You Are Not Alone
The rain fell, it seemed, nonstop for a month. Streets flooded, water rushed under bridges, and still the rain fell. One wet morning in July, coffee in hand and mixed emotions brewing, I looked out the window of my apartment. Raindrops beat against the glass blurring the cityscape below. I sighed. Soon I would leave this place. It all seemed unreal—the rain, the past two years, and what might come next.
With the warm mug cupped in my hands, memories came flooding in like the rain. From the Peace Corps application process to embarking on a two year journey as an English teacher to getting to know my students and everything in between. My to-do list sat untouched on the table next to a pile of postcards. I picked up a post card. Neatly written on the back was, “You are my best teacher.”
Michelle, the postcard’s author, had written her note on the last day, as had all of her classmates. My class, English Speaking and Listening, was not Michelle’s forte, yet she showed up, week after week, with a smile, ready to learn. We had journeyed together for four semesters; I was touched by their earnest notes of appreciation.
I had nearly two hundred students each semester, all freshmen and sophomore English majors at Mianyang Teachers’ College in Southwestern China. The campus occupies a swath of land cut in half by a major freeway at the edge of Mianyang, a smallish city of several million people in the Sichuan province. Two kilometers separates the entrance from the main section of campus. Behind the imposing architecture of the administration building, long uniform four-story classroom buildings extend across a wide walkway.
Most of the classrooms assigned to me were equipped with computer systems. Fifty individual computer screens with headphones set upon partitioned rows of desks could be activated to show PowerPoint, audio, and video to students at their desks. Up front was the blackboard with a virus-ridden computer that controlled the intermittently broken system.
Early on, I had stood in the middle of the classroom hiding my trepidation, teaching English speaking lessons sans computer or textbook. Think about someone you admire, I said one day. Blank faces and silence followed. I’m sure I frightened them with my native spoken English, different teaching methods, and outward cheery appearance.
Chinese students usually select English names early in their language study. Jack and Rose were popular, as were Amanda, Mike, and various Western-centric names—though sometimes names fell outside of convention, such as Nut, Mr. Wolf, Coco, and Q.
Searching my attendance sheet, I called on Rose. Silence. I waited. Rose stood up, and almost in a whisper said, “My mother, because she gave me life.” Mike was not so timid. He stood up, puffed his chest, and said he admired Mao Zedong. Others answered with various family members, celebrities, or other political heroes such as Deng Xiaoping, but it was clear after three more classes, “Mao Zedong” and “My mother, because she gave me life” (word for word) were winners.
Not doubting their authenticity, I noticed a pattern emerge of safe answers and memorized phrases. Students often lugged large English dictionaries and lists of complex words to memorize for other classes and standardized tests. Students were memorizing, yet lacked knowledge of proper use of those words. In my class I told them I’m not impressed by the sight of complex words, but I understood the importance of their study especially for tests.
Decades of China’s One Child policy has embedded enormous pressure for success in the youth of the world’s most populous country. Tragically, this pressure, among so many other stresses young people are faced with, can become overwhelming. According to one study surveying Chinese college students, 18% showed high suicidal ideations (Source).
Mianyang Teachers’ College it appeared, was no exception. Forced to repeat her freshman year, one student of the English department climbed the stairs to the top floor of the Administration Building before the first day of class and leapt to her death. This student perhaps felt shame and loss of face, not only for herself, but for her parents as well—and there was certainly more stirring inside her soul.
Every time I walked through the doors, I looked up, haunted by tragedy. The school year went on, and I had guided my Sophomores through a semester of storytelling—from learning about genre and the hero’s journey to how to craft a plot using graphic organizers, I put them in groups and assigned them to make a five-minute film as a final project.
Their stories were incredible: horror stories with zombies, vampires and ghosts; college romance, long-distance loves; adaptations of Chinese legends; an altered ending to Romeo and Juliet—one story, however, stood out for its focus on the taboo topic of depression and suicide.
The film is titled, Girls. It begins with a break up scene: Jack breaks up with Minnie to be with his “true love.” Minnie becomes depressed and is supported by her two friends Sherry and Vivian. After an attempt by Sherry and Vivian to cheer up an inebriated Minnie, however, the story takes a dark turn. Minnie is seen typing a cryptic text message as she stands at the edge of a building, looking distraught. Sherry and Vivian, having seen the text, rush in and pull her from the edge.
“You are very important to us, you know, and we are always here waiting for you!” Sherry says as she comforts Minnie.
Sherry says, “You are very important to us, you know, and we are always here waiting for you!” A montage of the three of them spending time together fades to Minnie looking into the camera, “My girls, thanks for being here comforting and encouraging me, accompanying me through hard times…” She says she is “a new Minnie, a better one.” Boyfriends may come and go, but the three were fast friends, family even.
I don’t know if their story was influenced by the previous semester’s suicide, nevertheless their message was poignant—and true, clunky grammar and all. Sherry and Vivian surrounded Minnie in love and showed her she was not alone. Did that student who leapt off the administration building know she was valued and loved, too? She, too, was not alone.
Though I am still haunted by the campus administration building years later, I find hope my students’ lives and potential. Even if expressed by repeating a memorized phrase, they sincerely love and admire their mothers—and their mothers love them. They are beautiful, creative, and talented young women and men, worthy of life and love even with faulty grammar or when they fail; they’re worthy because they are. Part of what makes us human is our ability to love and be loved, and that is something that not even imposing architecture, government policy, nor cultural differences can take away.
