Chapter Fifty-Four: Class Officers

This period was art class, taught by a middle-aged woman also surnamed Li. She knew Hong Tao, which was no surprise—he had been auditing classes here for two years. Except for some senior teachers, most had at least seen or heard of him. When Teacher Li entered the classroom, Hong Tao was bent over, wiping chairs. She paid him no mind, pretending not to see him, and walked up to the platform, waiting for the class monitor to call the class to attention. The whole class stood and greeted her in unison, stretching out the words, just as Hong Tao finished his task and sat down with the rest.

After forty minutes, every student had handed in their drawing of the sun. Hong Tao, too, submitted his masterpiece—a bitten apple he had finished in ten minutes. He then laid his head on the desk, entering a feigned sleep. This, too, was an essential skill for any troublemaker: no matter the class, whether sitting or standing, if you couldn’t quickly fall into a daze, the day would be hard to endure.

“Da Jiang! Come to the playground, someone’s looking for me!” As soon as the bell rang, Hong Tao snapped out of his doze, sprinting out the back door at full speed, calling for Zhang Da Jiang as he ran.

But why was Hong Tao in such a hurry? He was racing to claim the school’s only ping pong table. It stood across the playground from the teaching building, about sixty or seventy meters away. In truth, it was just the vent of an air-raid shelter, its opening ringed by a wall of perforated bricks, topped with a cement slab the size of a ping pong table. A row of red bricks in the center served as the net.

With only one table, even doubles allowed for just four players at a time. With so many classes and over a thousand students, there was no way everyone could take a turn in ten minutes. Whoever got there first played; that was the rule. Generally, classes on the third floor and above didn’t bother to compete for the table—it was too far and, even if they won, they’d barely get a few minutes to play. Only the lower grades on the first and second floors would rush to claim it.

To win the table, you needed two things: speed—whoever arrived first won—and toughness; if you managed to take it, you had to hold it, too. If it were Zhang Da Jiang, even if he slept on the table every day, he’d still be chased off by others.

Hong Tao, however, was the perfect candidate. Speed was no issue—he exercised daily and, after two years of eating catfish, was taller and stronger than his peers. His classroom was on the first floor, close to the door, so he could set off quickly; before the teacher even left the classroom, he was already at the entrance. By the time he collapsed onto the table, breathless, the other children from competing classes were only halfway across the playground.

Most kids, seeing someone already on the table from afar, would veer off to the parallel bars, the horizontal bar, or the climbing pole—those, too, were first-come, first-served. Still, some stubborn ones would try their luck, only to give up when they saw it was Hong Tao. Most knew who he was—especially who his little uncle was—and didn’t want to get beaten up or waste their time. Yet, there were always a few who didn’t know better, and among the first to arrive was Jin Yue.

“Hey! This place is taken!” Hong Tao stretched his legs out on the cement slab, formally announcing his claim to the group of approaching kids.

“You’re alone. Let us play with you!” The kids, all older than Hong Tao and likely upper graders, didn’t try to snatch the table but tried to negotiate.

“There are four of us—she’s already here. See the chubby one running behind? He’s with me, and there’s one more on the way.” Hong Tao pointed to Jin Yue, then to Zhang Da Jiang, who was just crossing the playground, and to his little uncle. His uncle had already dashed down from the third floor, while Zhang Da Jiang, lugging his hefty frame, struggled behind, soon to be overtaken.

“Let’s have a competition—three balls each; loser steps down.” The older kids tried their luck, proposing a rotating match.

“Scram!” At that moment, Hong Tao’s little uncle arrived, paddles in hand, grabbed one boy and tossed him into the sandpit, shooing the rest away like flies. Once they saw Hong Tao’s uncle, the others lost all bravado. Ten-year-olds were no match for a sixteen-year-old—a single shove and they’d be sent flying. They left, looking back every few steps.

