A Teacher’s Life

Life at the old secondary school was usually peaceful and uneventful. Although English and science were the trendy subjects, the new teacher, Miss Mary Shay, made Chinese literature popular among the kids too.

Miss Shay had to teach classic pieces that were required by the school curriculum, such as 滿江紅 The Red River written by the great warrior 岳飛 Yue Fei nine hundred years ago. She gave her class instructions like these:

“If General Yue lived today and wrote that speech last weekend as an op-ed in a newspaper, some critics would probably call it a great essay, some would condemn it as war propaganda, and you wouldn’t be forced to memorize it and be tested on. But because it was written almost a thousand years ago, it is now called classic literature and every Form II student should know it if they want to go on to Form III next year. So study it and get it over with fast. Then find something from your heart, and write me something that will be considered a classic
in 50 years which your grandson or granddaughter will have to study and memorize when they go to secondary school. That’s your assignment this week. Here’s a tip: If you want to “cheat,” cheat legally. Follow the rhyming pattern of Yue’s composition, but not the exact words. If you do that, you will get a maximum score of 90. Those who really write their own lyrics will get a maximum of 105.”

Over ninety percent of the class took the easy way out and just substituted Yue’s words with their own, following the same rhyming syntax. To do that, they had to read Yue’s writing a few times and understood it. By the time they finished changing all the words from the original, they almost had the classic memorized. Miss Shay was very happy that five or six kids actually wrote something on their own. She had a bonus meeting with them after school and gave them extra help on grammar and choice of words. Everybody in that group received a score of 95 to 105.

One thing she injected into her teaching was the comparison of Chinese and English writing styles. Sometimes she would bring in translated stories such as War and Peace and Les Miserables, and had the kids critique on the quality of the translations. In order to do that, the kids had to read both the Chinese and English versions of the novels. Conversely, she would also bring in Chinese poetry that was translated to English and had the class comment on it too. Once, with Miss Shay’s permission, a student brought in her English translation of 紅豆詞 The
Red Beans Song, together with forty-one red bean cakes for everybody in the class (forty students plus Miss Shay) to show her “love” for them all. The class went riotous and nobody would ever forget that poem for the rest of their lives. Miss Shay did remind them that the red beans in the poem were probably the heart-shaped kind, and not the ones they were munching on and singing with at the moment.

Many years later that same kid became a columnist for a regional magazine. In a TV interview of successful local writers, she attributed her interest in writing to the unorthodox tuition of a former teacher at Tak Shing School named Miss Shay.

“I always wanted to become a doctor growing up because that’s what all good students were supposed to do. Miss Shay made creative writing so much fun that I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. Thank you, Miss Shay, for ruining my physician’s career before it ever got started:).”

The kids found out very fast that Miss Shay had a college degree in Chinese as well as in another very unrelated field, biology, and she spoke and wrote English better than some of the school’s English teachers. Pretty soon she was looked upon as a role model who was versatile with many subjects, and that image of her was especially prevalent among the female population of the school.

Mary the liberal literature teacher was not so open in the romance department. She didn’t seem interested in dating much although friends tried to introduce her to different candidates. A couple of male teachers at the school tried to ask her out but were quickly met with a polite thank-you-but-no-thank-you answer. She spent most of her workdays teaching and meeting with “her children,” as she put it, and grading their papers. On weekends one would sometimes find her at academic seminars or at a movie with female colleagues.

The home life for Mary was quiet and retreat-like, and she rather liked it that way. Mom and Dad worked long hours at the pharmacy. Most of the weekdays she had dinner by herself while her parents ate at the shop. A few times Mom asked her the reason for her divorce. Mary would just say that Paul and she were a mismatch from the beginning and she couldn’t see herself going through life like that. She also told Mom that she was enjoying single status again and she had no regrets about the severance of her marriage.

*** To Be Continued ***

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