The Silent, Slow-Flowing Bayou River

The movie Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within reveals the notion to its audience that everything in the world has its spirit. Not only flowers, but also the soil or the stones have their spirit. Nature is alive; it keeps growing and changing. Vitality has already sprouted discreetly along the Bayou river under the endlessly enormous sky in this spring evening.

Big marshmallow-like clouds make people watery and want to pick, roast, and taste them as if they were children once more. They must taste sweet with the smell of sunshine. It was rainy yesterday. Now the grass behind the library is still a bit wet and stinging. The shining bead of rain is sliding down from the grass due to the breeze. Tons of the fresh grass spread out riverside; it looks like a tremendous irregularly-woven green carpet. Nestling on the trees behind the library, a little black bird seems tranquil this evening. Meanwhile, an unfriendly feeling pollutes the air. First, a bunch of mosquitoes are dancing randomly. Then, they are flying angrily, accompanied with annoying buzzing sounds. Next, they are cold-bloodedly attacking passing-by students with their solid strategies. The army is annoyingly brutal and huge. A cloud of mosquitoes comes one after another, occupying the place and claiming that it belongs to their territory; the other people are ignorant, accidental intruders.  

Cypresses scatter along the riverside and in the silent, slow-flowing river, standing tall and firmly like inarticulate soldiers. Green leaves of trees come along with spring, and their branches briskly stretch out and desire to touch the sky. A girl with a ponytail, wearing white T-shirts and short sport pants, is paddling the canoe. The canoe is stuck between the trees for a while, and she is whispering anxiously. Finally, the canoe passes through the branches that make scratching sounds.

Along the river, some unpleasant smell is a bit fishy and gross, as if something is rotten under dark opaque water. The smell is dead; it was once alive.

A brown squirrel lifts its tail, climbs down very fast, and searches for foods. It looks careless and proud. When it finally gets a pine corn, it disappears quickly. It has just showed up for few minutes, but its image still exists like a snapshot. 

Scenery reflects in the river like a clear and bright mirror. It is difficult to distinguish which is reflection and which is reality. The wind blows on the surface of the water, and everything waves in the river now. People walking under the floating bridge are rippling with the flow. The trees, the flowers, and bushes all are rippling. It looks like a bridge in a small medieval European town. People are going home with fresh bread and a jug of milk. Sunlight flashes sparklingly on the water. There is the illusion that fish will jump out of golden water, but nothing happens. Only dozens of ripples carry all the reflections, circle on and on and on, and spread out. A middle-aged woman, wearing shaggy clothes, is fishing under the bridge. She calls up a movie A River Runs Through it.The way she throws the fishing rod is just like one of the main characters, probably Brad Pitt, does in the poster of the movie. She stands on the rocks, casts a fishing rod, and pulls it back. The fishing line draws a flying curve. Suddenly, it seems frozen in the air. The moment becomes forever.

The school bell rings and echoes on campus. The sounds are gradually whirling into the river. The heating system beside the library is rotating as if a man who is grunting with sputum in the throat. Somehow he stops for a while, and then he begins to cough up the sputum when people least expect it. The heating system smells rusty. The stains on its body look like scars on its skin.  

Away from the river, the cheering of people near Starbucks is exploding like atomic bombing when they are running, chasing, and vigorously trying to kill each other. It turns out that they are playing Frisbee with each other. The yellow Frisbee is as a top spinning in the air. It has its own path, and it is never controlled by people. One guy is losing the flying disc, but he is still cursing the other guy, “You moron!”

The sunlight has faded away. The sky turns turquoise to grey. The sharp edges of everything become blurred, soft, and tender. It is getting darker and darker. It is surprisingly amazing that the view changes so fast even only within just an hour. Time never stops. Life moves on. The library seems like a castle that is full of bright candelier lights now.

The grass beside the Bayou river stands for a very unique place. Though it is an undisturbed corner, people can enjoy the quietness and the vibrant atmosphere from here. At this particular moment, it seems that nothing is still, and everything is so vivid and wonderful. Busyness could be meaningful, but idling here is even more beautiful.

War Diary

In comparison to the high dropout rate of U.S. high school students, the turnover of teachers is more shocking.  On average, a third of new teachers leave after three years; almost half have quit the profession during their first five years.  The reasons include overloaded work, low payment, and poor working conditions.

I deserve champagne to celebrate surviving for more than five years, though matter-of-factly I have encountered many obstacles in this field. But none of these could make me feel more frustrated than dealing with the boy with Asperger’s syndrome. He has taught me a unique lesson that makes me reflect the essence of teaching. Looking back, it was just like a war. The phone call was the first gunshot. A war had begun.

In 2010, I decided to move back to my hometown in the north of Taiwan, where it is relatively humid and cold in winter. While I still had ambivalent feelings about the difficult decision, I got a call from the administrator of my new school. After welcoming me enthusiastically, she came up with a query, “Mr. Tang, would you like to accommodate a kid with special needs in your classroom?” It did not take me too long to say yes since it seemed that other seven grade teachers had refused her. Unlike America, the homeroom teacher system is implemented from elementary to high school in my country.

