Last class at the Yangpu Bilingual High School

woodworking tables and chairs

         On January 4th I conducted the final woodworking class of senior middle school students at the YangPu Bilingual school. The school officially refers to this course as Design and Technology but I wasn't made aware of this distinction until I was given the student roster. 

The guardhouse of the closed campus

         

             I came into this job through Chen Yonggang who has learned to supply contract teaching to school administrators who understand that there is a need to provide their students with handicraft instruction but lack the institutional skills to do so internally. He provides the materials, the teachers, and the projects that the students complete. He mainly hires young women to teach students in primary schools. I agreed to teach the high school aged students since I knew that their English level would have allowed me to actually instruct. Somehow accepting this job compelled me to also teach a class at the primary school level. My reasons for why I didn't think this was a good idea were irrelevant since Chen Yonggang had already promised to the school that he could provide with a foreign teacher.

 

Multitasking

            As it happened, the school informed me while I was travelling in Hungary that they were not pleased with my classroom management with the primary school students and upset that my class and the one being taught simultaneously in the adjacent classroom were not synchronized. So I guess in the end, my reasons won out. This worked out for the best since I was teaching the primary school students four days a week for . As a result I only needed to commute once a week to Shanghai.

The primary school class schedule

            This seemed to have been the first time that Mr Chen has been contracted for a course at such an upper level and with a western instructor. He decided in advance that the students would make model of a Dougong timberframed structure. He even hired an extra man to develop the prototype that would then be copied by the students. I entered the classroom with this in the back of my mind and stressed to Mr Chen that I needed the model as quickly as possible to help motivate the students onto their main task.   

         To his credit, Mr Chen observed the first class that I taught during which I introduced the themes of timberframing, the research and life of the architect, Liang Sicheng, the tools associated with the trade, and the recent rebuilding of Notre Dame. I conduct this style of lesson in order to gauge the students' level of English. It was evident that there was a wide range of abilities. 

Critical part for the turningsaw project

        Mr Chen confessed to my wife that he was there in the classroom with me on the first day so as to be able to offer me some tips to help me out in the classroom; he, instead, confided in her that he was impressed by the amount of information that I was able to present in an organized manner and how well the students remained focused.  Yeah, it's called teaching.  

Dougong model

            The bulk of the coursework were projects that Mr Chen has developed for his own courses and for sales. One of the projects, for example, was the same folding stool that I have already written about. Other projects included both a bowsaw and a turningsaw, a try square, and chopsticks. In this classroom, the students are given metal vises to hold wood. I donated a few bench hooks from my own failed woodworking school and a few students recognized their utility but there weren't enough. With this in mind and the upcoming dougong model, I decided on teaching the students how to make the Underhill style bench hook. 

Still from Lie Nielsen film studios

        The construction of this bench hook offered the students an opportunity practice layout, crosscutting with their newly made bowsaws, and paring chisel techniques. I thought it was a great addition but Mr Chen wasn't convinced until I showed him the video. And then he was very concerned that I would be teaching the students how to use a chisel. He is as much concerned with the possibility that a student might cut himself as how parents would react when they learned that their investments were being put at risk.

Painter's palette

 

 contact milkpaint fumes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            I conducted a lesson on making milkpaint on the Thursday before Christmas. There was less enthusiasm for this lesson than I had gotten in the past. There was however a lot of enthusiasm for painting which many students were very talented in. I don't think any of the students understood that the plywood forms represented spherical tree ornaments. Most students treated the precut pattern pieces as a flat board upon which they painted Christmas scenes.

Abandoned decoration

Common photo pose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the last day, I repeated the instructions as to how the interviews would be conducted and I put a list of names on the whiteboard to help facilitate the sequence. I sat in an adjoining room and waited nearly 15 minutes before I reentered the classroom to remind the class about the interviews. 

Adrian completed the bench hook!

Peter, volunteer bodyguard

Eric and his two saws

Vanessa and her projects

            I got a final opportunity to learn the students' names and get feedback about the course and projects. While I did manage to routinely interact with all the students during the previous months of Thursdays, I wasn't always able to speak with them in a meaningful manner. In the interviews, some students were clearly imitating what they had just learned from their exiting classmates what to expect, having quickly memorized and rattled off answers to questions I had not yet asked. In other instances, the students revealed just how little working vocabulary they acquired: "wood make this."

Steven

Katerina

Chet!

Yuki

 

I finished this last lesson late and discovered that the teaching assistant had already moved onto her next class period. I sent a pic via the social media app, WeChat, to her and she thanked me. Class was over.  

