Little Emperors (21 page)

On one corner of the narrow alley, weathered old men in blue Mao suits crouch over a game of Chinese chess. They are there every morning, sliding faded wooden discs across a hand drawn game board, its paper soft as linen from countless foldings and unfoldings.

A row of open-front shops sits across the alley from the old men. Most mornings, the shops are as quiet and still as photographs. I pass a darkened video game parlour full of bulky, outdated games; then a row of sundry shops, candies stacked next to washing powder on the front counters; then a few tiny, three-table restaurants. I cross a small intersection, then continue past a number of small barbershops where young prostitutes in short skirts and tight tops lean, looking bored, against blue sliding glass doors.

A woman lights joss sticks in an old neighbourhood of Guangzhou
.

I approach the sweet potato vendor who wheels his pushcart roaster, fashioned from an old oil drum, into the alley each morning and patiently waits for customers. On chilly mornings, I stop and buy a potato from him. He smiles a big missing-tooth grin as he wraps one end of the hot potato in a strip of newspaper, hands it to me, and watches as I promptly furl my hands around it to warm my numb fingertips. As I continue on my way to school, I peel away the potato's leathery, roasted skin to reveal its sweet yellow flesh. Curls of steam rise to thaw the tip of my nose.

Just past the sweet potato vendor, another orange peaked archway marks the end of the small neighbourhood. The alley becomes wider, dustier. I walk past tall piles of sand and gravel, a long bicycle stand, and a small wooden shanty that I first thought was a tool shed but soon realized is the house of a family of four.

The tiny scrap-wood structure stands alone on the side of the dusty street, framed from behind by a concrete wall and a six-storey apartment building. Passing by one morning, I glance through the half-open door and see two small children kneeling on the lower bunk of a plywood bunk bed. They are leaning over a tall plywood table and eating from the same big bowl of noodles. Their father sits cross-legged on the bed next to them and shovels chopsticks full of rice into his mouth from a bowl balanced in his left hand. Partially hidden by the door, the girls' mother sits in a chair on the other side of the table and sews a sock.

At first, I was shocked that people lived there. Perhaps, I thought, the family had been forced to live there as punishment for having had a second child. But now, as I pass every day, I am more and more intrigued by their resourcefulness, how they make do with the scraps of others. The girls use the sand and gravel piles as their playground. Their father, who runs the bicycle stand across from their tiny house, has placed an old sofa among the bikes. He sits there with his jar of tea or his friends, raises his pant cuffs to his knees, and watches the world go by from his makeshift living room. As I pass the small house on my evening walks home, I can hear the hiss of a hot wok from behind a corrugated-steel-and-clapboard addition — the kitchen, no bigger than an outhouse.

At night, the alleyway comes to life. Returning through the orange peaked archway is like entering onto a dimly lit carnival stage. The solitary street lamp casts a circle of low yellow light, smoothing the world into pale blues and golds. The evening's throng of students on bikes and old ladies with shoulder poles replaces the morning's potato vendors and chess players. The tiny restaurants, now noisy and filling up, cram extra tables out into the alley. The vacant expanse of concrete across from them, a loading bay for a nearby warehouse in the mornings, magically fills with low tables and transforms into a bustling hot pot restaurant. Barbecued sucklings and ducks hang shiny and candied red in a window at its entrance. Greasy teenage boys crowd into the now brightly lit, wide-awake video arcade. Middle-aged men get shampooed under fluorescent lights by the hairstylists in short skirts.

I move through this scene, lugging my heavy shoulder bag as if through a dream, until I reach the archway and pop out of this other world, snapped awake by the sudden roar of Guangzhou Da Dao.

This morning, as I walk to work, just where I turn off Guangzhou Da Dao at the tire store, I see a young man in military uniform, a very formal one, complete with crimson-banded hat and brass-buttoned jacket, standing at the corner. Nothing too out of the ordinary here, really, but as I get closer I realize he is waiting for someone. He is standing very still and holding something behind his back. As I round the corner, I glance back and see that he is hiding a delicate bouquet of purple flowers.

Who is he waiting for?
I wonder as I walk past the old men and their chess, past the hairdressers, past the potato man, past the family in the shack.
Why? What will happen when he gives this person those flowers?
I would have stayed and watched and answered all these questions if I weren't running late for work.

A Colgate truck is just leaving the large gates of Number 1 School as I arrive. I wave to the doorman as he swings the tall iron bars closed behind the truck, then I bound up to our tiny classroom, where Connie is already waiting. As we set out the stools and organize our papers, the first class begins knocking on the door, pleading through its wooden planks for us to let them in a few minutes early. When we finally open the door, they burst through in their usual excited rush for their usual seats.

Today they all have blue vinyl tote bags the size of pencil carriers. Little Anna unzips hers and slides out a toothbrush. She holds it up for my inspection. “Miss Dionne-ah! Brush your teeth!” and then ferociously pretends to scrub at her own.

Soon everyone is sliding tubes of toothpaste out of the shiny little bags and showing me their gifts from the Colgate company.

William runs up to Connie and breathlessly explains in Cantonese how they got their toothbrushes. He tugs on her jean jacket and jumps up and down while she drags him back to his seat. “Toothpaste people came today,” Connie tells me as she pries herself away from William. “Show them how to brush their teeth and gave them free toothpaste. They are so excited!”

“Obviously!” I reply, reaching for my clipboard. “But that's good.” Most of our students have good teeth, good adult teeth, but some — oh, my — some have baby teeth as black as burnt corn niblets. A visit from the Colgate truck can't hurt.

Nor, from the Colgate company's point of view, can it hurt to establish brand loyalty at a very young age.

