The Headmaster, the Terrorists and Me
Travel Stories: Two years after the Bali bombing, Julia Ross recalls the attack's unlikely impact on her teaching experience in China
The headmaster, I said to myself, much in the manner of Jerry Seinfeld declaiming, Newman. There was no threat, real or perceived, that could possibly arise between the school gates and the Lus’ home, a mile to the west in a semi-rural middle class neighborhood. The man was using the specter of terrorism to manipulate my social life. Why, I wasn’t sure, but I was faced with a split-second decision: cause a very public loss of face—a pernicious offense in China—or draw a line in the sand, assert my independence, and restore the happiness of a heartbroken 7-year-old. I told Mrs. Lu I’d be there.
The following afternoon, the Lus greeted me with a surprisingly authentic American-style pizza, made with the expert guidance of an Italian friend, and Aileen was ebullient. The party went off without a hitch. As the days slipped by and no one commented on my transgression, the line from the Wizard of Oz ricocheted in my head: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Foreigners in China often find it hard to deconstruct decisions reached behind closed doors, and in this case the truth was no easier to grasp than a curl of smoke, lazing ever skyward. I asked to meet with the school’s deputy administrator, Mrs. Tang, in an attempt to decipher the headmaster’s gambit.
A doughy, good-natured woman whose face conveyed a middle-aged sensibility beyond her 33 years, Mrs. Tang was a beloved mentor who had risen through the ranks of the English department. She worked long hours to instill a sense of pride in the school, conducted telephone diplomacy with the mysterious “school leaders,” and struggled to raise two high-strung, 11-year-old twin boys. I hoped we could talk openly. Another week passed, and a message filtered through: She was too busy to meet with me, and the issue was “complicated.” I was chastened. If I could skirt cultural imperative, Mrs. Tang was bound by it.
Eventually, the truth trickled out over a bowl of rice. One Thursday during lunch period, as a tinny children’s song about a seagull played over the school intercom, my Chinese deskmate looked up from her meal and let it slip that the headmaster wasn’t on good terms with Aileen Lu’s grandmother. A story unfolded: The grandmother had worked for years in the school library, retiring the year before I arrived, forced out by the headmaster before she was ready to go. Putting the pieces together, it seemed he simply didn’t want this particular family to have the honor of receiving the foreign teacher in their home. Hubris had ensnared me where the terrorists couldn’t.
The headmaster kept a studied distance for the remainder of my stay. I had stood my ground, my moral compass quivering at true north. How much my actions had eroded his authority or changed the school’s dynamics remained cloudy. Our wordless battle had been a riddle wrapped in an enigma, and I supposed it a draw. My last day in China, the headmaster insisted on driving me to Pudong Airport in his shiny Volkswagen Santana, accompanied by the English department head as his designated translator.
I left him as I found him: smiling nervously and nodding, blessing my departure with a hurried Zaijian. The unanswerable lingered in that curbside moment: Had he lost face? Had I? I turned to leave, my luggage rolling in fits and starts across broken cement. As with so much in China, I had to accept that I would never know.
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