I never attended the school, but as far as I can tell, Chinese kids are very tame compared to my brothers. Tales from their school days in Macau are already family legend—like the time Josh came home with only one eyebrow. “I was minding my own business when one of the boys ran past me in the hallway with a razor and shaved it off!” he told our father, not wanting to confess that he’d shaved it off himself on a dare. But the tale that beat them all was when the boys came home with Josh’s backpack full of “onions” for dinner, only to find out after our father got a very angry call from the school that the boys had dug up all the newly planted flower bulbs. They all got a serious walloping for that stunt.
“You don’t need a System school education anyway,” my father says. “They only teach a bunch of lies, like evolution. Learn to read so you can read the Mo Letters and basic math to add, subtract, divide, and multiply, in case you need to do the Home finances one day. Science you can learn from seeing it happen in real life with the farm and garden. Everything else you need to learn is practical: witnessing, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of babies. Your grandpa pulled me out of school when I was twelve to become a full-time missionary and start the Revolution! It didn’t hurt me one bit.”
Despite our father’s dismissal, our mothers agree that we need at least a basic sixth-grade education. The question is how? Hac Sa feels like the end of the world; there are no English bookstores to pop into and buy grammar books. Mommy Esther decides to mail-order the English Calvert and Super Workbook textbooks that American homeschoolers use. At least Uncle Michael follows a curriculum of the three R’s: Reading, ’Riting and ’Rithmetic.
As the first kids born into the Family, we are the guinea pigs for everything. The adults try to figure out how to give us a basic education in line with the Family’s changing beliefs. Esther makes sure to send updates to the Family News about what we are doing in education so other new parents can follow. Family Care, a division that produces our child educational materials, sends us Family readers, comics, flannelgraphs, and story tapes for us children to learn the Bible and Mo Letters, the main focus of our education.
My father, always on the lookout for more space, gets permission for us to use an abandoned wooden shack behind the village temple. Our parents set up a makeshift classroom with some plywood tables and benches. When it’s too hot, we move our benches outside to sit under the huge fiscus tree, but in winter we all huddle around a single kerosene heater. My rambunctious brothers dread the hours they’re forced to sit at their desks, copying sentences or math problems from the chalkboard. So, when our father stops by for volunteers to paint the shed, the boys are off like a shot and Uncle Michael is forced to let out lessons for the day. My father says the most important lessons are the practical ones.
The comforts of city life seem like a distant memory, and I find that I like being outside, even if I am doing chores most of the time. And with all the space we have, I am mostly able to stay out of my father’s way and avoid punishment, which is fortunate since he has a terrifying temper.
He has two speeds, happy and mad, and that switch can flip without warning. One moment he’ll be laughing and playing, taking us on fun adventures to the beach; the next second, one of my brothers is dangling on his toes as our father grips him painfully by the back of the neck. Anything less than instant obedience, even forgetting to say, “Yes, sir,” can set him off.
We are all scared of him when he gets mad; usually just the threat is enough to get us to behave properly. He has a paddle that he uses for spankings that he carved from a wooden two-by-four with the words “Rod of God” burned into the handle, just like the one the principal at his elementary school in Texas used when he was a boy. The spankings hurt, but at least he never punches us or breaks a bone.
As Grandpa taught him, he spanks us on the soft tissue of our bottoms where we might get welts but not permanent injury. Similar with pinching our arms, squeezing pressure points on the backs of our necks, an open palm smack in the face, or a knuckle to the head. All designed to cause maximum pain without leaving a permanent injury. This is “Godly child-rearing.”
Sometimes one of my mothers’ Fish or government official friends will invite our whole family to dinner. If we are eating at a restaurant, something we might do once or twice a month, and one of the boys starts getting too rowdy, our father can’t haul off and smack him in public like he would at home. Instead, he thickly spreads Tabasco sauce on a piece of bread and hands it to the culprit, saying through clenched teeth, “Eat it all.”
We watch expectantly as the boy’s face gets redder and redder and silent tears and snot run down his face as he unwillingly gulps down the punishing chunks. We feel a little sorry for him but admire him for the feat of strength. We know it is harder than taking a smack because your mouth will burn for a looong time, no matter how much water you drink.
My mother and Mommy Esther occasionally discipline us with a few swats with a hairbrush or a time-out, but for anything serious, we are sent to my father. Once it’s in his hands, they stand by helplessly with an “it’s up to your father now” attitude.
Only a few times has my mother stepped in and stood up to my father when she thinks he has gone too far, like throwing one of the boys against a wall. Mommy Esther never speaks up to defend them, though, and I can tell Josh resents her for it.
I don’t get spanked very often, especially in comparison to Josh. He thinks it’s because Mommy Ruthie protects me. He gives me extra elbow jabs and cutting comments to make up for it. But the truth is I’ve watched so many spankings, I’ve learned to avoid the worst of them. And my mother tells me that I learned fast.
“When you were six months old, you used to throw temper tantrums. I was a new mom and didn’t know how to handle you. Esther instructed me to spank you really, really hard. You were so shocked. I felt guilty, but after that you never threw another tantrum. Now you just pout.”
Yes, I do. Whenever I feel so angry and hurt I want to scream, I go completely silent, arms crossed tight over my chest, refusing to speak to anyone. My parents call it sulking. No smiles or teasing can jolly me out of it. My silence screams in a house full of noisy kids.
Of course, sometimes you just have to cry.
“It itches!” I wail.
It’s at 3:00 a.m., and I am running to my mother, frantically scratching my bottom.
Mommy Ruthie sighs groggily and says, “Turn over and pull down your panties. Let me look.” She finds tiny, white wriggly worms in my anus and confirms it’s pinworms.
“I’m not surprised,” responds Mommy Esther, woken by the commotion. “The kids have their grubby little paws in the dirt all day, picking up trash or playing with the dogs.”
“This is why we keep telling you kids not to bite your nails or pick your nose! The worm eggs in the dirt get into your mouth and hatch in your tummy,” Mommy Ruthie lectures.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard this lecture. If one of us has worms, we all have them. When we got them in Macau one time, Mommy Ruthie bought a small, nasty-tasting pill that we all had to swallow. The itching went away, and a few weeks after that we took the second dose to kill any eggs that may have hatched.