Little Emperors (31 page)

“That's very interesting, Jessica,” I say as I hand it back to her.

“Oh, yes!” she nods, grinning. She slips the booklet back into her school bag, next to the free-sample maxi pad.

Proctor & Gamble has had a busy week.

The last unit in
Big Bird's Yellow Book
deals with the four seasons — not terribly relevant here in subtropical Guangzhou, where flowers bloom in November and the closest thing to snow is a Slurpee at the 7-Eleven.

So, to supplement the “winter” page, I bring photographs of Canadian winter to class. Unbelieving gasps of
“Whhhoooooaaaaaaahh!”
greet the pictures of Montreal after a snowstorm, its cars completely buried under thick blankets of snow. I also show the students photographs of my parents' house at Christmas, the snow a mountain range along the driveway. The kids are amazed by the hills of snow, but soon other things catch their attention.

“Miss Dionne! Big house-ah!” Brian yells.

“Miss Dionne! Four cars-ah!” someone else screams.

I look again at the photos. The kids are right. There, on the shovelled drive, sit my dad's two pickups, my mom's Buick, and my sister's Toyota. What once seemed normal, to the point of being invisible, suddenly seems so conspicuous, so excessive. My parents' four-bedroom, three-bathroom home seems gargantuan to me now, a sprawling palace taking up far more space than necessary.

Little Heather studies the photos, inspecting the peaks of snow, the long strips of cedar siding on the house, the tall, dark pines encircling the yard. She looks up at me. “Miss Dionne,” she says, “it's wonderful!”

We finish the
Yellow Book
and start the final exams. The exam isn't written, but rather a private interview with each student to test their listening and speaking ability. This requires the acrobatic scheduling of one hundred children over two weeks.

I decide to get the most painful part over with and schedule the Grade Twos first.

When Betty comes in, she is sweating from what I think is running up five flights of stairs to make it to her test on time. But when she doesn't stop sweating for the entire fifteen minutes of her test — it is literally rolling off the end of her nose — I realize it is a sweat of nerves.

Testing falls behind schedule because little Alice's nerves render her nearly catatonic. I have to let her take her time, gently coaxing the answers out of her as she stares at me in terror, her eyes bugging through her thick glasses. Connie quietly slips out of the classroom to tell the kids waiting outside that we are behind schedule because Alice is taking a long time to answer the questions.

“So will I,” mutters Brian in Cantonese as he shuffles in to meet his doom. He is the first to fail.

When Russ comes in for his test, Connie and I greet him with monotones. We both feel like executioners looking the condemned in the eyes. Things do not bode well for Russ.

Six months ago, he figured out that he was secretly Miss Dionne's favourite. Soon he stopped paying attention or making much effort in class. He realized that if Mick or Keith fooled around, Miss Dionne got angry and yelled, “Mick! Keith!
Get out!
” But if he fooled around, Miss Dionne simply said, “Russ, stop that, please.”

Thus he learned he could coast through life on his charming good looks. Unfortunately, he hasn't learned much English.

His mother came to school a few days ago, her arms clutching a folder of parent reference lesson plans, a mild look of panic on her face. “What's he missing?!” she cried, standing in our classroom doorway. Connie handed her the master file of lesson plans. Russ's mom spent the next half-hour sitting outside our classroom on a tiny wooden chair, leafing through the files to figure out which ones Russ lost or never brought home or turned into paper airplanes. We watched her from our door. Connie shook her head.

Russ sits down in the test chair, looking hesitant, a little frightened. He is wearing a new purple T-shirt with matching shorts. His mom must have dressed him like that on purpose, I think, knowing Miss Dionne couldn't possibly fail someone so adorable. Shaking slightly, Russ manages to answer the first few questions perfectly. At question number four, I ask him, “Where is your English teacher from?”

His small brow wrinkles and the mole next to his eye shifts. He glances up to the left and down to the right, perhaps hoping the answer will be written on the walls. His lower lip quivers.

“Miss Dionne is from . . . 
Chinada!
” he blurts at last.

Chinada. Hmm.

I sit back. He's not
wrong
, I think. In fact, it is probably now the most accurate answer to that question. Canada has slipped away from me. I no longer recall what its sidewalks feel like under my shoes. It's hard to remember a time when I didn't live in China. My memories no longer live across the ocean. They are here with me now. Yet I know I will not live here forever and, barring radical plastic surgery, I will never be Chinese. So, if I'm not from Canada and I'm not from China, I must be from somewhere in between. I must be from Chinada.

“Good, Russ,” I say. Full points.

Russ passes his test.

Monday we hand out the new book,
Grover's Orange Book
, to the students. (As far as I know or can tell, the book's title doesn't mean anything obscene in Chinese.) The kids take their shiny books and open them on their laps, the younger children screeching with joy. With a year of use, everyone's
Yellow Book
s have become torn and frayed, boring, or lost. The
Orange Book
is new and exciting.

“Look!” someone screams in Cantonese. “Real pictures of real people!”

The Grade Fives at Number 1 School show off their
Yellow Book
certificates
.

“Look!” someone else yells, noticing the words and short sentences at the bottom of most pages, a feature the
Yellow Book
didn't have. “Real English!”

I go through the book in each class. The kids gather around, wide-eyed and transfixed, as I turn the pages.

“Oooooh!”
little Heather coos. “Miss Dionne, the
Orange Book
is colourful! It is excellent!”

