They All Say I've Met a Ghost

6

I had originally left my room to ask my colleagues what to teach tomorrow. This school was full of unreliable types, from the principal down to the toilet cleaner. They hadn't even had me sign an employment contract, and they had sneakily sent my first month's salary while I was sleeping.

Of course, this was good for me. No contract meant that I could leave the training school at any time without any restrictions.

But having taken the salary advance, even if the school had irregularities, I still had to earn the salary they’d given me. Even if Principle Zhang's style was lax, I couldn't be careless.

This was a principle of being a good person.

"I would like to ask what kind of group of students I’ll be teaching tomorrow,” I said to Liu Sishun modestly. “Is it an in-service education, postgraduate entrance examination, or civil servant written examination class, or what?”

Liu Sishun was surprised. He pushed at his glasses for a while and said, "None of those."

"Well, what do you usually teach?"

“I just teach the right way to be a gho — person,” said Liu Sishun. "You really can say whatever you like. It’ll be fine."

"And this training institution can still find students?” I couldn't help myself. Was this really an MLM scheme? But what kind of MLM scheme could operate like this? You couldn't develop any downlines.

"Not many students. After all, everyone is cremated these days." Liu Sishun sighed and said with a melancholy expression, "I still remember that during the Republic, there were companions everywhere. It wasn't lonely at all. But since the founding of the People's Republic, there have been fewer and fewer colleagues."

I couldn't understand him at all.

“Might I ask what Teacher Liu does?” I ventured.

"Oh, I like to write strange stories to earn some money on the side. I also work at the school teaching vernacular."

"Oh, a Chinese teacher, and a part-time writer." I nodded. No wonder I didn't understand what he was saying. It was normal for a novelist to have some unusual ideas. I remembered reading somewhere on the internet that after the founding of the People's Republic, some creators were limited in writing. Teacher Liu must have been talking about that sort of thing.

"It's just teaching people to read and speak. It's not being a Chinese teacher," Liu Sishun said, "You may not know, Teacher Shen, today’s gho — people get worse and worse with each generation. It's heartbreaking to think about what we were like then. But some of the new gh — newcomers don't even speak properly. It’s really heart-breaking. What I can do at the training institution is just teaching them how to speak. For example, Li Yuanyuan. When she first came, she couldn't speak a word, so Principal Zhang had her live with me for extra lessons. She’s better now, but she still speaks a little slowly.”

At this point, I understood what kind of students this training institute was tasked with teaching.

It seemed to be people on the edge of society, like Mr. Saw, who suffered from mental illness due to his short stature, or like Li Yuanyuan, who had special hobbies and problems communicating with others.

For these people, the most important thing was to acquire the skills to integrate into society and to receive psychological counseling. Some subjects that appeared on exams weren't so important.

And it was no wonder that Principal Zhang had said that I could just say anything. She’d probably hired me because she’d liked my ideological and political education credentials and hoped I could help these students establish a correct world view.