One summer I was sustaining myself in London with casual work in language schools. When I say casual I mean that I was scarcely awake during the lessons. I saw an advertisement for a tutor to go to Shenyang, China for a month and tutor a boy who hoped to go to Eton. I answered the ad.
Days later I was interviewed by a ginger haired Old Etonian named Raff. He was a likeable sort and as thin as a whippet. It turned out we had some mutual acquaintances though this half Italian chap was a few years older than me and had been in a different house. We agreed a few particulars regarding the proposed short term job. He filled me in on the brief. The boy’s English name was Julius. Chinese people often choose English names because Anglophones sometimes find Chinese names unpronounceable. His parents owned a university. He was currently in prep school in the United Kingdom. He already spoke English. The parents wanted to improve him in that and other subjects.
I was issued with my visa and went to Heathrow one blazing summer’s evening. In the queue I chatted to a podgy old white British man who was going on holiday to Dalian. China is a ghastly place and I could not for the life of me imagine why anyone would go there were it not for the sake of amassing some filthy lucre. I had been to the People’s Republic of China a couple of years before but that is another story.
I was flying on China Eastern Airlines for the first time in my life. I was flying business class. The flight passed quickly because the seat turned into a bed. The air steward even dressed it with a sheet.
Chinese airlines definitely discriminate on looks. The Chinese believe in pretty privilege. They are ageist towards air hostesses. Hence their cabin crew are easy on the eye. Is that good for business? What do you think? The West is too PC to face the truth: sex sells. Men tend to be attracted to younger females. There is such a thing as biology.
I landed in Shanghai and I was exhausted. I walked down the corridors to the VIP lounge. This was a misnomer. It the business class lounge. It was not luxurious but it was at least calm, uncrowded and provided some free tucker. I dozed as best I could in an upright chair.
Later I had a flight to Shenyang. It is a large city in Manchuria – north-east China. That evening I walked out into the meeting area of Shenyang Airport.
I saw a middle aged man and a young lady holding a sign bearing the words ‘George William.’ They had my middle name and not my surname. But I figured this must mean me. There are not too many people in deepest darkest China with these names.
The young lady was beaming and introduced herself as Alice. Her English was nearly perfect. The man was her father and he only spoke Mandarin. I knew a few pleasantries in the language and I deployed them. The father was a balding well-built man of 6’1’’ so he was almost gigantic for a Chinese of his generation. He seemed deeply placid and faraway.
Alice was spare and had very clear and youthful skin. Her dark eyes were not hooded and her features were very even. She was very nubile but I noticed that she let the hair in her armpits grow freely which I found very off-putting.
Into the car – we drove down the nearly deserted motorway and past a police checkpoint. Soon we were in the city. It had the bog standard Chinese tower blocks – all enormous monsters. On the way I spoke with Alice.
‘’I am studying in Paris at the moment’’ she chirped, ‘’I want to learn French. I am Julius’ sister.’’ She said.
‘’I speak French’’, I said.
‘’Yes, I know. We saw your CV’’ said Alice merrily, ‘’my dad is most impressed with your education because he owns a university.’’
I estimated her to be aged about 20. It emerged that the family had four children. Four! They were all born under the One Child Policy. This policy did not prohibit additional children. It merely said that those who had them were required to pay a fine. If that was paid then there was no disgrace or disapproval. Only very wealthy families could pay the fine. It was a matter if great prestige to have so many children.
‘’I got two big brothers’’, said Alice, ‘’but they both study far away’’ she added with a smile. I never met the big siblings.
We then drove into a compound with small houses only two or three storeys tall. This was very unusual for the middle of a Chinese city. It also gave an indication of just how affluent they were. Very few urban dwellers can afford to reside in a house.
The car drew up at an old style Chinese house – the handiwork on the exterior was intricate. Was this one of the few survivors from before the Cultural Revolution? There were even little white dragons on the balustrade of the stairs that led up to the front door.
We stepped into the house. At this point we all removed out shoon as is the custom on Far Cathay. The interior was mostly dark wood and a highly polished wooden floor. The furniture was all classical Chinese. Almost every surface was covered in chinoiserie as one might expect. I recognized the statue of Confucius that is seen in so many Chinese households. There was also a hearth but not blazing therein – it was the wrong time of year for that. They told me it got down to minus 20 degrees celsisus here in the bleak midwinter.
It was rather late and Julius was asleep. The house was not large. I was staying in a bedroom on the same corridor as the parents, Julius and Alice.
Next morning I met them all over breakfast.
‘’Good morning Julius, I am George’’, I piped.
