Displaced Persons 3 of 3

We were again herded into yet another room where we were given some twine, a few bricks and a large canvas and told we should fashion a tent for our group. Night came, the lights went out and the refugee camp soldiers who were supposed to be there to protect us spent the night shining their lights into our tent. In the tent next to me a man was hauled out, frisked, and accused of being a trouble maker in the camp.

The next day, anyone under sixteen was invited to attend the refugee camp school. Thirty kids lined up. They only had room for six.

Several of the women were told that for the price of their watches and rings, an escape could be arranged. So on the second night, they slipped out under the cover of darkness and followed the man who had taken their jewelry as payment. I found out later that they had been sold into slavery.

Finally, the leader of the Crossroads program slipped off his turban and announced "Ladies and Gentlemen, the simulation is now over." The simulation had put me into a rather peculiar frame of mind that was a combination of powerlessness and dread. I thought that I would have snapped out of it once it was over, but it took me a while for the sensations to ebb away.

We debriefed as a group and talked about what it means to be a displaced person. We also talked about how because Hong Kong appears to outsiders to be all about wealth creation, Hong Kong is sometimes accused of having no soul. Someone pointed out that the ever-increasing scope of the work that goes on at Crossroads proves otherwise. The Hong Kong government actually requested that Crossroads outfit itself with a gift shop and a cafe so that they are equipped to handle tourists.

The Crossroads staff, no longer wearing fatigues or holding semi-automatic weapons, brought out all the watches, rings, and other jewelry in individual ziplock baggies that -unbeknown to us- they'd been carefully stowing as they were surrendered during the simulation.

Finally, before departing, we were instructed to leave our laminated i.d. cards on the table by the door.

I had been carefully gripping mine the whole time.

I didn't want to give it up.

I wanted to keep it as a reminder of what had been a rather transformative hour and a half.

I took one last look at the i.d. card I had been given: "Mohammed Chelab. Age 21. Not married. Farmer. Head injury."

I deposited it on the table with the other cards and exited the building.

-Jack

Displaced Persons 2 of 3

Suddenly, several staff women rushed into the room we were sitting in and instructed us -pleaded with us really- to follow them and to move quickly. All seventy of us quickly herded toward the one exit. On the two flights of stairs were more people imploring us to move faster. None of us knew what was going on. I simply gripped my i.d. card and followed the person ahead of me. We were all ushered into a room with Persian rugs and tapestries on the wall.

A man -who I was about to find out was the head of our village- started addressing the group. He told us that he had been to the neighboring village and seen the devastation with his own eyes. He said that he feared that the rebels were coming here next. He said that he knew about a refugee camp just over the . . .

Suddenly, there was a deafening bang and all the lights went out. In complete darkness, we could here soldiers entering the room, yelling orders, telling us to put our heads down. Knowledge that this was a simulation left me. Instinct took over. I did what they said.

Suddenly the lights came back up. I could see that where a taipestry had once been a large six-foot hole in the concrete wall now stood. The soldiers were dressed in fatigues and carrying automatic weapons. The barked at us to move, move, move. As we stepped through the hole in the concrete wall into the next dimly-lit room, the soldiers told us to separate into two line of men and women. We did what we were told. None of us talked among ourselves. I gripped my i.d. card.

When it was my turn, I handed my i.d. to the guard who alternated between shining his flashlight on my i.d. card and in my face. It seemed like he was taking longer than what should have been necessary. I was wishing that he would simply wave me forward so that I could rejoin the rest of my group. I was afraid that he was going to send me somewhere else or detain me for some reason.

In the next room, we were told that we had to get ourselves into groups of seven or eight people and at the same time to keep an eye out for possible relatives. Finally, something constructive to do. I started milling around, approaching various groups of people, and quietly calling out the name "Chelab" hoping that someone would hold up his or her card and show me that he too was a Chelab. I knew that it was just a simulation but I really wanted to find somebody who had the last name as I did. Not quite sure how to explain it but, but I really, really wanted to find somebody who was a family member.

Displaced Persons 1 of 3

His name was Mohammed Chaleb. He was twenty-one years old, unmarried and a farmer. He had a head wound and was disoriented.

