The Three Amigos: Education

When I entered first grade my two best friends and I were in the same class. Needless to say we caused a lot of trouble but only when our teacher was not there. When she was present we tried to be angels but that was not always the case. In hindsight, she was a really good teacher, wanting the best for us, but we drove her crazy. I will describe my experiences but let's set the stage.

The school building was divided into two sections. The smaller, older building with three floors was filled with first, second and third graders. The bigger, newer building belonged to the fourth, fifth and sixth graders (In China elementary school is 6 years). We always looked at the bigger building as if it was something we could never touch until we earned it with time. The older kids never liked the little ones getting close to their side of the school. During playtime we would travel in packs and stayed away from their side. In the middle of the two buildings was the school bathroom. It was honestly a shit hole (no pun intended) and it smelled like one. What would be urinals here in the states was a long section about 10 feet wide and 2 feet deep walled off by bricks piled up to about half a foot and a few drains in the middle. There was no privacy which didn't really matter, we were stupid kids and nobody cared. But the place where we took shits was just a hole and we had to squat above it. No walls to separate you from the person next to you. There was no flushing system, everything just piled up. I remember one hole overflowed and there was a 2 liter Sprite bottle on top of it. I found it humorous.

Our class room held 60 students, two to a desk placed in four or five rows. Before every morning's homeroom started the teacher picked three or four students to take a big bowl of water and splash water in the aisles to settle the dust. It only made things muddy and slippery. So every morning we would wait for who was going to fall on their ass. Almost every day some one fell victim and the class would laugh hysterically. I loved school back then. All my friends were there and and we had so much fun. Maybe too much fun. Our teacher was constantly pissed, haha.

Now that we have the stage set, I can get into the stupid things we did.

One of the three amigos decided to whisper during class one day. Our teacher, like a cat, caught the sound and the source it came from. She called him out to stand in front of the class and left him there for the rest of the class. After about 10 minutes he started rubbing his legs and after 20 he just took a seat on the ground. The class started giggling because our teacher didn't notice and continued with the lesson. When she turned around he was up again. Brilliant. He started to moan and bent at the knees to give them a rest. She did not budge. Eventually, the moaning got annoying but when she turned around he had this awful look on his face. She felt so bad, she helped him back to his seat and when she turned back he gave a little wry smile. Victory.

One day, in science class I felt really sick. In China it was frowned upon to skip class, but if you were sick you needed one of your friends to deliver a note. That morning I felt like crap but I figured I'd rather brave through the day. Big mistake. It was probably a few hours before noon when I felt really bad so I put my head on my forearms and soon after I threw up all over!! It spread a radius of about three feet around me and people were just in shock. What was worse: it got all over my uniform and my shoes. The teacher threw me out of class and told me, with disgust, to hose myself down. Outside in the yard there was a big sink, I got in and took a bath with my cloths on, came back soaking wet and she was even more pissed. HAHA.

The last member of the three amigos did something worse: he wrote a love letter to a girl. This action was deemed very inappropriate so our teacher got the principal involved and called in the boys parents. His grandfather came instead not knowing what the fuss was all about. In China, boys are not supposed to be flirting with girls or even thinking about girls, but boys are boys what can you do? Our teacher was very worried and took this issue very seriously. She suspended a day of class just so she can scold him in front of all of us and escorted him to the dreaded teachers' office to "think" about what he had done. While this was happening rumors spread like wild fire in the class room about who likes who. We all had a grand time with this whole situation, but the teacher found out and scolded us for about an hour. When the perpetrator's grandfather came in the teacher had a private conference with him about his grandson's behavior. We were not present at this meeting but rumor has it that the old man flat out laughed for about 10 minutes straight when he heard the news and even congratulated his grandson on a job well done, much to the displeasure of our teacher.

School was awesome in China. We had so much fun but we also learned faster than kids in the states. I knew the multiplication table after first grade but when I entered third grade in Philly they just started learning it. The states need to pick it up. I really appreciated going to school back then, probably for the wrong reasons but it got me through two crazy years. Just remembering those times makes me appreciate the toilet I have in my bathroom, haha. I really appreciate the toilet.  

