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I will not delude myself into believing that I was an exceptionally good English teacher during the time that I worked at Number One Middle. However, I remain a fondly remembered teacher by the people who worked with me. Not because I was excellent, but rather because I wasn't horrible.

Robert and Glynnis—the two Australians who were at the school when I arrived—they seemed somewhat alright. But they were hired through a staffing agency and, a week after I came, the agency decided to respond to their 'unfixable' complaints by sending them to a different school in a different city.

Alisdair and Stuart—also Australian—a pair of brothers, came next. They lasted four months. This was just long enough to anger the administration to the point of firing them and revoking their work certificates and residence permits. In 2018, it rarely happens that the employer of a properly hired foreign employee will go through the necessary legal hoops to fire them. In 2002, it was unheard of.

The next Australian, whose name I don't remember, just disappeared one day about three weeks after he arrived. He'd had a bad cough from the winter smog and had been staying in his apartment for a few days. He didn't even tell anyone he was going.

After him came a lovely Filipino lady with a masters in education. Only she viewed the school as a stopgap temporary thing while trying to get a "real job" at a university or an international school. I think she was there for five months.

Then there was the old British alcoholic with the very young Chinese wife. He choked to death on a piece of food.

And a few months after that his replacement had a heart attack.

(Of the three foreigners to die in Hebei that year, two of them were working for Number One Middle at the time of death.)

In addition to stuff like being their first foreign teacher to stay more than one year, my trying to learn Chinese, or my total obliviousness to my role as a game piece in office politics, I was notable during my time as an employee of Number One Middle for things one really shouldn't be notable for: things like showing up to class sober, never trying to date any of the high schoolers, and not dying in the middle of my contract.

Among other foreign employees who have held my former position over the past 16 years, I continue to be remembered not only because I've stayed in China and stayed in contact but also because I have succeeded wildly above and beyond the "oral English teacher" glass ceiling for foreigners, however I don't kid myself with thinking I was a good teacher. I know people who are good teachers. The people whose home I'm staying in, for example.

Joy still works at Number One Middle. Her husband Ridge is retired from the military and his position at the military school. He works as the assistant to the headmaster at a different school. By this point in their careers, they've both had well upwards of a thousand students. Yet somehow, despite Chinese class sizes, they manage to read and grade papers, remember and are remembered by their students, and even keep in contact with some of them.

They are educated and interesting and even if they haven't had grand adventures (and to be honest most people don't ever have a grand adventure) they've really done stuff with their lives. Raised a kid who is neither a brat nor ridiculously shy. Read books. Picked up hobbies other than "sleeping" and "watching TV" (two of the most popular Chinese hobbies according to survey responses). Survived over a decade of office politics in the same workplace without becoming bitter, acrimonious, gossipy, or withdrawn.

It would be cool if there were more people like them in the world.