Hammers and saws

painted tool arrangement

As I was leaving the building, I poked my head into the adjacent classroom where an art lesson was being conducted. I saw that the woodworking tools had been repurposed for another teacher's painting class.

Geese and sausage

Bacon and sycamore

 

The preserved meats one can see streetside in a major metropolis   

To all those who celebrate, Happy Epiphany!

Shanghai consular visit and classroom observations

Ostensibly the latest jaunt into Shanghai was focussed on submitting my wife's paperwork at the Hungarian consulate in order to obtain a Schengen zone visa for our trip scheduled in October. The whole process proceeded more smoothly than the wife was expecting despite my reassuring her that she was exactly the kind of Chinese tourist that was welcome into Europe. 

As usual we try to fill our our time while in Shanghai with new experiences unavailable in Nanjing. Mr. Chen Yonggang has been helping me find employment ever since we were both pushed out of Harvey Industries. I arranged with him to observe the courses that he had been teaching in order to see whether I could fill in as an English speaking instructor.

With Master Chen Yonggang in the SATA facility

The first observation was of a class in the Sata training and instruction center. The best way that I describe this event is as a team building activity for the sales staff during a training weekend. It was a bit chaotic. Mr Chen had reduced the actual amount of woodworking to a minimum, having fabricated all the wooden parts on a newly acquired CNC machine and the webbing from an contract supplier.

Proctoring the camp stool classroom

The salesmen simply had to round over the tenon corners in order that they be insertable into the round mortises. That and assemble components correctly in order to make a folding stool.  This style of stool, 马扎凳, Mazahdeng, horse tie stool, calls to mind a Han Chinese horse saddle.

Weaving a seat

Rounding a tenon with a rasp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't get any instruction as to how the stool was best assembled so that I like most of the other attendees just learned from experience as we progressed.

 

SATA sales training event

On a positive note, perhaps due to the dearth of clear instruction, there was ample amounts of cooperation and mutual support. I struggle to understand why a participant would bother to assemble a project and then abandon it before moving onto the next agenda item on the training schedule but as a result my wife got a free 马扎凳 to bring home.

 

Mr Chen explains the latest project

The second event, which I witnessed and to which I lent a greater hand, involved considerably more woodworking instruction with students who were there as eager participants in learning their craft. Possibly purposefully, I am kept unawares about the details of this ongoing course. The wife and I tracked down the CCP funded community center where the class was held on the third floor. This was a multipurpose building with a small courtyard for sports activities while nextdoor a film was being screened and a lower floor contained a lending library. 

A bowsaw, a miter square, and their owner/maker

When I observed some of the tools the students had in their possession, I recalled the prototypes from previous visits to Mr Chen's main workspace. He initiated the lesson by giving those who were ready to move onto the next step in the curriculum a length of pine which had a rabbet cut along its length. The plan was to cut four lengths with ends at 45 degrees, using the student made tools before somehow gluing them together in order to make a pictureframe.

Most of the students struggled with laying out the miters, using the miniature squares, and then with sawing to the pencil line with a bowsaw, especially one far too short for the task. The only holding device was a metal vise which clamped to the thick tabletops with a bit of struggle.

Seated woodworking in progress

The class was composed of mostly local housewives who evidently were getting their first exposure to handicraft instruction. The circumstances were far from ideal for instruction but the level of enthusiasm confirms that there is an as yet unrealized supply for this demand. 

The light-vented bulbul is a fairly common bird in many Asian urban landscapes and surprising friendly.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité aux oiseaux

 

Bonne fête natiionale à tous!

 

 

Huzhou and back: The Elephant Commune

 

四仰八叉凳

A common sight in many rural Chinese households is this particular stool, known as 四仰八叉凳 or Si Yangbacha Deng, a name that means simply: stool with four splayed legs. Its design is basic : rectangular seat, four legs, with stretchers between the short lengths. Its distinguishing feature is how the stretchers (I've seen some versions with double stretchers) keep the legs in place, which I've never seen wedged into the seat mortises, and often become loose with wear and seasonal changes because they lock the legs into a triangular configuration. This piece of furniture has potential to be a beginner project since it teaches layout of mortises, cutting of tenons, and application of geometry. I've never made one myself nor have I ever watched the difficult and critical step of inserting the legs into the seat mortises while simultaneously pressing the stretchers into the leg mortises.

