Author: Qiyue Feng
We met at her house. Several books laid out scattered; archaic air that solely belongs to literature encloses us.
She was my Chinese teacher in middle school, a school known for its students’ prodigious grades in the high school entrance examination. Everything there was planned out cautiously: books students read, reading analysis, and formatted feelings ---we aimed for a “perfect answer” that fits the exam’s rigid criteria. This is the only way to strive out the narrow road of standardized tests.
She was in her mid-forties. Her round facial silhouette is embedded in tenderness; no hard curves cross. But her eyes were stern enough, with sharp sight reflected by glasses’ lenses.
She knew my visit’s purpose---coming for a literal interview. We didn’t chat much before the formal conversation started. She has a gentle but powerful voice, carrying an undeniable dignity as a teacher. Tea’s steam permeated the room; in hazy vapor the age marks on her blurred out---she seemingly going back to the age I am now.
“I fell in love with Chinese when I was in high school.”
She picked up her old days, retelling the past through a modern lens.
“There was a teacher I especially admired. He taught ancient Chinese prose and allusions. What surprised me is that besides rephrasing, he himself would write prose that is structured in ancient format but based on modern context. It was such a novelty spurred out of archaism.”
She raises her cup, making a small toast gesture, “And now I have become a high school teacher.” A flash of nostalgia passes her eyes. I quietly watched that shimmer, which glinted as time wheels’ turned back and forth. Reminiscence wrapped me back to the time when I was sitting in her classroom. Beams of autumn sunshine cast on our middle school’s blackboard.
White chalks scratched such blackness, leaving distinct marks.
She was also a novel teacher, one who was abnormally unrestrained by the “normal” answer in textbooks. Our middle school believes the understanding of literature generates from constant recitations. We marked time’s lapse with pen ink that was chipped away by our assiduous writing: assiduously copying down teachers’ standard analysis, assiduously memorizing obscure prose. Awry black lines on lined paper, with scores assigned to each word---this used to be my entire understanding of “literature.”
White sentences written by chalks scratched the blackboard. She wrote down a word: “Critical.” “Nothing shall be taken for granted,” her loud voice echoed on the dais, “Critically viewing the words from your family and media; dialectically learning Chinese this subject.”
As though to deepen this rebellious idea in our “normal” middle school, she restructured our class. Assignments assigned to rewrite novels’ endings. Debate tournaments were held in replace of format writing. Our heads were no longer lowered constantly to mark down teachers’ words---we were to adopt a bizarre “seminar” style. “Engagement is the key,” she emphasized.
Such abnormal critical lenses even extended to the textbook itself. “Pay close attention to your textbook’s analysis here,” she said assuringly in one class, in front of the blackboard, “Lao She’s Rickshaw Boy. In there many factors cause Xiangzi’s tragic end. The textbooks are inclined to interpret his depravity as the symbol of a corrupted society. But is it true though?”
She paused, looked down at those textbooks. I always held them in a respectable, even reverent way. They were to me esteemed relics in the museum, while I was supposed to pass them as a negligible visitor, gazing at their records from an aloof distance. They were immortal, and I was self-willingly fixed. Two dead objects stared at each other: no interaction, no exchange.
“But is it true though?” That quivering question mark still lingered in the air, knocking the ground I used to stand on. The stillness in the air weaved, inviting me into further thinking. “The root of his tragic end is not written in textbooks. Xiangzi’s stubborn personality also prompted his unavoidable death.” She declared then, as though boldly raising her banner---“Discard textbooks, Analyze for yourself.”
I was confused. I was baffled by such bold intrusions of intricately printed words: the newness to participate in antique history and literature. But as every restless teenager, I was tempted by such novelty. For the first time, my view of literature started to vacillate a bit. Blocks of massive prose dissipated into meaningful lines. I started wanting to see, in the aggregation of archaic relics, a bit of flair generated by myself.
“Sometimes, if you are too restrained by the “perfect answer” in textbooks, you may impair your literal understanding.” She glanced at my writing, pointing at the awry lines on my notebook. Those black writings seemed to be scrapped by her white chalks. Fierce enough; bright enough.
Such fierceness still appeared on her face after half a decade, when I was now a high school student in her house. She was a student; she is a teacher. The shift comes from “being educated” to ‘education” itself. I asked her if there were any moments she felt especially proud of her career. She replied, “When you see other students who are interested in Chinese culture because of your teaching, it’s like seeing burgeons spurred out from seedbeds.”
She recently read novels written by Hualing Nieh Engle and Ying Hong[1], authors who reflected on Chinese culture after living in foreign lands. “It was marvelous to view literature I teach every day in a new, western perspective,” she commented, “I guess I also strived for the transformation, to freshly analyze the “granted” things. We need new things, you know.”
Chinese culture is agelong and profound, but it is also mobile and revolutionizing.
These Chinese teachers, like quarriers, collect stones from the riverbank named “history.” They carry such weight of literature, burnish them with carefulness, then carve brand new visions out of the old gravels. Generations succeeded generations, living in this country of 9.6 million square kilometers. We breathe air of the moist river; we stand firmly on pebbles of the bank.
Burgeons spurred out from seedbeds; novelty breeds from archaism.
[1] 聂华苓，虹影