I moved back to home in August and started working in the new school. Not long after that, the fall semester began. I met the boy on the first day of school, and I noticed that he had extremely pale white skin. He was taller than average for boys of his age. He wore a very clean uniform and was well-mannered. After consulting a school counselor, I knew that he had Asperger’s syndrome, a high functioning form of autism. People always hold romantic imagination toward people with Asperger’s disorder or autism and regard them as superior geniuses such as Dustin Hoffman in the movieRain Man.

As the days passed by, the more I understood him, the more I had sympathy for him. Since elementary school, he got bullied and teased a lot. He came from a single parent family, whose jobless father refused to recognize his disorder. According to his aunt, the grandma and father of the boy had the same emotional and behavioral problem, but they lacked the insight and never saw the doctor. He had bad breath due to lack of adequate family care, and his poor health resulted from his anxiety.  Lacking social interaction skills, he had difficulty finding company. Not surprisingly, he was alone most of the time. For me, he was a polite, sweet and kindhearted boy. He strictly obeyed the school codes of conduct and had a sense of justice and humor, though sometimes his jokes seemed odd. Aside from encouraging him, I would give him some cookies, books or souvenirs to show I cared as a teacher.

My ideal vision was to create harmony and a warm environment for him. The school counselor and I tried many ways to make non-special needs students appreciate their differences, which was the most important thing to do in an inclusive classroom. However, the conflicts between the students and him were never alleviated; there was no sign of ceasefire. Some naughty students always messed with him. Bedsides, being extremely sensitive to the noise, he easily got annoyed and irritated in a classroom that was impossible to make absolutely silent.  Teachers began to discipline other students more in order to not upset him. Nevertheless, he also verbally attacked teachers. He liked that things were organized like the order of the universe, so he would be anxious if a teacher changed the class schedule or a substitute teacher showed up unexpectedly.

 When he was furious, he would rub his head, holding his fist. Next, he would lower his head, glowering fiercely at people. His compulsory threatening behavior would surface, and he flung his hatred towards some peers and threatened to kill them several times.

In the spring semester of 2011, the situation progressively got worse. Many other students complained about many of their teachers, mostly me, their homeroom teacher, for favoring him, and the boy accused me of protecting other students.

The last battle was on a sunny day in May. He came to my office, saying, “You always help them, but not me. You believe them if they say they didn’t mess with me.”

I replied,” I did deal with your every complaint, didn’t I? ”

“I want you to kill all of my classmates!” he yelled at me.

“Killing is a crime. That is against the law. I cannot do that.”

“You’re a piece of crap. The worst teacher I have ever met!”

Losing my control, I struck my desk and shouted at him,” Say that again!”

“It’s all your fault!”  He grabbed a chair, threatening to throw it at me.

“Put it down!” I lashed out at him.

The chair still hung in the air. He was hesitant about his next move. Other teachers stopped him and took him away to the Office of Student Affairs. He cried and continued shouting there.

All I wanted to do was to be alone, so I left the office. Standing in a balcony, I felt like I was facing an abyss. The icy wind from every direction pierced through my body under the burning sun. I felt nothing but desperately devastated and hurt. I was totally defeated; I kept questioning myself if I had done anything wrong.  After the incident, he became angry and aggressive toward me. Nevertheless, he seemed to have less difficulty getting along with his classmates.The Special Education teacher told me that he had transferred his anger on me now.

 I have never seen him after I came to the U.S., but I dream of him very few times. In my dreams, he is complaining of being bullied, and the usual expression on his face still makes me uneasy.

I have learned my lessons. Rather than quitting, I am filling up my supply, waiting to win a victory in the next war. 

Who is the next?

After being sick of dozens of reality shows, for instance, Project Runway, Top Chef and Big Brother, people have an exciting alternative choice now-- Work of Art. Now it is artists’ turn to compete with each other each week and play “One of you will be the winner , and one of you is leaving us tonight” game. How fine art can be related to commercial and entertaining industry? As an audience, I feel sort of embarrassed every time I see those artists being judged by critial judges. But I need not think that way since a painting is being showed in the gallery; art has already been connected with business. Would Picasso, Chagall and Magritte join the competition if they lived in twenty first century? Who would win? It is a wonderful show after all. People can see much creativity and imagination, realize the process of creating and know the artist’s perspective of creation. All the authors should be alert now. They might unsurprisingly be the next target to entertain the audiences. In that sense, they might be chosen to join the reality show to compete for $100,000 I believe it doesn't take too long to see "the next great writer" in America.

Swamps

Full of excitement, you walk the crooked path in the forest to see swamps.

To your surprise, you come across a green snake.

It slides away as though you were not even here.

What astonishes you more is the delusion.

Sunlight drifts on the water, shining brightly.

“It is an ocean!” you think.

You don’t feel damp or smell any strange, undistinguished gas at all.

Dead lily pads leave traces for you everywhere.

Fish submerges in deep water.

The sun carries declined, broken branches of withered trees in this huge, endless ocean.

The sun had grown old here.

Sunlight lay across the street like an old yellow dog, barring the way. The sun had grown old here.  ----Eileen Chang

When I arrived here few days ago, the sentences came into my mind. Compared to the climate in my country, it is hotter and drier in the summertime. The sun spreads everywhere. You have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. It was my first impression.

Although I came to west side of America twice, it is my first time to the south. "Southernism" is a new territory I want to explore. It is just more than a new vocabulary I learned on my first day.