不要闭上双眼

文/雨果·迪亚斯（Hugo Diaz） 译/孙梦琪

眨眼间，你会错过一个新的商场、公寓大楼或一些其他的建筑。转过身后，当你再次面对这个城市时，你会发现一个全新的地铁系统和扩展的公路。小睡一下，当你醒来的时候，你可能会以为你在一个新的城市。

这里的人们称石家庄是一个小城市，这实在是太疯狂了，如果在美国，这座城市会被认为是一个相当大的城市。有时候这座城市发展的速度有点惊人，这让我感觉好像我已经完全落后了。但在其他时候，因为这里有很多潜在的机会，我又开始变得无限乐观。说一个老笑话——石家庄只有三类建筑物，正在建设中的建筑物、刚刚建成的建筑物和即将开工的地段！

在哪里开始？

实际上，一开始我没有选择去往石家庄。 但河北省与美国艾奥瓦州存在姐妹城市关系，而我选择了艾奥瓦州的得梅因，所以我最终留在了石家庄。

一开始我也没有选择当老师。但我需要找到一个实际的谋生手段来支持自己在中国一年的生活。我的大学帮助我找到一份教授英语的职业。也因此，我拥有了一个绝佳的机会去探索这个有吸引力的文化和国家。

我的第一堂课并不十分紧张，这是个意外之喜。

本文作者（后排中）与学生在一起

我觉得自己已经准备好上课了，我十分清楚我想要讲什么，我知道我想对学生说什么，而且我做好了供我参考的笔记。我并不紧张，这对我来说是一个惊喜。至少我当时还不紧张。我决定进入教室，以便在正式授课开始之前能够有机会见到一些学生。我以为提早15—20分钟就足够了。而我错了！我7点40分到达那里（上课时间到8点才开始），但是每个学生都已经在教室里了。这把我弄糊涂了，突然之间，我开始感到有些不安，然后，教室里看到我的同学们突然发出了吃惊的嘘声，随后在那里交头接耳。我抬头看了看课堂，至少有90%的学生都敬畏地看着我。我赶紧看向自己的包，然后从包里拿出笔记。基本上，我漫无目的地翻阅我的笔记，试图让自己看起来像是在忙。我注意到我的双手在哆嗦，坐在教室前面的几个学生好像也注意到这一点。我看了看时间，7点50分。我开始后悔这么早来上课了，我该怎么做才能度过这十分钟呢？

就这样我开始了在中国当老师的生活，不过或许还应该再往前回溯一点点。

消除恐惧

当我刚到中国时，我的航班降落在北京。已经是晚上了，所以我没有看到太多东西。我只记得在一家街头小饭馆里吃面条。以我当时没有多少经验的眼光看来，那家饭馆看起来有些阴暗。一直停留在我脑海里有关那一天的情景是一群光膀子的年轻男人坐在一起抽烟喝啤酒。也许这不是中国给我的最好的第一印象，但由于某种原因，这反而让我感觉更舒服了一点。在我来之前，我真的不知道会发生些什么。之前我担心这会是一个由于负担太重而不能好好享受生活的地方，但眼前这些人明显是在放松和享受生活。这一幕消除了我的恐惧。

在去往石家庄前，我只在北京花了几个小时昏昏沉沉地倒时差。前往石家庄的时间是第二天的凌晨，而整个去石家庄的旅程就像是一种朦胧的半梦半醒的梦境。我几乎不说话，只是凝视窗外，观察周围的环境。我有太多的东西要去接受和正确理解，而我无比疲惫的头脑和身体却似乎仍然滞留在美国，还没有赶上所在地，这让一切变得更为艰难。但我唯一肯定的是，我现在的感觉是不完整和仓促的，并且我确定只要有机会，我会再次重游北京。

这个机会来得很快，因为一个月后就是国庆节。

火车站

我和一名中国朋友菲戈，决定到北京旅行。我们必须提前十天到车站购买火车票。在火车站附近有额外的警力负责处理聚集的人群，这些人们着急买票，互相推搡。

当值班人员突然宣布要休息20分钟这一消息时，局面变得更加不稳定。我当时本能的内心独白如下：“认真的？为什么所有的工作人员要同时去休息？就没有轮换机制，可以让他们合理的轮班并且服务不会完全中断，这样不是更好吗？”对于这一事宜可能有非常合理的解释，例如系统故障或差错或者其他一些什么，但是不要试图向排队的人解释其合理性，尤其当这个不耐烦、焦躁、不安又局促的人已经在排队中挣扎了许久。在这种事态升级的情况下，你唯一能令人振奋的话语就是你们已经重新开始工作了，然而即便这样，他们的愤怒也不会立即或完全消散。