Triangular lock

Common and neglected

This difficulty was confirmed to me while I was involved recently with a newly forming woodworking education facility in Huzhou, Zhejiang, named by the founder: The Elephant Commune. The first event occurred on the 9th of January and was a demonstration of  mayhem which involved the participants pounding together components of a 四仰八叉凳 prefabricated in the adjoining factory without instruction of how to assembly. The losses were evident with some stools abandoned as the participants exited. I don't use the word, students, because there was no teaching occurring. Office workers with no woodworking experience were pulled in at the last moment as was I to assist in the chaotic experience. 

Huddling in the cold

working in the light of the setting sun

a graphic designer lends a hand

it didn't happen if it isn't posted on social media

nothing so fun as fitting legs in holes

sorting out the leg arrangement

Still struggling with the leg assembly

Some participants more wisely chose to assemble the other stool model, which was easier to assemble but without instructions and not without its own set of challenges. 

Banging and Pounding

 

Production assembly

The factory owner had learned of my reputation and work history through her contacts in Shanghai where the Huzhou operation had been before the present facilities had been built and relocated about two years prior. She gave me a rough outline of her personal story: how she and her husband began as factory workers and (somehow) had become owners of the factory, how she had once emigrated to Canada but then decided to return after a year, how she was developing the Elephant Commune in order to allow her Canadian educated son to replace her in the daily operations of the furniture exports, and how she wanted me to cooperate with her to teach woodworking. 

Elephant carved in poplar by Fan Huilin

and the logo that it inspired

I asked for a detailed job description, which had not occurred to her as necessary for hiring. When I made a visit in December to her Huzhou factory complex and was given a tour of the location where she wanted me to teach, I pointed out some of the salient problems: the decision to locate the teaching and work area on the third floor without an elevator, the lack of electrical outlets, the inadequate lighting, the absence of heating or AC. Her curt response to all my concerns was: 'don't worry'. This should have been a red flag but I deeply wanted to begin doing woodworking again and get back into teaching.

Mother finishes her daughter's Luban lock puzzle

It required several prompts before I was given a detailed job description that I had been asking for. I responded by suggesting that I not be hired as a regular employee but as a 'craftsman in residence', a variation on 'artist in residence'. I even put forward the idea that I would be establishing an 'in residence' program, which if I became a full-time employee eventually, I would also help with selecting the next in line. Looking back I was naive to have thought this term would have meant anything to her or that a factory owner would have bothered to clarify its meaning before agreeing to my proposal.

Squeezing glue

I arrived on the 4th of January with a majority of my handtools and teaching materials. The weather was bitterly cold, making any work in the workspace uncomfortable even if the cleaning ladies (ayi) had not insisted in opening so many windows to allow for fresh air to circulate. Because. 

On the upside, it was sunny

 

 

 

 

 The more immediate problem for me, however, was having no mattress to sleep on.

Minimalism in mattressing

The bedding upgrade

Prior to the event on the 9th, my first two projects was my explaining how a French cleat storage system works, determining where to locate the woodworking machines prior to installation of electrical outlets, and as a volunteer, pleading with the factory owner to not have closed cabinets along the entire east wall in front of the windows, limiting access to natural lighting and becoming dead storage space.

Machines awaiting setup

All three tasks were challenges which I could not have thought so overwhelming. I worked alongside a graphic designer who was understandably confused about French cleats because she had never seen one, and because the visual examples that she found on the mainland intranet were wrong or simply didn't show enough details to allow her to comprehend the simplicity of it. The factory had, in fact, already cut and delivered components to the third floor minus the 45 degree bevels that make the system work. They were even predrilled for the vertical members that needed to be attached to the concrete walls. For reasons that only mainland Han might be able to explain, the horizontal slats were shown in the blueprint to go from above eye level down to floor level. 

Chinese style French cleat wall

I explained that there was very little advantage to hanging tools on French cleats below the waist so I advised that an open cabinet be built to run along the full length of the wall and the French cleats begin from the cabinet's height and rise upwards. Besides, the fact that the cabinet ended up without a kickplate, it turned out well. 

The difficult to conceptualize French cleat wall

I won't even go into the details of how even more frustrating it was to describe picture rail and how it can obviate the need to drill a new hole into concrete to redecorate a wall. The experience did, however, clarify in my mind how the Han Chinese think about concrete construction in general. Not only is it the dominant construction method, it's equally regarded as much less permanent than I would consider it.

