Spring fever was all around the town, people were enjoying the time spending outdoors relaxing while deep breathing the fresh air with small portions of dust lining your nose hairs. Sometimes you could see amongst the pollution small dots of kites flying high into the sky and people playing a major western sport of soccer, minus the Beckham’s and Ranaldo’s.
Everything in the town was alive and the cherry trees beginning to give fragrance of sweet rose petals after a cold winter passing, until the day that the TV reported SARS had hit China.

It was fresh news and there still wasn’t any real report of people dying in China, studying was as usual and we were able to come and go from the school just like water flowing free down the stream.

SARS was the major talking topic over the next few weeks both on the street and at the school with the principal declaring that they were going to take high measures to combat this disease. Feeling a little unease about the situation I made a phone call home to assure the family I was OK and nothing to worry about, prompted me to also look out the window and gaze at the workers laying cement and glass on top of the fence.

As I gazed to the fence and surrounding school yard, everyone including I, was moving to the oval for the important announcement. Our school and housing area was about to become a living compound and the puzzled look of faces wondering ‘Why there was glass on the fence and were we the prisoners or the disease?’

I was given the chance to go back to my own home country, but being a strong confident person I chose to stay in my new hometown and country.

Visiting the local restaurants with SARS knowledge floating at the back of my mind, gave me a bigger sense of eating out more than staying at home in the compound , while being flooded continuously with news about the epidemic.

Many restaurants in the town were not your standard four to five star rating, in fact just a hole in the wall that served quick, reliable, value for money and sometimes often scraps on the floor visible to the eye for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately disposable chopsticks became a new trend and left the old way of reusing them over and over in the past.

I was feeling a little heart broken a first not knowing whether my old trusty reused mouth chewed chopsticks, were alive and kicking or whether they had been discarded to the funeral home of the local trash bin.

Either way I soon became familiar to my new disposable pair and mauled on them like no tomorrow, leaving my teeth marks and stained ends visible for the table beside to see that I was happy to eat everything available on the table and not worry about the sanitary of the restaurant.

May 1st was approaching and the students were informed that they unfortunately would not be allowed to visit home for the short break. Many felt sad, but deep down knew it was for the best. Over the months that followed reports were flowing fast and a sea of parents gathered and pushed closely at the gate entrance to catch a glimpse of their offspring.

As I walked up to the entrance gate to go and eat at the restaurant close to school everyday, parents would look at me thinking hard with their eyes, giving me the feeling of sadness and surprise that it was Ok for the foreigner to go out of the compound gate and not their child.

* * * * *

Nearly six months had passed and everyday was the same as the day before, students restless, disinfecting the classrooms and trying to stay focused as the end of the school year was approaching, even though their faces clearly showed what they wanted.

They had missed the May holiday while also missing the comforts of family surroundings and I sometimes could not tell if the temperature in the classroom was rising from the student tension or from the heat of summer making its return.

The examinations review classes flowed week in and week out, leading to the final week of exams and that all approval of leaving the school compound. Humidity was making the students more restless and anxious like sharks searching for food, but the determination of succeeding no matter what obstacles China and the Chinese people face, nothing could take the spirit of valuing the family away from them.

The last day of the school year arrived and I had no need to get up early as most of the students were leaving with sounds of cheers and laughter.

My train of cheers and joy was not departing for several hours. I laid staring at the tiny lines in the ceiling as if themselves were small wrinkles developing on a face of age and recapping being confined to the school compound for protection from the deadly disease SARS.

Hours past and all packed for my vacation, I wondered up slowly to the gates that had kept heaven in and the devil out over the past six months, to feel free and heading to the coastal seaside city of Shandong province called Qingdao.
The next two months of the summer break were going to be consisting of relaxation, swimming, eating and of course partying, as I had many months of confinement to shred. Plus also time to energize my batteries for the new school year and prepare to face the disappointment of knowing that the past six months of English learning by the students, slipped away slowly rather than quickly, like the chips falling at a game of mahjong.