I Was A Teacher - A Memoir (Part III)

I WAS A TEACHER -  A MEMOIR

(PART III:  FINAL PHASE)

Well into my teaching career, alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, and most of all, hopelessness, had destroyed my youthful health.  Fortunately, I could finally escape that rotten life, that no-way-out society; I could finally avoid the potential distant vision of becoming an old, poor village teacher.  And for the first time, my fate had spoken its voice. 

Rotten Life, Rotten School, Rotten Society

Schools in Vietnam those days were getting more and more rotten:  teachers no longer wanted to teach, students no longer wanted to study. I came to school feeling more and more lonely when around me my lovely students had gone and the new ones got more and more deteriorated educationally and ethically. Teaching platform, where used to be my heaven, where I found the meaning for my existence, where when I looked down, I found my love and my hope, became colder and more deserted than ever.  I ended up unable to find anything meaningful to do.

And just like that I indulged myself deeper and deeper in alcohol, coffee and cigarettes to kill times and ate so little. One previous female student of mine from OMon who paid me a visit a few years after I left there could not imagine that I got that much skinnier.  It was hopelessness which killed me much faster than alcohol, coffee and cigarettes together and I helplessly realized that I was gradually dying both physically and spiritually.

Pham Cong Thien and His Philosophy

On those days, it was raining so often and hard.  For so many times I had walked aimlessly in heavy rain looking for something that I didn't know, feeling like I would die after the rain was over.

In the uttermost darkness of those days, I was lucky enough to find a little of flickering light at the end of the tunnel when I read the book "New Consciousness In Literature & Art and Philosophy" by the philosopher  Pham Cong Thien. He showed me that I was not the only one on this world who felt that way. He also showed me a way to deal with stalemate by "making friend with stalemate, sticking one's head into the loop of  stalemate, skipping with stalemate..."  His philosophy had influenced me much more than anything else, which helped me to find a flower blossomed in the uttermost of hopelessness and standstill. Only when we come to the uttermost of hopelessness and impasse, could we find that actually hopelessness and impasse are as beautiful as flowers.  And so, thanks to that, I had learned how to live peacefully with hopelessness and impasse without being destroyed or withered.

Best Look Ever

It seems to be illogical and out of the question to mention "look" here in the context.  Actually, it is mentioned here for some reasons.  It contributes to clarify how I really lived and was perceived those days. Moreover, it is presented under other people's viewpoints of my then look, not mine.

Honestly I didn't have a heart to pay attention to my look on those hopeless days.  I didn't realize how I look those days either until very latter on when I came back from refugee camp and was told again and again directly by those people who met me those days.

The first person who "helped" me to realize that was an old lady - the mother of my female friend - who was also the first one I met after leaving refugee camp.  I came to her house looking for my friend but unfortunately my friend was not at home and she greeted me instead. When I introduced myself to her, she looked very shocked and told me upfront in a very astonished tone in spite of my embarrassment: "Is that really you?   How come you are the very handsome, student-like guy with very white complexion I met before? What happened to you?".  When she finished her speech, I knew that the transformation from naive, gorgeous Arthur Burton to weather-beaten Gadfly had worked its way both externally and internally. 

After that, I had a chance to see back a few of my old students and we together reviewed those old days. I was touched to know that it took my students a long while to recover from my leaving.  But it surprised me more when I was told how I had been adored and loved both spiritually and physically by my students, especially my female students.  And I was explained the reason I couldn't have known about that was they all had tried so hard to hide it. Actually, upon consideration I knew the real reason was I had been too naive to realize such a thing.

These stories are told to let you know how naively I led my life on those days of hopelessness and standstill.  And suddenly a question came across my mind:  is it true that hopelessness has its own attraction and only a person with such uttermost hopelessness could possess such charming attractiveness?  Somewhere in the uttermost of  hopelessness I found myself just picking up a blossomed flower.

(to be continued)

08/29/2010

Jeffrey Thai