Meant to be Broken

Oh dear...

Katie and I got in big trouble today with Danny. At night he gave us a stern talking-to, for having broken several rules in sequence. Had I been willing to plead our innocence, I would have countered that: a) the rules that we broke were rather equivocal, and the language in which they are couched really needs to be ironed out more fully to avoid misunderstanding; and b) our intent was truly noble, and we were acting in the spirit in which the rules were conceived--namely, that we were trying to engender a spirit of goodwill and friendship. However, my exculpatory enthusiasm was squelched by Danny's humility and the gentleness with which he reprimanded us. After our talking-to, I felt quite guilty, and had to apologize that our behavior had caused him so much distress.

To mirror my perception of what happened, I will give you a brief narrative of what happened, then explain how our conduct constituted a breaking of the rules. [Okay, so perhaps this isn't totally fair, because I was aware of the rules before I violated them. The actual application of the rules, however, can be murky, which is why I was a little surprised when I was reprimanded.]

CACSO, the organization through which we teach in China, provides funds for room and board for our students. However, not all students are covered, just the boarding students from the countryside; kids who live in the city are expected to eat and sleep at home (naturally). During class, a group of our students from the city asked if they could eat dinner with Katie and me in the school cafeteria. Partially because there always seems to be leftover food, and partially because it's hard to tell your students, "no, you can't eat with us," Katie and I acquiesed.

Cognisant of the rule that city students must pay (what seems to us) a nominal fee of 7 or 8人民币 (about $1), Katie and I collected the money upon our arrival at the cafeteria. We told Danny, but he said that we hadn't told the cooks, who need about 2 days prior notice to ensure they buy/prepare enough food. [And this is pretty fair; there were about 11 extra students with us; during a typical meal, I estimate about 80 people eat there.] Katie and I felt too embarassed to simply turn the students away at this point, since they had been friendly enough to initiate eating a meal with us, and we had already collected their money. So, after exchanging looks of distress and asking ourselves, "So...what should we do?", we agreed that we should still keep our appointment to eat with the students, but we would feast off-campus. This seemed the most reasonable way to spend time with them, while not overtaxing the resources of the school cafeteria.

After a short period of deliberation, our students recommended "sour soup," or something to that effect. Because Katie and I have little knowledge of the good eats in this small town, we were at the mercy of our students' designs. We arrived at the restaurant, which to my surprise, served hot pot. During the discussion about where to eat, I hadn't heard the term "火锅," the typical term in Chinese used to signify this dish; I guess they used local slang. On a day when the temperature is 90+ with the humidiy factor, boiling hot soup is about the last thing one wants to eat, and a small room with the body heat of 13 people plus two gas stoves is about the last place one wants to eat it.

The atmosphere of a sweltering inferno notwithstanding, the food was quite delicious, and we had more than our fill of beef, pork, mushrooms, noodles, fish balls, and a host of Chinese vegetables. When the bill was tallied (according to the number of skewers of food left), we found it a very reasonable $14 for 13 people. After returning the students' money, we told them the tab was on us, and they could treat "next time," (a trick my mom always uses in order to treat people, in hopes that when "next time" finally rolls around, they will have forgotten.)

Here's a list of rules we violated during the course of our dining experience:
1. We allowed students to come without 2 days advanced notice for the cooks.
[addendum: We DID remember to collect the money from the city students who wanted to eat.]
2. We took the students out on an excursion without permission.
3. We paid for their dinner, which constituted a "gift," and gifts to the students are strickly prohibbited, unless they are home-made.

I think after the lecture we received, Katie and I were "meant to be broken" (in spirit), and indeed we did genuinely feel remorse for giving Danny more problems by disobeying the rules, especially since he is such a soft-hearted leader. Even so, my co-teacher and I did honestly feel good about having had dinner with the students. "I'm sorry that we broke the rules," Katie said, "but I'm not sorry we got to spend time with the students." Our excursion felt like time well-spent, even justified, especially for Katie, who really hasn't had an opportunity to interact with the female students outside of class.

In true impenitent fashion, I am posting photographs of our misdeeds online as evidence of our crimes:


The girls' table, immediately adjacent to...


...the boys' table! Man that room was broiling!