Schools, caves and
executions.
I had a touch of reality
the other day and it was a bit shocking. There was a crowd in the
square outside of where I live and work. I asked my colleague what
was going on. 'Its the criminals', she said 'but its finished now'. I
had a vision of some punishment being meted out by a mob and suddenly
thought, I don't want to be here.
It wasn't that dramatic,
fortunately. The police had brought a load of 'criminals' to be
paraded in front of the people of the town to demonstrate that crime
doesn't pay. This didn't seem too bad until my colleague said 'and
now they're all going to be shot'. I watched as two open backed
lorries, full of armed soldiers and 'criminals' dressed in orange,
drove off. Those guys were having their very last look at the world –
they were all going to be executed that afternoon.
There are 68 offences that
carry the death penalty in China including tax evasion and theft. I
knew this and of course I knew about China's appalling human rights
record but, like most travellers, I put those thoughts to one side
when I had the opportunity to work here for a while. But that
morning, I had a real feeling of shock as I stood and watched the
lorries drive away. I have, like most of us who grew up in the West,
had a very sheltered life when it comes to things like executions.
Again like many people, I actively seek out new and exciting places
to visit. But we should never forget what goes on beneath the surface
of countries like China. By the time I had finished my lunch that
day, all of those guys would have been shot. Lest we forget.
I had to go to a Government office in another area
the other day to sort out my long stay visa. It was like a Chinese
Milton Keynes. Purpose built, shiny and new, wide flat roads with no
traffic – very weird. I had to go into some kind of police building
and all along the corridor were photos of police with guns, usually
wearing balaclavas, standing around loads of bodies. There’s
nothing covert about police activity here! Actually there’s nothing
covert about the police at all – I’ve never been in a place with
so much police presence. I’m sitting upstairs in a coffee shop
right now and out of the window I can see 3 police cars and four more
have just driven past. Its not exactly threatening, they’re just
there. Wearing uniforms of any kind, seems to be a hobby and a
passion – I have no idea what most of them are – police, army,
security??? but what they all have in common is that they don’t
seem to fit! They all look too big across the shoulders and with
sleeves that are way too long.
On another note, lots of
people live in caves around here. I read a fact once that about 5
million people in China live in caves and I had visions of something
very basic and uncomfortable. Tongchuan, where I'm living right now,
is a town built along the bottom of a steep sided valley. The houses
at the bottom are modern and mostly apartment blocks but one day I
walked up one of the very steep paths going above the town. The
houses all had ornate gates, mostly painted red with statues of lions
and dragons but it wasn't until I was above the houses that I
realised that these gates were almost up to the wall of the hillside.
The actual living part of the house could only be inside the hill –
in a cave.
I had a friend in India
who lived in a cave – it was half way up a mountainside in the
Himalayas and I didn't actually know it was a cave until I touched
the walls inside – rock. I haven't been inside one of the cave here
but I'm on the lookout for a suitable acquaintance. The hills, by the
way are made of fairly soft sandstone so I guess its quite easy to
dig yourself a cave.
The children I work with
range in age from 5 to 18 but one thing they all have in common is
that they have no social life. Someone said to me the other day that
the children learn music or dance 'in their free time' – a bit of a
contradiction in terms. School takes up all of their time. After a
full day, they go back for 3 hours in the evening to do 'homework'
and they often go in at the weekend too. Classes are usually around
80 students and the pressure on these students to achieve is
enormous. The expectation is that they'll get 100%. One girl put it
into a perspective for me when she pointed out that will 1.5billion
people, there is so much competition for everything, you have to be
the best.
But it's very much a 'fill
the bucket' approach to education rather than lighting any spark. I
was talking about Shakespeare with a teacher who told me that he
never had time to discuss anything about the man and his contribution
to literature or whatever, he only spent time learning sonnets.
I'm not a Christian but I
was brought up in a Christian house and country so I do actually know
what Christmas is all about. I now have to go to a Christmas party
and tell the nativity story to about 200 children and sing a load of
carols – thank goodness for my old fashioned girls school education
where we has religious assembly every morning. I never realised that
I knew so many carols. Happy Christmas.
