» Spoilt Brats

Gogo
A few years back I paid $2.50 to get an online TESOL certificate and made an expedition to China - the land of mass-produced crappy merchandise and pirated DVDs - in order to teach English to students. The first year I worked in a little known country town which may as well be known as Bum Fuk, which had only three other FTs (Foreign Teachers) in the town at the time. Suffice to say that the kids were mainly from middle class families, adorable, and eager to learn. I felt like Brittany shagging Spears that year, people would stop me to take photos with their kids and random people would take me out for dinner, pay for my groceries, look through my rubbish and comment on the contents etc. It was a wonderful time, and the only reason I left was because the lonliness was getting to me. But I digress.....

Fast forward a year and I am offered a job (with a big payrise) working at a Private School not too far away from Hong Kong. Private schools are quite expensive here (as everywhere), and while most of the kids are nice, I also see some of the best "spoiled little emperors" that China has to offer.

On Friday afternoons myself and some of the other teachers are paid quite good overtime to run private lessons - affectionatly called VIP classes. My group of seven Grade 3 students are a delight, and for two hours each week we learn our new words, make something arty-farty to show Mama and Baba and then I take the kids out to the corner store for an ice-cream. Fun for all, and a fairly pleasant way to end the week.

Until Gogo came along.

Gogo is a new student, and as Daddy is a big party official, he had been making his presence known all over school. Principal ushers him into my class and tells him if he is a good boy, he will get an ice cream at the end of the lesson. No worries there, or so I thought.

For about 15 minutes all is grand until Gogo stand up and says "Ice cream".
So I retort with "Sit down, please, we'll go for ice cream later".
"Ice cream NOW" the little mung bean replies.
"No, LATER" I shoot back.
Cue the screams and wails while my other kids exchange looks, and calmly explain to him that we will get an ice cream at the end of the lesson.
So Gogo sits and sniffles until we finish making our crepe paper creations.
Finally we get to the corner store and everyone gets to choose an ice cream.
Gogo plonks an ice cream, a can of cool drink and a snak pak of chicken feet on the counter.
So I takes the drink and chicken feet and put them back on the shelf.
Gogo retrieves the controband snacks and places them on the counter, with a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it? look on his smug little mush.

"BAD boy! No ice cream for BAD BOYS!"

Cue wails and crying again so I picked him up and carried him back to school under one arm.

I found out later that he dobbed me in to his Dad, but Dad called the school and said that next time he shames his family I can feel free to "punish him" even more "severely". Don't really want to go there, though.

Better luck next week, kid!
(Sat 11th Oct 2008, 20:17, More)