Banished!

4. Primary School

FOUR ~ Primary School 1 Young Tao had reached the third year of primary school before the family's banishment to the countryside, but Sanyu 's primary school only had two classes, the first and second years. So it was not really a primary school, only half of one, or rather less than half of one since primary school then consisted of five years. After the second year students had to go to Gezhuang Primary, just over a mile away Because of the distance and the fact that the family had only just arrived in the village, Tao decided that his son should go to Sanyu Primary So young Tao dropped back a year. Sanyu Primary had only one teacher, a Mr. Jin, who also doubled as its head. There was just the one schoolroom in a mud-brick building with a thatched roof. It was fairly dilapidated, although still in much better condition than the Taos' temporary home in the cowshed. Mr. Jin was not daunted by the apparent difficulty of teaching two grades in one classroom. He put the two groups on opposite sides of the classroom, with a passage down the middle. Behind the dais was a patchily painted blackboard. While the first group was copying, the second group listened to the teacher, and vice versa. So the two groups ran smoothly side by side. Mr. Jin, hands behind his back clasping the textbook, walked complacently back and forth down the aisle. The dais, the school desks, and the benches on which the pupils sat were made, like many objects in common use in Sanyu, of mud bricks. Village cookers were of sun-dried mud bricks; the household cupboards where food was stored were also made of clay (and 63 were known as clay cupboards). The braziers used for keeping warm were pressed from clay, and of course so were the houses themselves. The schoolroom, made of mud inside and out, was no exception. Apart from the blackboard, which was knocked together out of a bit of coffin wood, it contained not a single piece of wood or other material. The mud-brick schoolhouse had been built from community funds and was similar to the other Sanyu buildings in every respect. The desks and benches were all made by the students themselves without any outside help, from their kneading the clay to laying the bricks to final plastering. Instead of making proper sun-dried mud bricks, the students saved time by digging wet clay directly from the river. The clay had grass and weed stalks in it, so there was no need to add rice and wheat husks to the mixture. They gave the clay a good kneading , just like kneading dough; beat it; and finally formed mud bricks out of it. In fine weather you often saw children squatting on the river banks, lifting mud bricks high above their heads and smashing them down with all their might, over and over again. The riverbanks presented a lively scene: the loud thuds of clay being thrown and thrown again mingled with the cheerful shouts of the children. The compacted mud bricks were the basic material from which the desks and benches were built. On top of this went a layer of thin clay mixed with rice straw. Once one layer had dried, another was added until eventually the cracks became finer and were hardly noticeable. As the students bent over their desks, the cuffs of their padded jackets rubbed the table tops so smooth that before long they shone like coal. Since the desks and benches were made of only clay, they did not last long. They frequently had to be renewed, so clay kneading and bricklaying were regular ongoing activities. Gradually young Tao began to find them enjoyable. Collecting dung was the students' other daily task. In fact it was an even more regular one than kneading clay. A child going to school without a satchel was not an uncommon sight, but one without a manure bag was not a proper student. On a trip to the market in Wangji, Tao bought his son a manure bag made of woven willow so that young Tao could carry it to 64 Han Dong school. It rubbed his shoulder raw to start with, even empty, but he got used to it. It was much heavier when full, but he did not mind the weight. The heavier it...