在这期间，没有车票出售，并且我们不得不站在原地以避免失去在队伍中的位置。很多人近距离挤在周围，这让人感到又热又闷。在休息的期间，我能听到周围人的抱怨，显然对于休息这件事每个人都感到不高兴。与我们同行的另一位外国教师对于试图越过我们插进队伍的某人感到相当的恼火。我真的不怪他，因为这种行为确实令人生气。我记得他说过，如果再有人试图越过他，他已经准备好对其实施“野蛮”行为。我想当我没有说任何话来支持他或肯定他内在的愤怒时，他一定感觉很糟，但是这是我会做的事情。我不怎么抱怨，有时我不怎么讲话，我只是静静地观察并感知发生在我周围的事情。

我和菲戈买到了去北京的车票，然而不走运的是，另外那位教师因为意料之外的价格波动没有买到他想要的票。因为票价比他起初预期的要高很多，所以他那时没有买。由于他要为同他一起旅行的一群人买票，他不确定每个人会补给他差价，或者，当了解了“新”票价后，他们是否还想去旅行，所以他不能作决定。他打了一会儿电话，旅行团中的其他人说他们会到火车站来了解下情况并一起作新的决定。他深吸了一口气，然后离开了队伍。现在他脸上的愤怒和沮丧已经不见了。然而，我知道他已经在濒临爆发的边缘，所以当其他人一到，我和菲戈就很快就离开了。

40年前的我们很有可能没有意识到有其他的选项。以火车站买票的例子而言，我现在知道有很多散布在城市中的小型火车票售票点。但是我不知道当时是否存在这种选择。网上订票？我没有对事实进行验证，但是我对于那时是否有这一选项表示怀疑。并且，我周围的人对上网并没有太多经验。那时学生们普遍没有笔记本电脑。智能手机？别想了，很多学生甚至连普通的手机都没有。所以，基本上，即便存在网上系统，我们可能在当时不知道有这么一种选择并且我们可能不会使用网上订票的程序。最可能的结果是我们花费了很多的时间来弄清楚工作原理，却只是徒劳地得出结论：网上订票不可行，最后仍然需要去火车站并忍受糟糕的排队。

即使上网的问题解决了，但这只意味着是时候开始处理下一问题了，这是个没完没了的过程。上网买票需要银行账户。我那时还没有银行账户。因为复杂的文件工作——我还在等待批准，仍然需要向银行提交一些补充文件。所以我当时只能现金交易。这意味着我当时要进行更仔细的计划和预算工作。我需要计划出足够的现金以供花销，但又不要太多。当时很少有地方能接受信用卡或储蓄卡消费，对于这件事我记得我脑子里有过少许的抱怨。我在当时即使有银行卡也可能用不了，所以，我有没有账户也就不那么重要了。幸好，如今我们有了微信和智能手机。［雨果·迪亚斯（Hugo Diaz），特立尼达和多巴哥国籍，毕业于德雷克大学的精算学专业，并取得了工商管理学士学位，现任石家庄贝思国际英语学校副校长］

Blink and you’ll miss the construction of a new mall,apartment complex or some other building. Turn your back, and when you face the city again you’ll find an entire new metro system and expanded highways. Take a nap, and by the time you wake up, you might think you’re in a new city.

It’s crazy that people here call Shijiazhuang a small city, whereas in the US this would rank as a fairly large city. Sometimes it is scary how quickly things have moved and it feels as though I’ve been completely left behind. At other times I’m filled with unlimited optimism due to so many potential opportunities here.To paraphrase an old joke-Shijiazhuang only has three types of buildings; buildings that are currently under construction; buildings that were just constructed and freshly demolished lots where construction is about to begin!

WHERE TO BEGIN?

Technically I didn’t choose Shijiazhuang. I chose Des Moines, Iowa and ended up in Shijiazhuang due to the sister state relationship between Hebei province and Iowa.

I didn’t choose to be a teacher. I chose to find a practical way to support myself in China for a year and ended up teaching English because my university afforded me this golden opportunity to explore this attractive culture and country.

I didn’t chose to be nervous during my first class; like many things in life, it just happened.

I thought I was well prepared for class, I knew exactly what I wanted to cover, I knew what I wanted to say to the students, and I had notes that I could refer to. I was not nervous, which was a surprise to me; well atleast I was not nervous as yet. I decided to try to get to class early so that I could hopefully meet some of the students before class began. I figured 15 to 20 minutes early would be sufficient. Wrong! I got there at 7:40(class was not scheduled to begin until 8:00), but every single student was already there. This threw me off, and I suddenly started to feel a bit uneasy with the sudden hush that came over the class, followed by a few gasps and then murmuring. I looked up at the class, and at least 90% of the students were just staring at me in awe.I quickly looked down, and proceeded to take my notes out of my bag. Basically I aimlessly shuf fl ed through my notes, trying to look like I was busy. I noticed that my hands were shaking, and it is likely that a few students sitting towards the front of the class also noticed this.I looked at the time, 7:50. I was beginning to regret getting to class early, what in the world was I supposed to do to kill ten minutes?