Last step: Light fixtures and outlets

The redundantly unproductive discussions about the outlet locations and arrangement of the woodworking machines led to the one and only meeting of interested parties while I was in Huzhou. It can be puzzling for an outsider to understand why the electricity is often the last utility to be installed. As I recall from my stint at Harvey, the woodshop had compressed air piping installed before the necessary outlets for the machinery. When I was asked to define the arrangement of the woodworking machines and where I wanted the outlets (spaced 2 meters apart along the east and west long walls. I anticipated locating a cantilevered lumber storage unit along the northern wall and shelves were already in place along the southern.), I explained that I wanted the machines along the center line of the room to reduce the lengths of hoses to the dust collector and the electrical cords to be suspended from the ceiling. I thought I was clear in explaining the details and the reasons for the choices. But I explained again. And again to a growing band of befuddled looking electrical workers. A meeting was called to resolve the undefined impasses. I demonstrated again the arrangement for the woodworking machines to the attendees. The leader of the electrical workers (calling them electricians gives them too much authority) insisted that he could not recreate the working situation as I had in the Nanjing International Woodcraft Club in Pukou as he showed me a photo of a class I conducted there. I cannot fathom why he fixated on this photo or how it was connected to the present discussion. Finally the leader of the electrical installation crew, a Mr Bao, who certainly due to coincidence is the brother of the factory owner, expressed some details as to why the installation of the outlets was not proceeding. He started complaining that the machines had different plugs which require different corresponding outlet fixtures. I would not have thought that this might have created such a challenging impasse since most outlets in the PRC allow for different configurations of electrical plugs but it seems that allowing him to express his discomfort was enough to allow the project to move forward. In the end electrical outlets were hung from the centerline of the room for the machines and far fewer outlets than spaced 2 meters apart along the long walls. Because.

From Pukou to Huzhou

Later during my stint, the factory owner asked me for suggestions about her addition to the buildout for installing a doorway that would occlude the natural sunlight from morning until evening in the only place on the third floor where this happened and where I wanted to eventually set up my own workbench, “look very simple natural generous feeling” As diplomatically as I could, I responded: “It would certainly be a pity to erect another door in the brightest area of the woodshop” Consideration of natural lighting was not on her list of priorities. It seems that the only way to control access from the second floor to the third, which was only now realized at this late date was to build a wall on the third floor in the area that was most desirable for working. Because.

Handtools for wall decorations

January 9^th was a scheduled event that involved inviting large numbers of participants to pound together stool components with claw hammers. The chaos led to the factory to produce benchhooks based on what I use. 

Factory made tables

Modeled after a Chinese classroom

 Well before I arrived in Huzhou, I was sent a photo of the workbenches that were being assembled on the third floor. I responded that they were not suitable benches for woodworking and that it would be better for me to build proper woodworking benches after I arrived. (This was before I knew about a pressing event scheduled for the 9^th) I received the standard response: “Don't worry” After I arrived, I was asked to install end vises, I demonstrated that the vises were of low quality and that Moxon vises could be made from wood with German made taps and dies (which could subsequently be used to teach a class) and showing very clearly that the vises would not fit on the benches without damaging the stretchers and the corner braces. This was the result. 

For every bench a vise

The vise as installed

On the 17^th a young woman from Shanghai began her employment in the woodshop. By that time I was debating whether I could stay in this workplace for a full year commitment. I was still confident than that I could bear the unrelenting chaos and clueless approach to woodworking instruction as long as I could remain sanely calm above the fray, potentially setting examples by osmosis, as with the adoption of bench hooks, until either the end of my craftsman in residency tenure or until I thought the organization was ready for me as a long term employee. I eventually learned her name and shortly afterwards I discovered that she actually had some experience as a woodworker. 

The upgraded vise installation

a bench appliance unfriendly to saws

Briefly, she attended a Shanghai trade school as a senior middle school student, participating in a training program that existed in order to compete in WorldSkills,  a Dutch based organization that hosts trade skills competitions worldwide. She was young with little experience that wasn't learned in an industrial training program but she and I had much more in common. 

Little wood horse kit: just add super glue!

 

She even readily understood that it was a bad idea to allow small children to use cyanoacrylate adhesive (i.e. super glue) to complete projects. And to her credit, she helped me to wipe away the clouds that I needed to leave this place, albeit briefly.

She began to take on her assigned role of intermediary between me and the factory owner according to the norms of a mainland work environment wherein orders are typically conveyed indirectly from top to bottom, probably, to prevent any feedback from moving, in response, from bottom back up to the top. 

Real! Wood

the straw that broke

I was shown a photo of a 四仰八叉凳 and informed that I needed to make an example by hand, which would then be given to the factory so that components could be manufactured in bulk. I countered with a series of reason why this was not my responsibility and that I would not be making such an item. I explained that I was not an industrial designer and nowhere in my job description was I required to make production prototypes. I pointed out that there were already two stool projects. I patiently explained the that most expeditious means of obtaining a prototype would be to buy one online (quite possibly the same one in the photo) and give it to the factory. 