On Tuesday, the kids are enthusiastic about starting the
Orange Book
in earnest, grinning and chatting as they pull their new books from their heavy school bags. Some have covered their books with shiny fliers from the newspaper or bright sheets of wrapping paper. Gary has covered his book with a picture from a magazine. A picture of a pouty-lipped woman wearing little more than a low-cut leather vest and short, short leather shorts.

“Miss Dionne! Look! Gary's book-ah!” Gerry shouts, grabbing Gary's
Orange Book
and showing it to me. Gary doesn't try to grab the book back from Gerry or hide it. He just sits there, a cat's grin on his chubby face.

I roll my eyes. I want to laugh but, like a proper teacher, I frown and mutter, “Tsk tsk.”

We begin the lesson. During class, Gary props the book under his double chin and angles it so that I may fully appreciate the woman's leather-framed cleavage every time I look in his direction. Gary's coal eyes, tucked up behind his fat cheeks, sparkle mischievously. I frown and shake my head.

Wednesday, Gary strolls into class with his book and its centrefold dust jacket tucked under his arm. As he sits down, I frown. I can feel the schoolmarm rearing her bespectacled, be-bunned head. “Gary, we're going to have to have a little talk about your book cover after class.”

He smirks and nods. I frown. I frown every time I look at him for the next thirty minutes. Then, suddenly, halfway through class, in an explosion of ripping paper, he tears the girl off his book, once more exposing Grover on a merry-go-round — uncovering and recovering the innocence of youth.

I love June's mid-afternoon storms. At about two o'clock, the clouds roll in, heavy, dark, ominous. Suddenly, a crisp light electrifies the sky — the flash from a heaven-sized Instamatic — followed by a breathless moment of anticipation. Classes go quiet. Birds stop chirping. Horns cease honking. Kids stick their fingers in their ears.

Then:
BOOM! CRACK! BOOM! BOOM!

And thunder hits like boulders being poured on the school.

Classes let out collective screams, and car alarms beep all over the neighbourhood. Connie and I, meanwhile, stand under the overhang on the fifth-floor balcony and stare up at the churning sky, exclaiming,
“Coooooool!”
as sheets of rain crash on the concrete around us.

Today, as suddenly as it begins, the rain stops. Connie and I decide to run and get some lunch while we have the chance. We slip down the stairs and across the puddle-filled schoolyard. The foyer and hallways of the school are covered with student's paintings and drawings of the Hong Kong skyline and the new Hong Kong flag.

Yes, the final countdown is finally on. In less than a month, Hong Kong returns to China after more than a hundred years of British rule. The notice board inside the gates of Number 1 School displays photographs telling the history of Hong Kong. In the board's lower right corner, the school has its own countdown calendar in crayoned numbers, which the vice-principal changes every morning.

Connie and I take a look at the board, then leave the gates of Number 1 School to go to McDonald's for coffee and air conditioning. On our way, Connie points to a banner strung across a side street. When we passed it earlier in the day, I asked her what it said, but she wasn't exactly sure how to translate it.

“Now I know how to say that,” she says. “I checked my dictionary during class. It says, ‘Hong Kong's return is revenge for the injustice of 100 years!' ”

I study the yellow characters more carefully. I recognize the symbols for
100, year, Hong Kong
, and
return
.

“Oh, so it does!” I say.

We cross the street and pass a new home fitness store, brand-new universal gyms and exercise bikes gleaming in its picture window. I notice another red banner above the shop. “What does this one say, Connie?”

She stops and squints at the sign. “Hmm . . . it says, ‘You have your money, you have your car, but do you have your health?' It's an ad for this sports store.”

After we leave McDonald's, we stop at a Chinese pharmacy where I buy White Flower Embrocation to take the itch out of a new rash of mosquito bites. As we step out of the store and begin crossing the street to go back to Number 1 School, I look up and see yet another red banner hanging down the side of a high-rise apartment building. Again, it has the characters
100, year, Hong Kong
, and
return
.

“Hey! That's the same message!” I shout over the roar of passing vehicles. “It also says, ‘Revenge for the injustice of 100 years!' ”

“Yes,” says Connie. We jaywalk across the first two lanes of traffic. “It is everywhere.”

As we pass the fence surrounding the traffic divider, there is another banner strung through its poles, this time red characters on white fabric. I recognize the character for
English
on it. “Oh-oh, Connie. Does this sign say, ‘The English are evil'?”

She glances quickly back as we scamper across the next two lanes of traffic. “No,” she answers. “It says, ‘English is important — study it well.' ”

Back at school, the kids are busy practising for the school's handover celebrations on July 1. Connie and I stand on the fifth-floor balcony and watch the rehearsals in the courtyard.

Tiny kids with big red drums line up in perfect rows and learn the tricky skill of marching and drumming at the same time. Other kids are coached on how to carry the new Hong Kong flag without dragging it on the ground. The ballet club, dressed like flowers in flowing, gauzy scraps of pink, green, and orange, their cheeks rouged in fuchsia, prance out onto the hot asphalt and swirl into formations resembling Hong Kong's signature flower, the bauhinia. Then Gerry takes centre stage in front of the dancers. He has once again snagged the leading role, this time recounting the history of Hong Kong — the one hundred
years of injustice — to the accompaniment of
ban
clappers, or Chinesestyle castanets.