9.17 Minutes From an Unnecessary Meeting

(A note to the reader. The Chinese government has a knack for holding extremely long, extremely boring meetings with extremely long, pointless speeches. As a teacher, I am employed by the Chinese government, and am required to attend some of these meetings. The following account was recorded during a weekly staff meeting held on a Friday afternoon. Most of the speeches were in the local dialect or poor Mandarin, so I had to use my imagination for some of the part in this record. All names have been translated into English)

4:17 Mister Teacher opens the proceedings.

4:17:30 (Proceedings not thoroughly opened, brief chaos reigns for 5 minutes)

4:22 An eruption of gurgles and half sentences in thick dialect from Mr. Teacher formally opens the proceedings. An in-depth summary of Yunnan's educational system enthralls the audience of this weekly staff meeting.



4:27 Mystery Gov't Official delights us with a speech in hushed dialect. His lack of projection is surely deliberate- he is making a vocal allusion to Maolan' Middle School's middling performance in last year's state exams.

4:35 Some say you should open a speech with a hook, a story or joke that will draw the audience in. Unknown Gov't Official sees no point in stories or other distractions in today's information driven age. Instead, he speaks at a volume so low that it forces his audience to physically lean in. This man is clearing new ground in the subject of oral communication.

4:38 If you draw a line through (Maolan Middle School) 茂兰中学's 兰，add a box to the 中, and put a 肉 in between the two, you get 茂羊肉串学 (Mao Lamb Skewer School).

4:42 Scribe would like to remind readers of the incredible importance of this meeting, and the necessity to give 40 minute speeches during what some would consider an unassuming weekly staff meeting. History books are quivering expectantly for the record of this gathering and its impact on global education to be published and thrust into their pages.

4:49 In accordance with his speaking style, Unknown Gov't Official ends his speech with little fanfare.

4:50 Mister Teacher delivers an extended soliloquy on the theme of "young love". It would appear that the arrival of autumn reminds him of his halcyon days, sneaking around past "lights-out" to meet a plump young maiden behind the bike sheds and hold her hand.

5:10 It's getting a little bit too graphic for the scribe to detail.

5:15 Mister Measure-Word doesn't shy away from controversy. His speech today is a little less shocking than his most recent haircut (Franciscan monk meets flat-top meets turtle), but you can tell by the way the audience reads their magazines that he too is breaking new ground in oral communication.

5:22 An interrupting teacher breaks the flow of Mister Measure-Word's speech! What right does he have to approach the podium of such masters of speech? Will this meeting ever recover?

5:23 Mister Character attempts to bring the meeting back to its original glory with a speech about dragons or something, but it's clear that the audience has no appetite for fantasy.

5:33 Mister Character passes the torch to a mumbly little fellow with glasses, whose short speech shows an extreme lack of respect for an audience that is dying to hear more of what he thinks about the duties of a teacher.

5:35 At last, back to Mister Teacher, who chooses to end this meeting with a role-playing session between a fat student and a hungry tiger. It's all a thinly veiled criticism of the recent performances of the Deans.