I am not even sure if he was a real person.

But for ninety minutes last Friday, I was him.

Crossroads is a one-of-a-kind organization. They started out collecting clothing and furniture from those with excess to give to those in need. Things quickly grew and Crossroads now sends out several cargo containers worth of goods every month.

Then CrossRoads set up an international, state-of-the-art website that matches up those in need with those with excess so that a company in Taiwan with excess office furniture can connect with an orphanage in Zambia who is in need of desks. This on-line clearing house was so successful, that when the UN needed something similar, they contracted with Crossroads to design it for them. Not bad for an organization that started out in an Australian couple's spare bedroom in their Hong Kong apartment fifteen years ago.

Crossroads also does a lot of work with refugees here in Hong Kong. Another service that Crossroads provides is the chance for visiting groups to get an insider's feel for what it's like to be a refugee. They started running these simulations a couple of years ago and they have been widely successful. In fact, Crossroads was invited to an economic summit in Europe last year where luminaries such as Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines participated in the very simulation I was about to take part in.

The Headmaster at our school is a pretty extraordinary guy. In addition to being a crack administrator, he is quite the visionary. While some heads of school might plan a faculty picnic to kick off the school year, Ben Norton signed up our entire staff for Crossroad's refugee simulation. Several years ago, he was the first headmaster to bring his teaching staff to Cross roads. Several area schools have since followed suit.

So last Friday, after a brief explanation and a short history of Afghanistan, I was handed a small, laminated i.d. card. I was to be Mohammed Chaleb - a soon-to-be displaced person. I was also given a bandage to wrap around my wounded head. All the women in our group were given headscarves. We were given a few minutes to get comfortable with our new identity.

Boomerang Kids

The summer school program not only uses ICS teachers, but also makes generous use of a lot of college-aged alumni who are back in town for the summer. They serve as teacher assistants, hallway monitors, gophers, and a few of the more experienced ones actually teach a class.

It was fun chatting with them before and after school. It's pretty standard for these alumni to go to school in North America or Great Britain. Toronto and Vancouver are particularly populare destinations. Because we are a Christian school, a lot of alumni end up in evangelical colleges like Wheaton or Taylor. During summer school, the head of the hall monitors, Y.K. regularly wore Calvin College basketball shorts that his buddy brought back for him.

Having all those college-age kids around added an extra dose of energy to the whole summer school atmosphere. It meant that our program was one part school, one part vacation Bible school, and one part summer camp.

Y.K. and his family are originally from South Korea. He just graduated from ICS and was his senior class president. He was also the starting pointguard on the school's boys basketball team.

When I asked him where he was going to school in the fall, I was a little taken aback when he told me he wasn't going to university.

You aren't going to college?

No, I am going back to Korea to do two years military service.

Every South Korean male, I found out, must give two years of military service once he turns eighteen.

You can be exempted from service if by your eighteenth birthday, you have lived out of Korea for a total of twelve years.

When Y.K. turns eighteen next month, he will have have lived out of South Korea for eleven years and five months.

So close.

Hopefully, they give him the summers off to come back and work in the ICS summer program.

-Jack

Enkido

As the assistant director for summer school, one of my jobs was to circulate through the building and make sure that everything was running smoothly. Occassionally I would slip into a classroom and join a class in progress. If the kids were coloring at their tables, I would join in.

If they were sitting on the carpet listening to their teacher, I would quietly slip in beside them. But I had to stop doing this last one. Whenever I sat down on the carpet next to the children, the kids around me would stop listening to the teacher. It wasn't my presence per se that was a distraction. It was the fact that when I sat down, all the kid's within arms reach would start playing with my leg hair.

So fuzzy. So hairy.

Apparently over in the land of windmills and wooden shoes, they breed 'em a little hairier than they do here is Southeast Asia.

-Jack

Aspirate those T's

One of my favorite things to do during summer school was to greet students as they came into the building. Many of them had limited English language ability, so when I greeted them and asked them how they were, they all invariably gave the same word-for-word response. They would pause on the staircase landing, take a breath, and then clearly articulate (over articulate, really) each word with an ever-so-small pauses in between each.

"I am fine, thank you."

Wow. So formal. So polite.