‘’Yes, I know’’ he said almost aggressively. He shook hands and avoided eye contact out of disdain not bashfulness. He was a distinctly surly and saturnine sort.
Julius parried my few attempts at conversation.
An average height and slender middle aged woman came along – she wore her hair in a bob and had a worried look about her.
I stood up and shook her hand as I greeted her in Chinese. She was the mother as I had deduced. She spoke minimal English and used her daughter as an interpreter.
There was little chit chat at the table. The father was busily feeding his face and looking away. Occasionally he punctuated the silence with a very loud eructation. I pretended not to notice. The family did not bat an eyelid. What the father was doing was entirely permissible according Chinese table manners. When in Rome do as the Romans do. I wished to avail myself of this. Wouldn’t it be a rare delight just for once to do an ear splittingly loud burp at the table? But I just could not bring myself to.
The mother exhorted me to eat more. I have never been slim. The last thing I needed was encourage to fatten myself up.
Then it was upstairs for lessons in his parents’ bedroom there were desks there. Julius was bright and very hard working. The boy was a very high achiever but that was not surprising bearing in mind that he had had one on one lessons every day of the holidays for years.
‘’You have only been at prep school in the UK for a year. How did you get so good at English?’’ I gushed.
‘’I used to have a teacher here – a Filipino woman. She came here every day for years after I finished my classes at Chinese school’’ he said seriously.
The child had a wide lexis and almost never made a grammatical mistake. He comprehended everything that I said to him and I did not slow down the speed at which I spoke for him. His writing was just as excellent at his spoken English. But his Chinese accent was very pronounced. I tried to work a little on correcting that but he took very badly to me drilling him on the pronunciation of certain sounds.
Julius had large epicanthic folds like his father and he had a dark complexion for someone of his ethnicity. Julius was about average height for a child of his age.
We did English, verbal reasoning, non -verbal reasoning, French, interview practice and Maths. I was woeful at non-verbal reasoning which is all about number patterns and the rotation of shapes. These were all multiple choice questions. But what he did not know is that I had the answers in the back of the book. I would check the answers and put a very light almost imperceptible pencil mark below the correct answer. This is who I could tell if he was right of wrong. 9 times out of 10 he was correct.
Sometimes I did lessons with Julius in a nearby building. A short and slim epicene old man came along – he was not wearing a shirt. The man chatted calmly with Julius who clearly knew the man well. The old man was his uncle he explained.
In break Julius and I played chess. He was a formidable player. He took the game extremely seriously. I invoked the Corinthian spirit at first and let him win. But once I realized how fantastic he was at the game I decided to give him a run for his money. I played my very hardest. But he still beat me! We played roughly forty times and I won twice. We had two draws.
When he was losing he took it very poorly indeed. He would slam his chess piece down so hard that the others would fall off. He was ferociously competitive. I began to comprehend why he was so diligent about his studies. He approached every lesson with a sense of mission.
I should have been the one sulking. I was an adult being thrashed at chess by a 10 year old. It is a Maths game and I am woeful at maths.
‘’You are outstanding at chess’’, I complimented him.
‘’Yes, I know. I had a lot of chess coaching.’’
I would do a few hours of tutoring with Julius up until luncheon. At luncheon the mother would stand by the table and look on anxiously with her hands clasped together again urge me to eat more. It was mostly rice and other stodgy food. Surprisingly they were all a healthy weight.
In the afternoon Julius did the Chinese Language and maths (in Chinese) with another tutor. Then his music teacher would come and teach him the piano.
On one occasion Julius said, ‘’I am going to walk my dog.’’
But there was no canid there. He explained it was a virtual dog on a computer game. How pathetic is that?
After a few days I was aware of a slight medical problem. I had to vouchsafe this to the family despite it being embarrassing. I stated that I needed to go to the lavatory too frequently. Alice said she would buy me something from the pharmacy. Quite unembarrassedly she asked me the necessary question, ‘’is it pee pee or poo poo?’’
I answered that it was the former. Whatever the pharmacy gave me worked.
In my free time I walked around the compound. There were about 50 buildings there. There was even a small shop selling a few comestibles and domestic items.
There was a barrier gate. I was able to walk in and out. The guards recognized me. I was the only white there. I walked up and down the busy street and to the park. I walked to the bridge that spanned the huge river that divided the city into two.
In a shop on the city street I saw a white middle aged woman. She was tallish, slender and had dark blonde hair and spoke to her teenaged son. I overheard that it was Russian. We were not so far from the border.
I discussed Manchuria with Julius. It turns out that he was Manchu on his mother’s side. But his mother could not speak the language.
Alice told me that the mother had worked for the intelligence services long ago. They had caught many spies in the Dalian Peninsula because it is close to Japan.