In the first hour after lunch break, Number 1 School has an assembly in the school courtyard. Connie and I stand on the fifth-floor balcony and watch as all the students file out of the school, each carrying a colourful little plastic chair. I turn to Connie in amazement.

“How do they do that?” I ask. “How do the Chinese teachers get the kids to behave so well?”

“They are often very angry,” she replies.

We duck down and sneak to the centre of the balcony, then peek over the concrete railing to watch the kids. They are a buzz of colour — yellow, red, and blue plastic chairs; green uniforms; red scarves — all sitting in a hum of cancelled-afternoon-class excitement.

The assembly is for a jump rope competition. Twelve kids with jump ropes line up across the courtyard, while twelve other students, judges, sit one behind each jumper. Whoever can jump the longest without
tripping will be the winner. It isn't very exciting, so Connie and I amuse ourselves by spying on our students in the crowd.

I see Russ first. I notice him because, while all the other children are clapping and singing a song, he is busy tilting back in his red chair, turning to chat with his buddies, or trying to pull the yellow chair out from under the girl in front of him. Then he notices Connie and me watching him from above. He looks guilty for a second, but when I give a little wave, he waves back.

The news that Miss Connie and Miss Dionne are watching from the fifth floor spreads like spilled juice through the crowd. In an instant, all of our students are looking up at us and waving. Their teachers walk between the rows of little chairs, motioning for the kids to sit still, be quiet, and watch the jumpers. I crouch lower behind the concrete railing, hiding, just barely peeking over, not wanting to be seen by the Chinese teachers. Brazen Connie stands straight up and begins waving her arms wildly above her head.

“Connie! Get down! They'll see you!”

She has spied William, and he has turned in his little blue chair and is waving his arms back at her. His teacher bends down and tells him to stop. He halts for a moment, then, when the teacher moves on, he continues waving at Connie. Again, his teacher tells him to stop. Again he keeps waving. The teacher turns and shoots an angry look up at the school to see what is causing the problem. Connie and I dive down and dash for cover to our classroom, giggling like hysterical, naughty schoolgirls.

Some days we are definitely worse than the kids.

I leave the school at seven and begin my walk home. I pass the woman from the shanty house. She is squatting in her doorway, rubbing a shirt in a red plastic wash basin. Water splashes over the lip of the tub, turning the dust in front of her house an ever-widening stain of black.

Yesterday, on her way out of class, Tina stopped at my desk. “Miss Dionne, do you like to wear a skirt?”

“I am wearing a skirt, Tina,” I said, looking down at her and pointing to the floral pattern reaching to my ankles.

“No, Miss Dionne, a
short
skirt.”

“You want me to wear a short skirt?”

She nodded, her apple cheeks beaming.

“Okay, I'll see what I can do.”

This morning, I wear a short wraparound skirt, the one I bought in Yangshuo in response to Tina's request. I don't usually teach in short skirts, what with all the jumping and crouching I have to do for this job, but I thought I'd make an exception for today. It isn't
scandalously
short, though. It comes to just above my knees and, for good measure, I'm wearing a pair of black opaque tights.

Still, I'm surprised at how self-conscious I feel on the walk to work. Passing the old men and the hairdressers and the potato vendor, I keep smoothing the skirt down and holding it closed against the wind, which seems determined to rip it open or flip it up in the back. I wish I had some weights to anchor the hem in place! I arrive at the school and dash up to the classroom before anyone can see me.

Connie arrives a few minutes later and does a double take when she sees what I'm wearing. “Oh! This is different!”

“Is it bad?” I ask, worried.

“No! It's good. It's new. I think the kids will like it.”

As Tina strolls in for her class, she surveys my outfit and gives me an approving nod. Gerry, however, waltzes in and lets out a loud guffaw. As he sits down, he bellows in Cantonese for all the class to hear, “Miss Dionne's clothing is not balanced! The sweater is too big and the skirt is too small!”

“Thanks, Gerry,” I mutter over my clipboard as Connie relays his message.

Later, in the middle of the lesson, Gerry blurts out, “Miss Dionne's sweater is like a big dinner and her skirt is the dessert!”

The entire class giggles and twitters.

“Gerry!” I say, exasperated as Connie translates the peanut gallery's comments. “Enough!”

Near the end of class, as everyone is practising today's dialogue with a partner, Gerry turns to me and says in perfect English, “Miss Dionne, your skirt is very short. A bad man can
whooooop
!” On the word
whooooop
, he makes a hand-going-up-a-skirt motion and laughs like a maniac. His sidekick, Gary, joins in, cackling.

“Gerry!” I don't know if I should praise him for his spontaneous and creative use of the language or scold him for being a cheeky little perv.

At lunch, I go home and change into a pair of less controversial trousers.

After lunch, Connie and I go to teach a new class of Grade Ones at Number 2 School. I'm not sure if it's Guangzhou's subtropical latitude or
its pollution pushing the seasons out of whack, but it seems spring has arrived at the beginning of December. Big pink bauhinia blossoms have come out, dotting the green canopy of trees above the street on the way to the school. When the wind plays through the leaves, the blossom petals whirl out into the air, falling and purpling the street as if a parade of giants has just passed, leaving oversized confetti in its wake.

The new class is a small, ragtag crew. There is nutty little Winky, a fountain of a ponytail jetting from the top of her head, who constantly tries to grab my hands or arms or boobs or legs and insists on calling me “Miss Leon” after the Cantopop star Leon Lai. There is excitable little Bobby, who has sticky-up hair and a lisp that doesn't stop him from talking incessantly in whatever language pops into his head. There is tall, serious Paige, who picks English up at lightning speed. She is so smart she stuns me. There is jolly, tubby “Two-Chair” Jonas, who chuckles at absolutely everything. Then there are a handful of quiet girls, and finally Dallas, the human bowling ball.