The Three Amigos: Pranksters

This is another story of the three amigos. As I mentioned in the previous post, when I was in first grade my parents allowed me to walk to school with my two best friends (when I lived in China). It was a good 2 miles away if I remember correctly and on the way, there was so much to do...

One thing we did almost every day was deflate the tires of bicycles. In China, the main source of transportation for most middle class citizens was bikes. There were bike racks everywhere and people would ride to work, lock it up and go to work. My dad had a bike and even built a baby seat in the back so I could ride with him when I was young. So on our way to school we would sneak up to these bikes, unscrew the caps on the tire nozzles, wait till the tire was totally deflated and threw away the cap. Thinking back, we were really bad kids. We probably ruined a lot of people's days but I can't help but laugh at myself. We were so good at it we never got caught and numerous commuters walked home with a flat tire not knowing who did it.

But this was not enough. We needed more excitement and stimulation so we started spitting on car windows that were parked on the sidewalks. Even though this is disgusting and terrible we felt justified in doing it. Anyone who owned a car in China walked around like their shit doesn't stink; with their heads held up high as if they was better than everyone else. And they parked on the sidewalks where people walked. So we spit on the windshields and the mirrors of fancy Audis and Hondas, and ran away as fast as we can. This quickly became boring. Unimpressed with ourselves we moved on to bigger things.

So we began messing with drivers at red lights. One time we found a jug of water laying in the trash pile and we used it to cause some trouble. At a red light we took the jug and placed it in front of a taxi driver's front wheel. We tried to be sneaky but the driver saw us, came out and screamed at the top of his lungs. He called us stupid kids and some other unpleasant things. We knew he couldn't come after us because his car is stopped at a traffic light so we hung around at a comfortable distance taunting him. The dude was so red he had not idea what to do, but the light turned green so he got back in and drove off. We cheered at the victory and mocked the driver on our way back home.

As Charlie Sheen would put it: Winning. But thinking back, we were terribly stupid kids who knew no bounds. I would hate to unlock my bike to ride to school only to find that my tire is flat because some stupid kids thought it was funny (it was HILARIOUS at the time). So the question that remains: do I regret doing those things? The answer is an emphatic NO. If I had the chance I would still do it today but the consequences are more severe for a 20 year old. I'm still a kid at heart-growing up sucks.

The Three Amigos: Big Trouble

When I was young and still living in China I had two friends: Wang Nan and Wang Jin Tao (no relation-kinda like Smith in China). We were best friends and everyone knew us as a trio and if we were in America we would be called the three amigos, so that is what I'm gonna call us. When we were in first grade we were allowed to walk to school by ourselves after the route to school was familiar to us. Our parents allowed it and we felt pretty good about it because it gave us freedom. For first graders freedom equals trouble.

One day walking home, the three amigos decided to take a trip through a construction site and play follow the leader. The construction guys didn't care and let us play to our hearts content. They were digging a really deep foundation; it must have been only 20-30 feet deep but to us it looked like the grand canyon. There were two parallel steel pipes that ran straight across the big hole smack in the middle. They were connected to each other so it gave us plenty of room to walk across. We had a great adventure crossing the bridge to a far off land where we climbed mountains made of small rocks, dug trenches from huge piles of dirt, built fortresses with large stones and defeated imaginary enemies while we fought valiantly as brothers in arms. The time was lost.

By the time we got home it was 8PM and my dad was pissed. He didn't even speak to me for the rest of the day (however short it was). One of my friends' parents went out looking for us and had some of her friends looking around too. I don't remember being yelled at for it or punished, but I do remember walking home in the dark thinking what is my father gonna do?? And that sick feeling I got in the stomach made me want to throw up.

I don't regret one second I spent playing with my friends. That is gonna be a happy memory I will have for the rest of my life. I don't regret one second of it.