Those Young Men in the Blues

The teachers’ spiritual lives are also very tedious. Because the school can’t afford the recreational facilities like library, the teachers living near the school have nothing to do but choose to go home when they have no classes, and those who stay just drink and chat. The young teachers can’t afford TV set at the moment. Some of the old teachers have TV sets in their dorms and part of them can receive programs transmitted from satellites. Actually it is not true that they don’t read. As I know, novels about errantries, digests and magazines like Bosom Friend are very popular among them, which is in accord with the Borrowing Record that I saw in Yellow Sheep River Library. It seems that these kinds of magazines sell very well in countryside as well as in city where most readers don’t have high educational background.

It is not surprising that there are two different attitudes among the teachers if you get to know the above clashes in their lives. ZT and WM have the same attitude toward life. They are worried about their future, because what they concern about, no matter marriage, purchasing apartment or better job, all need money that the present job cannot offer. It is a very typical expression by ZT that ‘I am nearly 30. If it continues like this, I will be finished.’ However, they do not adopt negative approaches，or at least I haven’t realized they have done so. Although they do know the salary is rather low, they have been working very hard these days. In my opinion, it is not only because of the toughness of the western character but also the hope rooted in their brains.

Xiao Nie and Longlong hold another attitude. They are very young, even younger than me, so they don’t need to shoulder too many burdens, and they are optimistic with the belief that the current condition will get better. Longlong, warmhearted and helpful, inquired by me several times, confided he still has the dream of becoming a programmer. While Xiao Nie hopes he can leave the present elementary school for Yang Guo No. 1 School. Their optimism may come from simplicity or simple experience, otherwise I haven’t got what they are really thinking about.

However, there is one thing you should pay more attention to. That I wrote ‘the teachers’ spiritual lives are tedious’ doesn’t mean their lives are dreary. In my mind, many teachers especially for those in charge of class spend most of their time on work, because the students come to the teacher for any problem. The combination of accommodation and work in the school usually occupies most of their spare time and creates vague division between work and personal life. They work very hard everyday. Longlong said when he worked he would feel time goes by very fast. But the teachers, even if the more responsible ones, can’t spend all the 24 hours a day on work without thinking about other things. It is a rule that one cannot leave the school at his pleasure, so people like WM having few friends in the school, will feel bored in his spare time when other teachers happened to have classes. But some positive people will find something interesting like playing basketball or riding bicycles in the mountain area.

My purpose of writing the above is to present an intact portrait of these teachers’ lives, not just one part of it.

In general, the young male teachers almost don’t have difficulties in their lives due to their stable job and income. But it is this stable job bringing little challenges that makes them feel tedious and leaves them not too much room for better development, and this easy job-----only to some of them, gives them a blank spare time. In the contemporary time, I think no one will treat work as his whole life.

have tried to draw a sketch of the countryside teachers’ lives, but I think it is hard for anyone to do so within a few days. I just write down what I saw and thought about.

Consequently, I think of Dr. Dong from Taiwan, whom I met last summer vacation in Yellow Sheep River. One afternoon, he talked about his research plan, from which I felt the approach that the western countries adopt to make social science research, compared with ours, is to create the macro scenario through studying the micros, and perhaps they are not interested in the macro at all. However, the social research in our country, no matter aiming at groups or individuals, is always focused on a large frame, a general course or trend. On the contrary, in the western countries, this macro narrating is what the theories and researches in the past 20 years have tried to dispose. The differences in the individuals are so obvious that it is impossible to put them in a same classification. Any synthetic theory and general opinion are based on the ignorance of individual differences. Do those who attempt to apply this kind of theory know exactly in what extension the theory can represent the general scene and how much do they know about the basis of the theory? The acceptors of the western researches and theories will make a lot of field investigations even communicate with the researching objects before they form their opinions. In comparison, our researchers will make more investigations but with a formulated method.

In my opinion, I prefer neither of the two approaches. In most of time, I am skeptical about both of them. For general theory, I have doubt about the individual; for individual research, I have doubt about the influence of the researcher’s first impression. At least so far, I don’t know which approach I should agree with. Due to my growing up background, I probably tend to the synthetic theory, but whenever I think of individual or my personal experience, I will strongly oppose it. Then I always hesitate between the two approaches, feeling conflicted. Therefore, I decide to adopt the method of recording, keeping the material and data that are to be analyzed afterward.