After working with local students for the summer, I started to pick up on some of their other Enlgish language patterns. First, among these pint-size emerging Enlgish language users, I noticed that they did not use contractions. Every word got its due.

Instead of "I didn cut her hair" it was "I did not cut her hair." (Actually we know you did, three of your classmates saw you do it.)

Instead of "I won't write on the back of the teacher aide's shirt anymore," it was "I will not write on the back of the teacher aide's shirt anymore" (Darn right you won't. First your cut a girl's hair. Now this?)

The second thing I noticed was that compared to native English speakers, our local students tended to aspirate all of the their T's. In English, even though we spell it "button" we don't really say it that way. We say something a little closer to "buddon." When saying Wheaton College, very few native speakers apsirate that internal T so that a little punch of air comes out between the teeth. Most say something half way between a T and a D.

In their quest for precision, our little local students aspirated everything.

"Why did your teacher send you down to my office"

"Because I was NaughTy."

"You were being nawdy?"

"Yes. I was mean to QuenTin. But I will not be naughTy anymore."

Way too cute.

Unless you're the girl who got her hair cut.

Then it's not so cute.

-Jack

Um, yeah . . . about that

This past winter, Julie and I both signed up to teach summer school. Being a nurse rather than a teacher, it took Julie a little while to agree to take on the responsiblity of teaching a summer school class. But, in the end, she found my powers of persuasion too much to resist (hence, why we are even in Asia in the first place). I promised that we would do it together and I would be with her every step of the way. With all that homeschooling expereince, I knew that she would do great. Besides, she was going to be working with first graders. How hard could it be, right?

Shortly after we both signed on to teach summer school, I was approached by the director of the program and asked if I was interested in being the assistant director which meant that I would not be in the classroom. To summarize: the nurse was going to be teaching and the teacher was not. Did I mention that this whole summer school thing was my idea?

It took me almost a month to work up the courage to confess to Julie that I would not be teaching. My trepidation was not ill-placed. She was none too happy with me. She claimed that while she was busy running a classroom full of little ones, I was going to be sauntering down the halls with my morning cappuccino in hand glancing into classrooms windows.

Nothing could be futher from the truth.

I don't drink cappuccino. I prefer lattes.

Julie taught writing to five and six year olds. She had five classes which were 35 minutes each. On average, she had 24 students per class and she had two teaching aides in the classroom with her.

She did a great job.

And her husband was with her every step of the way.

Granted, he was holding a latte in one hand the whole time.

-Jack

School's Out for Summer

Last week, Julie and I finished up a four-week stint teaching summer school. During the first two-wek session, the program had 400 hundred students; during the second two-week session we've had over 600 students.

Schools in Hong Kong fall into several catagories. ICS is an international school. Around here, non-international schools are simply refered to as local schools. By extension, we refer to non-ICS students as local kids. This identifies them not only as attendees at a local school, but the assumption is that they are from families that generally do not hold international passports, don't necessarily speak English at home, and probably have not lived overseas for any length of time.

Our summer school program was dominated by local students. The summer school program gives families who don't send their kids here during the school year an opportunity to expose their children to an English-language program taught by English-speaking, certified teachers. It's also a Christian-based curriculum which is a draw for many of the families.

Although our program is open to students up to fourteen years of age, the vast majority of our summer school students are four-, five-, and six-year olds. We were overrun with little ones this summer. Since I teach middle school during the school year, it was fun for me to have interactions with the little ones every day. They're so tiny. And cute.

The program started out very modestly just eight years ago but it has grown beyond anyone's expectations. As much as the school would like to accept everyone who applies, they end up turning away students every summer.

It's amazing what happens when you offer a product or a service that people want at a price they are willing to pay.

Even in education.

-Jack

New Digs

We've moved.

Not very far though. Just across the hall. We are still living in on-campus housing, but instead of being in two adjoining studio apartments, we are now in a three bedroom apartment.

We were very happy with our place last year, but I must say, we are pretty jazzed about the new place. The girls are excited to have their own bedrooms -with actual doors that close. Previously, because of the nature of the layout of the two studios, if one of us was watching t.v, all of us were watching t.v.

Glad to have a little room to spread out.

-Jack