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560 Ever in My Memory The Rod of My Teacher I entered second grade after the long summer vacation of 1943. My teacher, Mr. Kinh, was a devout Buddhist and a severe educator. He seldom smiled, or to be more exact, he sometimes smiled with his fellow teachers but almost never with his pupils. Moreover, he did not talk much, using gestures instead of voice whenever possible. Hewasmyfavorite,andIhatedhimaswell.Hisvoice,lowbutpowerful,and hiseyes,sternandmurderous,areimprinteddeeplyinmymemory.Buttheimage ofhisrod,hungononesideoftheblackboard,alwaysappearedclearerandlivelier in my mind whenever something turned on the high-definition images stored in the picture file of my brain. Duringthecolonialera,wehadtolearnFrenchinthefirstgrade.Itwasrather difficult to learn a new language that appeared to have nothing in common with our mother tongue. I tried my best but was unable to memorize the gender of a nounandthedifferencebetweenanadjectiveandanattributedespitemyteacher’s efforts to simplify his teachings. Once a week in the second half of second grade, Mr. Kinh gave us a simple “orthography” in French. He would write a text on the blackboard in beautiful handwriting. The text usually contained three or four short sentences, each containing two or three new easy words taken from a French textbook that he had already explained to us in detail. He let us read and memorize the chalk lines on the blackboard for five minutes without taking notes. Then he covered the blackboard with a cloth before reading aloud the dictation and we began writing. When the dictation was over, I gathered all notebooks and brought them to his table to be graded. thirty • Ever in My Memory · 561 His rule was one lash of his rattan rod for each mistake a student made in the dictation. In the fifth month of the school year 1943–44, Mr. Kinh appointed me the “rod keeper,” but later our classmates called me “đao phủ” (the executioner). The procedures went on routinely once a week for the four months of our second grade. When the teacher began grading the notebooks, I stepped to one side of the blackboard and took down the rod, which was nearly three feet long and about a quarter inch in diameter. As Mr. Kinh was reading and making corrections on the notebooks, I stood beside his desk with the rod in my hand, my face tense and my eyes looking straight at nowhere, awaiting his ruling. After having graded a notebook, he put it to his right hand side and announced the “verdict,” very clear and always with only a three-word clause in French, for example, “Hoàng, trois fautes!” (Hoàng, three mistakes!). My classmate Hoàng would say, “Yes, sir,” then walk to the teacher’s desk to pick up his notebook. Then he would step to the blackboard, which rested on a wooden horse,obedientlybenddown,andputhisneckunderthelowersideoftheboard. I would lash his buttocks three times with the rod. Hoàng would happily stand up after the third lash without waiting for an order, because teacher Kinh did not require us to do so, and returned to his seat. Hoàng would smile as if thinking, “It could have been much worse.” A pupil would be extremely happy if the verdict was cut short to a single word, only the pupil’s name, without the other two words stating his mistakes. Our classmates dubbed it acquittal. The lucky pupil would quickly approach the teacher’s desk and turn back with the notebook, a radiant smile, and a face blushedbyhappiness.Somecouldnotresistboasting,“YouseehowgoodIam.” Among my classmates in the first quarter, fifteen often had one mistake or none, the other fifteen or so frequently had one or two, and the remaining five frequently had two or three. As far as I can remember, no one always had “no mistake,” and no one had more than three. Inthefirstfewdaysonthejob,IwasunabletodeterminehowhardIshould “punishtheconvicts,”becauseatthatage,Ididnothaveenemiestotakerevenge on. Moreover, we were rather friendly to each other, although many years later we would become enemies fighting on both sides of a long and bloody civil war. The first time, I carried out my duty with a hesitating arm on a boy who had beensittingnexttomesincethefirstgrade.Mr.Kinhsuddenlystoppedgrading and looked at me—a dagger look that was much more threatening than the rod itself. He slowly rose from his chair, walked to the blackboard, and snatched the rod from my hand. Mr. Kinh showed not a bit of anger, and his face was calm as usual as he said to me in a toneless voice, “Not hard enough. Let me show you how it must be.” He motioned me to...

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