When I was very little, I was very nervous and terrified every time I went back to my primary school, because my teachers are very cruel, and it’s even okay to say they are evil. They would punish me for very small things by hitting, kicking, whipping or even slapping in my face. For example, I would get hit because I forgot submitting my homework even if I’ve already done it.
Weapons and Women
The weapons they used were stories. They shifted from tools to tools.
The first generation was wooden rulers, hollow iron handles of brooms, and solid wooden handles of brooms. Whereas, they all had a similar problem: bad endurance. After using them as punishing tools for many times, they would be broken, as they were originally not designed as weapons. Until now, I still vividly remember, once during the punish, the hollow iron broom handle split into halves, students whose eyes almost got hurt by the accident splinter, the terrified classmates and the gloomy weather. And I was just fearfully sitting on my own seat, watching them getting beaten, unsure of whether I would be the next.
These weapons hurt, but not durable.
To solve this problem, the math teacher ordered a tailored, solid and iron stick. Even in the mainland China at that time, it wasn’t quite usual. Most of Chinese teachers would just use the aforementioned tools for punishing, instead of buying some special tools. But how did I know it was tailored, instead of something I didn’t know, considering I was still very young at that time? In fact, it was the woman who taught the math told us this information. She announced one day in public that after waiting for days, the stick was finally delivered, excitingly, with her big goofy smile on her ugly face and squinting eyes behind her thick glasses. The outside was made by iron. The inside of the stick was filled with some kind of concrete powder or something. Up to now, I still didn’t know what was that. It can be slightly bent with some efforts, a bit of weighty, considering its slender shape. The most important was it hurts. Hands would get swollen up every time I got beaten, much worse than rulers, because of its slender shape.
The woman who taught mandarin also showed her creativity. She used the off-the-shelf tool: skipping rope.
I call it the third generation of weapons. It perfectly catered the principle of what weapons would be used for punishment: endurance and pain. Personally, it’s unable to compare which one was the worst: skipping rope or the tailored stick. In the terms of shape and pain, they were quite similar. Although math wasn’t her specialty, mandarin was indeed her talent. She told us that “Although she was the one beating us and we hurt physically, emotionally she was so hurt, she didn’t feel good for beating us”. Wow, what a wonderful way to use language, huh. Now, she was even the suffer.
Parents and Punishment
Other than these I listed, I also got physically punished by different means, but I wasn’t the worst one.
The worst was one of my classmates. My teachers once publicly announced they’ve gotten the permission from his parents to beat him as a punishment. And teachers even artificially said they didn’t have the heart to do so, although they did so many times in fact. My classmate once showed me the plentiful long bruises on his back in the dormitory: they are dark, purple and red. Purple ones meant they have been for a while since the time he got hit. Dark ones meant they were getting to recover. While, red ones meant they’re so fresh. Some of them were gotten from the teachers, and the others were from his parents. What makes it more miserable was his back always had dark, purple and red ones.
I told my parents about this. The only feedback I got is “Teachers are for students’ own good”. After that, I totally gave up on resorting for their help. I knew it’s worthless and what would I get if my teachers know I told my parents. Of course, normal connections of trust between me and my parents has never been built since that.
Practice and Learn
All of these lead that every time I saw the gate of the school in distant, my heart would start pounding. I still remember vividly I sat in the back of the electric vehicle of my parents’, quietly listening the pounding of my heart and the sound of the wind streaking clearly. I kept telling myself to calm down for years. But, my heart remained pounding during those years.
Situations got slightly better after I grew up a little. The day I graduated from the primary school, I feel deeply relieved, instead of sadness. Once I read a news saying a student beat his teacher after he had graduated for years, when he accidentally run into his teacher. Of course, he said he had been terribly treated when he had been in the school. I asked myself a question after I read this news, if I had been in the same situation, would I have done the same thing? During a long period of growth, I didn’t know. What I did know is such evil thoughts had once been in my mind.
Backing to the question, I’ve been practicing this ability of keeping calm since I was in the primary school, so negative emotions wouldn’t easily and heavily affect me. It’s not a gift, it’s something through learning and practicing.