Thus began my life in China as a teacher, but instead of concluding this story, perhaps I should backtrack a bit.

ALLAYED FEARS

When I first arrived in China, my flight landed in Beijing. It was already night and so I didn’t get to see much. I just remembered eating some noodles at a small restaurant somewhere that looked a bit shady to my inexperienced eyes. A sight that stuck in my mind from that day was a bunch of young shirtless guys sitting around drinking some beers while smoking. Maybe it wasn’t the best first impression that China could have given me, but for some reason this made me feel a little more comfortable. I really had no idea what to expect before I got here, and these people just out relaxing and enjoying themselves allayed my fears that this would be a place where people were too burdened to enjoy life.

I only spent a few groggy jet-lagged hours in Beijing before departing for Shijiazhuang at an unholy hour the following morning. The entire drive to Shijiazhuang resembled some kind of murky half-remembered dream;I hardly talked, but rather just stared out the window observing the surroundings. There was way too much to take in and properly process, further complicated by my still depleted mind and body which both still seemed to be stuck back in the states and hadn’t caught up with the reality of our current location as yet. The only certainly was that this felt incomplete and rushedand I knew I wanted to revisit Beijing whenever the opportunity arose.

That opportunity came quickly enough, because about a month later was the National Holiday.

TRAIN STATION

A Chinese friend, Figo, and I decided to travel to Beijing.We had to buy our train tickets 10 days in advance.There were extra police on hand at the train station to deal with the crowds that gathered and anxiously pushed to buy tickets. What was already a perilously volatile situation was inexplicably aggravated by the sudden announcement that there would be a 20 minute break.My instant, knee-jerk inner monologue was as follows:"Seriously?! Why do all of the workers need to take a break at the same time? Wouldn’t some kind of labor rotation, allowing them to do this in intelligent shifts so that service wouldn’t come to a complete halt, be much better?" There might have been a very reasonable explanation for this, such as some kind of system failure,glitch or who knows what, but don’t bother trying to use rationality to reason with an impatient, hot, bothered and cramped person who has been fighting off others in line for such a long time. In such a heightened state of affairs, the only thing you can say to make someone happy is that you have resumed work, and even then their anger will not immediately or completely subside.During this time no tickets were sold and we just had to stand there to avoid losing our place in line. It was hot and sticky with all the people standing around in such uncomfortably close proximity. During this intermission I could hear people around me cursing and clearly everyone was unhappy with this. Another foreign teacher who was with us was quite annoyed at some of the people who tried to walk right past us and cut into the line up ahead. I really don’t blame him for that as it was indeed irritating. I remember that he said he was ready to “get physical” with someone if anyone tried to walk by him again. I think he must have felt bad when I didn’t really say anything to support or validate his visceral fury, but that’s just me. I don’t complain much, and at times I don’t talk much, I just silently observe and try to make sense of what is going on around me.

Figo and I got our tickets for Beijing, but unluckily the other teacher didn’t get the tickets he wanted due tounexpected price changes. He didn’t buy them at that point because the price was much higher than he had originally anticipated. As he was also supposed to be buying tickets for the group of people who would be traveling with him, he couldn’t make the decision to purchase the tickets as he wasn’t sure if everyone else would reimburse him or still want to go if they knew the “new” price. He called around a bit and the other members of his travel group said they would come to the train station to check things out and make a new decision together. He took a deep theatrical breath and stepped out of line. The anger and frustration on his face were now gone. However, I’ve seen this kind of reaction before when a person becomes aware that they have reached their limit and that the next unhappy occurrence will be met with unbridled fury. Once the others arrived, Figo and I quickly left - not a moment too soon.

It’s possible, for example, with the train station example that there were other options that we just were not aware of-for example the smaller train ticket offices that I now know to be scattered around the city, but I don’t know if they existed back then. I haven’t fact checked, but I seriously doubt there were online booking options available at that time. Also, the people I knew didn’t have much experience with all this technology,it was quite common that students didn’t have laptops.Smartphones? Forget about it, many students didn’t even have those regular old school phones! So, basically,even if online systems existed, we didn’t know about it and we would have totally struggled to use it. The most likely outcome would be that we would spend countless hours trying to figure out how things worked, fruitlessly conclude that we couldn’t complete the transaction, and in the end still need to go to the train station to endure those terrible lines.

One problem solved, but that only means it’s time to start working on the next problem in the endless line. Bank account? Didn’t have one as yet, because of the complicated paper work—I was still waiting for approval and some supplemental documents still needed to be submitted to the bank. So it was all cash.That meant more careful planning and budgeting.Needed to take enough cash to cover costs, but not too much. I remember mildly complaining in my mind about how few places seemed to accept “plastic”anyway. So whether I had an account or not didn’t seem to matter much. Today we have the wechat ecosystem and smartphones.