In preparing the boy for his Eton interview I thought it apt that he should know something about the history of the school. Therefore I told him about King Henry VI. I consider myself a history buff. But what I had not known was that he ran away to Scotland for a few years.
We ran through the mock interview several times. Then we reversed roles. I showed him how not to do it. I would act painfully timid. Sometimes I would be brash and dismissive. Sometimes I would come across as insufferably conceited and full of braggadocio.
The internet did not always work. This was a time for me to pen stories. When the internet worked I treated myself to listening to pieces by Hungarian composers.
I read translations of classical Chinese tales – they were translated by a Jewish-American named Shapiro. He had spent time in China in the mid- 20th century and become the interpreter of Chairman Mao Zedong. He was very different from Ben Shapiro whose surname he shares.
One sunny summer’s evening I was told that after lessons I would go with the boy to the university where he sometimes played tennis. The driver took us in their Rolls Royce. They are incredibly spacious and comfortable cars and such a smooth ride. I scarcely felt that we were moving. Even the aroma inside them is a pleasure.
The land around the city was very flat. The level fields stretched to the skyline. Here and there a few low rise buildings squatted.
We drove past the security gate into the university. Some young black men played football on a pitch by the gate. Julius explained there were some African students at his dad’s university and they stayed over the summer.
The campus was all but deserted. There were numerous low rise buildings: halls of residence and lecture halls. The buildings were all modern, nondescript and bland as can be. The place was all about instrumental rationality – there was no character of beauty to it. We came to some tennis courts in the middle of the campus.
A police car came and delivered a supermarket trolley full of tennis balls. There were a few police officers who idled around near the tennis court. They watched the courts but not intensely.
There were two tennis coaches. I sat on a bench as they put the boy through his paces in terms of tennis drills. It was all in Mandarin of course so I could not comprehend a word of what was being said. The two men coaching him were both aged about 40 and were lithe and svelte
The Chinese Flag snapped at the flagstaff in the slight breeze. The light grew crepuscular. Then I heard the Chinese National Anthem blare out from a speaker. They stopped the tennis practice and stood to attention as did the police. I knew it was only mannerly to emulate them. One of the police officers lowered the flag with great ceremony. Dusk was drawing on.
The tennis practice resumed once the flag had been lowered.
Once we went into a gigantic gym building. There was a row of full size tennis courts. They played on those.
Sometimes after a sweaty game of tennis Julius and the family would go straight to a very smart restaurant without showering or changing. I did not understand it. Ladies would be there tastefully madeup with their hair just styled and sporting their most glamorous evening dresses.
After a few evenings of pointlessly accompanying him to tennis I sat watching them on a bench. The coach said out of nowhere, ‘’your tutor will play with you now.’’ This had to be translated by Julius of course.
I was nonplussed. I had not played tennis in over 20 years. I was always terrible at the sport. But I took up the racket with gusto and was determined to give a good account of myself.
I ran around the court hitting the ball back to him. He did not find it too easy to get the better of me. But then I was more than a foot taller than him.
This minuet went on for a good ten minutes. When suddenly I felt a very sharp pain in my right calf. Had someone thrown a metal ball at it? I cried out in pain. I could not put any weight on that leg. I hopped over to the bench and sat down.
They came over to me and asked what happened?
‘’I pulled a muscle I think’’ I said wincing.
Eventually I hopped over to the car. I began to worry that this might take out my other leg as too much weight was going on the left leg.
I realized later the thing to do was to lie down on my back on the ground and put the affected leg in the air or balance the ankle on the bench. That would minimize blood flow to the affected muscle.
We drove home. As long as no weight was on that muscle I was not in pain.
With great difficulty I made it into the house and up the stairs.
I had to crawl to the loo and the shower. I made it up and down stairs in pain by sitting and shuffling my buttocks from one step to the next.
This was not a serious injury and there was no question of going to the doctor. But it put paid to any idea of going to Beijing on my day off. There was a palace to see in Shenyang. I was unable to do that.
Later there was talk of going swimming with him.
‘’My mother thinks you will drown’’ said the child.
The family thought I did not give enough attention to the boy. We were due to fly back together in early September. I would miss my birthday in London.
As the family was dissatisfied with me they ended it a little early. I did not care at all.
My leg had partly recovered by the time I left. But that muscle still hurts from time to time.
I just made the connection in Shanghai.
The flight to London. I was plied with red wine. The air steward recharged my glass unbidden. I slept soundly.
I made it to London but my suitcase did not. It was delivered a week later.
I managed to have a birthday knees up after all.
My time in China was disenjoyable.