysus into him near the end!) I implied he was going to fail for his antics. That of course prompted third party calls from people he had begged to call me and plead his case and his shenanigans lessened.

He wasn't the best of the intake, my second batch, I think Yvonne was, but he was up in the top five. I should maybe have taken him outside and had him against a wall by the throat but ruin the rest of his career? Not me.

Anyway, I ramble, but a blog IS rambling, isn't it?

About a week ago he phoned. He is now a “headmaster”, by which I interpret he is a form teacher for his year 9 students because nobody in their right mind would make a 25 year old headmaster of a school, leave alone him. Naturally I congratulated him and hoped all his students behaved for him in the way he had behaved for me. I think he has matured a little since then!

Did I have WeChat or QQ to do a video call for his class? No I bloody well don't. Could we have a phone call, his students were in Luan and had never heard a foreigner. I agreed. I try to help all my students, ex or nay. So I had a call on hands free with the class and thought that was the end of it.

Stupid me.

On Friday I had a message asking if I was free at 2100 for another call. NO, I am shopping. Oh I want to cry, this is our last chance, when will you be free. Next week before Thursday. That was it, the last chance gone, slight guilt on my part, unwarranted as it was.

Sunday, will you be free at 0900 tomorrow? What happened to “last chance”? You are joking, I will not be awake! Text me nearer noon and ask.

Well as it happened, and truthfully, I woke at 1110. Equally honestly, I never turned my phone on until 1155! At my age I take a while to come off choke (that one for the older readers!) and I assumed at noon there would be no chance of a repeat request.

I should maybe have left the phone off all day but I am not one to keep my thoughts to myself for long. Oh yes, there was a message asking if I could be available 0900-0930. This was 2 hours later, safe!

Quack,quack,oops!

After my text saying I had only just got up, are you available now?

Well what would you have done? There was desperation here - I promised my students they could speak to you.

Red rage in a velvet glove now. Never, ever promise kids you will deliver something you don't know you can't. Sorry but I am not a tame foreigner you can trot out at will, did I ever invite anyone to come and speak when I was teaching? How dare you?

When the grovelling subsided I said to wait ten minutes and call me. I needed time to become calmer, for the childrens' sake!

Don't think I am an ogre, I am not. Yes I will do it again when asked but with sufficient notice and less frequency. I object to someone who is now an adult, a teacher in his own right now, promising his pet monkey will duly come out to play on command.

To some extent foreigners in China ARE seen as performing animals, much as black slaves were in the UK many years ago but it is something we accept. You get taken to the best restaurants, fed and tested for your drinking ability and sometimes you are paid for it. And it must be said, always treated with the utmost courtesy. It's a bit like a nondescript UK couple having Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts or Lady Gaga on the guestlist at their wedding.

I have always enjoyed it when I have been invited to a student's hometown (Amy and Qing in Tongling, Helen in Ninguo spring to mind) because their families genuinely show respect and thanks for the honour you have bestowed upon their household. You don't deserve it but it is lovely nonetheless. I hate being taken for granted though, use me if you like but if you use me be subtle or pay! My school can use me, they pay me, and if I get gifts like those lovely gold plates they can use me any time.

We are all prostitutes in life. We sell ourselves, be it our labour, talent, fame or whatever. Even Buddhist monks sell their poverty as a way to receive money.

I have drivelled long enough. The next post if I have time will be from Xian in Shaanxi Province but don't count on it, this is one reunion I don't want to waste a minute of!!