David

David is our best friend at school.

We are David’s best friend.

Matt and I have a mentally disabled boy in our class named David. He is the only student that we know his Chinese name (Lu Shang Tong). David loves us. He is usually waiting outside our office door when we get to school in the morning and he always walks us to our bikes at day’s end. We aren’t only his teachers, we are his best and only friends.

I remember when I first saw David in class. His desk was an angry mess of crumpled papers and he wasn’t wearing a red and white uniform like the other kids. He avoided eye contact with me and when I talked to him in English he responded like a piece of birch bark and when I put my hand on his shoulder he shied away as if I was a leper. He was out of control. He would run around the class. He would slap his arch nemesis, May, then squeal and run back to his desk. He didn’t participate. He didn’t care. He was a frightened and abused dog who didn’t trust anyone and cared only about surviving till lunch. This was the David of September.

Matt was the one who made the initial breakthrough with David. Usually when we were teaching Class #8 I would be in charge and Matt would work with David one-on-one. This was the first individualized education he ever received. In China life is a continuous striving for harmony not individuality. People want to be anything but last and would rather blend in than stand out. When you live in a land of 1.3 billion humans, individuality, liberty, and choices are buried under the movement of the herd. If you’re buffalo in a herd of 1.3 billion and there’s a stampede, my guess is you’d rather go with the flow rather than do pirouettes as a creative expression of your individuality…

So David’s parents probably pay an insane amount of money for him to be in one of the best middle schools in the land where he receives no individualized help (that would slow the stampede…) and he is fodder for bullies, not even bullies but those who need a self-esteem boost so give David a kick in the knees and thus boost their social status. After Matt loaned David 100 yuan in probably late December, David’s view of us has transformed from scary gringos to social refuge and friends.

David loves the song “Edelweiss” and despises the song “Do-Re-Mi” (I found that out the hard way). Every time we see each other he usually hums it and we’ll sing it together. We’re no von Trapp family, but David has translated Edelweiss into Chinese, so take that Austria. He loves it when I bring in my guitar so we can jam out together.

The kid is amazing at English. His vocabulary has been growing like a puzzle on the dining room table – piece by piece it comes together. He is really intelligent. When we first started to converse it was more hand motions than anything and now we have full conversations with him and we don’t really slow down when we speak to him like we do with all the other students (and English teachers).

One day a few weeks ago there was no David to greet us in the office. No David walking sandwiched between Matt and I on the way to the cafeteria. No high squeaky voice asking, “How do I do?” And the thought struck me like an angry gust of northern wind that sucks out your breath, “What if there was no David in your life?” It was an unnerving thought. Someone who was previously a nobody, often annoying, a ubiquitous shadow, a gentle boy, a familiar face, and now a friend. My life would be less full, less rich, less meaningful without my friend Lu Shang Tong.

- m -