There might be some backstory to this workplace demand or it might be an example of the boss reaffirming who the boss was. More than likely, it was yet another impulsive whim on her part. It's apparent that this is just another example of  仰八叉凳 but with round members. I've hinted at the chaos of the event on the 9th but I need to explain more. It became apparent that the best method for assembling the stool components had not been thought through.

Broken seats from the first event

One can say that the solution to this problem was creative but it's really just an example of making a square peg fit into a hole in a less breakable seat. Negative outcomes entirely predictable when there is no planning and so a solution was found that might negate the need for further planning or curriculum design.

Melamine sandwich

Factory ordered components

These plywood components were ordered from the factory to produce as a quick fix to the problems which arose due to lack of preparations and poor understanding of how to design woodworking courses. It was a factory owner's solution to a production problem, upgrade the stock material to make the problem simply go away. And no, I didn't see one of these melamine seat stool assembled to be able to confirm whether the solution was workable. 

Using a chisel to complete a project

Rather than accepting the need for a comprehensive lesson plan with a project that could be reasonably managed by a participant with no experience, I was assigned another task from the one I was there to accomplish. The intermediary explained that this requirement fell under my responsibility for creating courseware and it was not a template for the factory. Yes, she asserted an argument which contradicted what she had just told me. She further explained to me that this assignment fell to me because I had not developed any courses that met the two hour timeframe.  I did my best to suppress my fury mainly because she was simply conveying a directive. I explained that in addition to the rope spinning, which I had demonstrated on the 9^th, I had proposed three projects that could be turned into courses that accommodated the two hour timeframe. This back and forth was getting nowhere essentially because that was the main point. 

World Skills instructor

My wife had just received a copy of my labor contract which she was planning to take back to Nanjing in order to have it looked over by an HR professional. The message that I was being told to accept, and which would have been implicit to most other Chinese workers in this same situation, is that a job description could be reinterpreted in anyway imaginable by the factory owner to suit her spontaneous whims. If making a factory prototype can be interpreted as courseware design, then any assigned task can similarly be imposed on me under the same open ended interpretation. Further evidence that I was there to be nothing more than a common factory assemblyline worker, I had just been informed on the previous day by this same intermediary that my new work schedule would be 08:00-20:00 6 days a week with Tuesdays off, nercifully. With two hours subtracted for lunch and dinner provided by the factory canteen, this amounted to 60 hours a week. Evidently the concept of craftsman in residence had been ignored.

I asked my wife whether the work schedule was specified in the labor contract along with the salary (or was it calculated hourly?). She explained that work schedule and hours required to work fell under the 'rules of the factory' clause. A labor contract only needed to specify theoretical compensation. Have I mentioned that common practice of docking wages in the PRC?

Subzero woodcraft

I lay in bed that evening and came to the conclusion that I needed to accept that my position there was not in line with why I was willing to relocate and was, therefore, not tenable. I determined that it was simply better to resign immediately while my wife, Julia, was still there to help me negotiate a withdrawal. In the morning, I sent a message via the wechat app to the factory owner with the reasons for my resignation. She asked for a meeting at 09:00 during which she explained that she was a very important person who owned five companies before excusing herself to speak with a banker. Remaining at the conference table were Julia, me, and the intermediary. We didn't know how soon we would be able to continue so Julia and she chatted lightly and eventually I brought the topic back to why I was leaving so at the very least one person would understand my reasons.

No elevator

The intermediary before the factory owner returned, unprompted asked me the question: "What can you bring us?" I didn't understand where the question was coming from or how to answer it. I naively responded: "all my woodworking tools" Afterwards, my wife explained that this is a standard interview question as well as the question, "What is your advantage?", which I knew from another context. The young intermediary was possibly parroting what she thought she should say, unaware that this was an exit interview and her boss had not passed my interview process.

Discussing rope spinners with Chen Yonggang

I had been dreading the inevitable task, which I could postpone mentally, of packing up and returning to Nanjing with a truckload of my belongings. The reshipping was suddenly upon me. The logistics of moving back were complicated by a staff of workers who were less enthusiastic about moving my things onto the truck than they had been upon my arrival. They seemed afraid of getting on their boss' bad side since she had not yet given them orders to help move out. The biggest struggle was getting the workbench down to the first floor and then onto the truck. I was prepared to disassemble (it was designed to be unbolted after all) but as the last item, it was eventually carried back down the stairwell by a band of sturdy men who had been given their orders.

What can you bring us?

Chun tian kuaile!