I feel like sometimes I am in prison or hell, and this is what prison or hell feels like. This place, that I am witnessing every day. It's really difficult. I think I just feel like I'm losing my mind. I feel like we are all cogs in a machine here. There are big cogs, and small cogs, and important cogs, and unimportant cogs, but all of us are cogs. And the more rare and necessary a particular cog is, the more it is worth, and the more it gets paid; and the more common and unnecessary a particular cog is, the less it is worth and the less it gets paid. But no matter what type of cog we are: big, small, important, unimportant, common, or rare, when one of us breaks, they just throw us away, stick in a new one, and away the machine works. Away, the machine pumps out cheep, petroleum-based clothes and shoes, toys, games, electronics, steel, and wood, to be shipped to these far away lands. Products as disposable as the hands that made them. And away the machine pumps out Education, and English as a second language, because the government demanded it. And that is who controls the little buttons that makes this machine run, the government, and the policy-makers. And there is no communication between the people and their government. The people are the parts, and the policy-makers are the controllers, and that is just the way it is. And it is hell. The government doesn’t care about the people. If the government decides to push a button, that turns off a particular set of cogs, say, English as a foreign language for example, it can do it. Just like that. They press a button, the foreigners are deported, and away the machine works, pumping out more and more disposable, low quality goods, which will continually need to be replaced and repurchased by the user, the addict, the consumer; and anything else it decides to pump out. It is a real nightmare here sometimes. The truth about what it means to be a human becomes apparent, and it becomes real. And the experience of witnessing the juxtaposition of the ways of life of humans on these two separate continents, these two sides of the globe, has changed me. I am still human, but everything else has changed. I feel like I’m breaking down, mentally and emotionally, a little more every day here.
I feel stranded and desperate.
It's between 35 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit here, and the school has forbidden us from wearing hats and gloves. Why? because the kids can't do it. Meanwhile, 40% of the kids are sick, and they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves. I don't get it. This is a society where people will roll up their pant legs up to their crotches, and their shirts up into their armpits when it gets too hot, but they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves when it gets too cold? It's insanity! No wonder I feel like I'm loosing my mind here. All because the school administration (policy makers) pushed a button and decided it has to reach a certain temperature before the kids can wear hats and gloves. They fail to take individual differences into consideration. They fail to consider that some people are more tolerant to the cold than others. As far as us foreign teachers, we are wearing them anyway as we feel like it. The Chinese teachers and administration are suffering for the sake of suffering, and for the sake of setting a good example for the kids, and for the sake of following this rule. This absolutely retarded, and senseless rule! One foreign teacher has quit. She is from the Philippines, and has almost no tolerance for the cold. The other day, when they informed us of this rule, she broke down crying. She was already very sick, and they had told her to come in anyway. She's not the type of person who can easily say no to authority. So now, the school lost a teacher. Us English teachers are rare, important, and valuable cogs, and worth a lot more to the school than we make, though we do make excellent money compared to the Chinese teachers. And I suspect the school will be loosing more English teachers soon, myself, probably being one of them.
It's important to note, that the school is not heated, and because it is made of concrete and steel, it's actually colder inside than outside, less for the human body heat we all produce.
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