“Good grief… I’m exhausted… You get to play here every day for two years and still aren’t bored? What’s so fun about this?” His little uncle leaned against the table, panting. He rarely played, not because he couldn’t, but because he’d lost interest; now, he was more interested in attracting the girls in his class and would rather stick close to them after school. If it hadn’t been for Hong Tao’s special request, he wouldn’t have come down at all.

Whatever his uncle thought about the game, since he was here, he might as well play. Fortunately, Hong Tao was good enough at ping pong to be a worthy opponent. Nearby, Jin Yue and Zhang Da Jiang played as well—though they spent more time retrieving balls than hitting them, they were quite happy. Especially Zhang Da Jiang—after all the misery he’d imagined for his first day of school, he never expected that the boy he’d attended preschool with two years ago would let him enjoy such a wonderful day, giving him milk candy and including him in a game of ping pong.

Seeing the envy in the other children’s eyes, even Zhang Da Jiang, as slow as he was, knew this was a rare privilege. Unfortunately, it lasted only a few minutes—once the bell rang, he had to run back at top speed, breathless for half the next class.

The last class of the morning was math, taught by the homeroom teacher. When Hong Tao and Zhang Da Jiang dashed back into the classroom, all the students sat quietly in their seats. It was the first day of school, and most didn’t know each other. Even those who had been in preschool together were nervous and reserved in the new environment, unlike Hong Tao and Jin Yue, who were already familiar with school life.

The homeroom teacher was a middle-aged man whom Hong Tao had seen a few times but didn’t know well. He wore a Mao suit, his hair slicked down with what must have been a generous amount of pomade, making him look more like a high-ranking official than a teacher. Hong Tao’s first impression of him was not favorable.

He didn’t start teaching right away. Instead, he took the class roster and had each child stand, introduce themselves, and get acquainted with the class. Then he began appointing class officers. Jin Yue became the first class monitor and also the life committee member. Hong Tao was made the study committee member and the sports committee member. Of the five class officer positions, the two of them held four. The only outsider, the discipline committee member, was a thin little girl who sat with her hands behind her back as if at military attention.

Hong Tao was displeased, not because his positions were too low, but because he had too many. He remembered discussing this with Director Bai before; he didn’t want any titles—he’d have preferred to be forgotten. Being a class officer in elementary school was useless except for being named a “Three Goods Student.” Worse, you had to help the teacher offend people—life committee members assigned cleaning duties after school, sports committee members had to stand in front of the class as models during morning exercises, help the PE teacher with equipment, and shout commands to keep the class in line during gym. As for authority, it was nothing more than using the teacher’s name to scare classmates: “If you don’t listen to me, I’ll tell the teacher!” That was all class officers could do.

As he grew up, Hong Tao became increasingly critical of the Chinese educational system. A child should learn more than just knowledge at school—they should be taught how to be a decent person, to distinguish right from wrong. Yet even in the selection of class officers, you could see the flaws. Every year, at the start of school, there was a reshuffling of positions. The teacher would have the students nominate candidates, but the final decision always rested with him, under the guise of “democratic centralism.”

This taught children to say what others wanted to hear and to adjust their behavior to suit those in power. The students’ painstaking efforts to elect class officers were often negated by the teacher, who appointed his own preferred candidates. The nomination process was merely a formality—a way to see who aligned with the teacher and who didn’t, so the teacher would know whom to watch.

Those elected would treat their supporters well and retaliate—intentionally or not—against those who opposed them. Teachers often encouraged students to tattle on each other, erasing what little innocence and integrity the children had. Slowly, they learned to lie, to watch the wind, to value power, to manipulate, and to betray friends for a teacher’s favor.

It was as if, from the first day of school, children were being trained in the art of scheming. Once this worldview set in, it became nearly impossible to change, lingering into adult life and even being passed to their own children, generation after generation.

In truth, teachers did this out of laziness and a desire for easy management. By setting students against one another, they prevented the class from uniting against them. It was a management trick passed down through thousands of years of civilization—emperors had used it on their ministers, and now the same methods were employed by teachers and supervisors. And so, the tradition continued, generation after generation.