The Brookside Factor

Spring has come at last to Beijing. Last Tuesday to be exact. We are now firmly established in Summer. Beijing only has two seasons really - summer or, in the vernacular Foo Khing Boi Lin and Winter or Free Zhbollox Orph as it is known locally.

And with the arrival of the new season, comes the new foreign teachers - every one, normally, with a more complicated back story than the average new family in Brookside Close.

First up is Hannah, our one venture in breaking our long observed No North Americans policy which was our school's one token nod in the vague direction of sanity. It took us three goes to pick up Hannah on concurrent 6ams at Beijing airport - the first involved a miscaluation involving the international date line and the 16 hour (maybe 16 year) time difference between here and the States and the second was due to inclement weather in the Texas area.

Hannah, it must be said, is a big lass. In a country where most women have no arses to speak of, you really stand out when each of your bum cheeks requires a seperate postal code. In fact, on one of her first days here, I ventured out to lunch with her at one of the local restaurants and the look on the face of the guys whose table joined couldn't have been more astonished if she'd arrived fully dressed for an extended space walk.

The second arrival was Mat( the Chinese staff somehow resisted my suggestion he was met at the airport with a placard saying "Welcome Mat"). Mat is from New Zealand, but has proved no Kiwi Fruit, in that he has remorselessly pursued at least two of the Chinese teachers and had a prostitute back at his aprtment in the week that he has been here. He has also managed to ususrp may long standing claim to be the Worst English Teacher in China. Within days he had proved an inabilty to teach teenagers and than matched it with a similar aptitude with kindegarten kids.

And then only last night (after being specially briefed by the Chinese headmistress Chen Xi, that his debut adult class featured a number of her friends and some senior members of the local communist party) he managed to "accidentally" fail to teach the last 25 minutes of his two hour class. The smart money is on the order of the Wellington (geddit?) Boot before too long.
Our third arrival was Jacqui from Dublin, who has so far appeared breathtakingly normal, popular with the Chinese staff and even able to teach. I think I hate her the most.

This seeming normality can only be down to one of two factors:
a) A much deeper and darker secret lurking in her past which has yet to emerger, but, when it does, will probably involve covens, machetes or alien abduction. Maybe all three.

b) A complete failure of the scrupulous vetting procedure normally adopted by our Foreign Manager which normally ensures (with one obvious exception, ahem) only total dipshits get through.