To Sir with Love

To Sir with Love, directed and screen-wrote by James Clavell of The Great Escape and the Noble House fame, had Sidney Poitier teaching in London’s East End inner city. A movie on social and racial issues, a classic line was when Poitier’s character cut himself and one of the students acted surprised that the teacher had red blood. The retort from one of the students was: “What did you expect, black ink?” The social issue was radical at the time, especially with Poitier being so prim and proper, while the east-enders, all white, were rowdy and rebellious.

I was reminded of the movie because it was one of the classics on the plane coming over, and because I was “sir” in so many places. With mostly Pilipinos at my hotel, I was “sir” right, left, and center. At the little fruit stall and grocery store next door, it was the young fluent-in-English Chinese who called me “sir,” especially when they discovered that I taught English at a known university in the northeast of China.

However, it was the stares in many places that got me uncomfortable since I did not know if I resembled a vicious criminal; I definitely did not pass for a movie star. Most of those who realized that I wrote a column were professionals, heartening in that two actually remembered what I wrote. But the coup d’grace was an Ilocano vegetable farmer at the Tuesday market across the Gualo Rai Church who called me by name. He said that he let his children read my articles so he can show them how and how-not-to write in English. I appreciated his candor.

Earlier, Herman of BoE commented on my writing while teaching 6th grade at SVES, that I specifically wrote for the BoE members to teach them how to use the dictionary and the encyclopedia, should they follow my literary output. The vegetable vendor relished the tale as it resonated in his experience. I did not have much time to go around the island as I only rented a car for two days, but I managed to greet fellow 6th grade teachers at SVES. It also revealed the gap in my info bank as I mistook one as the principal of the school rather than her sister.

Being a retired teacher in China, and having reasons to return to Saipan, I was tempted to go up to PSS to check if they can use my services as they are reportedly going to release substitute teachers and concentrate on full-time Praxis I and II passers on staff. The notion remained a thought. My bones may have revealed themselves to be already brittle, and I do occasionally slip on the ice in Dong Bei, but meeting the pedagogical challenge where I am provides more psychological income than hassling the bureaucratic structures (no offense intended) abiding in our island’s educational system.

A visit to USCIS was very comforting as one of two officers on duty wondered why my name was familiar; another thought I was recognizable. There must be a shortage of entertainment on island if both fed officers occasionally have my musings on their reading list. Ditto for the guy at SS who remembered my last visit more than three years ago and still glances at what I scribble on op-ed during breaks.

I went up and said “hello” to two politicians. One was pleased when I greeted him as “Mr. Politician.” I probably might remember a couple of faces up Capital Hill, and though it might have been useful to reintroduce myself to the governor who I ran into once while in transit at Narita, I decided not to drive up the incline to Mt. Tapochao. It would have been a delight to say “hi” to a colleague at Finance, but I’ll just do my “howdy-do” by email. Ditto to a fellow member of the old STaRPO at Retirement.

One might say that I had seen too many movies in my time, and perhaps that has an element of truth since I tend to remember some while I reminisce. Lead co-stars Ingrid Bergmann and Anthony Quinn co-produced The Visit in ’64. The Bergmann character left an Italian town in disgrace and returned as a fabulously rich woman who tried to extract revenge on the Quinn character by bribing the town folks, who resisted at first, then they finally acquiesced.

Saipan remains one of three places I call home, including Shenyang in China and Honolulu of Oahu in Hawaii, but I do not have any enemies (plenty frenemies) to come back to, nor was I driven out of town when I left. But the visit this week (I counted pennies so I was no Bergmann character) had an intensity that haunted memories while seriously magnetized future considerations.

Not to be syrupy, but I left paraphrasing Wordsworth: “For yesterday was but a dream, and tomorrow, only a vision; but today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow, a vision of hope.”

L’achaim!

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Jaime Vergara previously taught at SVES in the CNMI. A peripatetic pedagogue, he last taught in China but makes Honolulu, Shenyang, and Saipan home. He can be reached at pinoypanda2031@aol.com.