Every year a number of schools close their doors to their own students and for four days, including a Saturday, they play host to hundreds of 16 and 17-year-olds from other schools who are taking the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination in English and maths. This year those of us who work in participating schools had the added joy of squelching to our workplace through a red rainstorm, for this is Hong Kong, despite the TV announcement: 'All schools are closed.' This actually means: 'Well, most schools. OK, some schools. They're closed but the teachers still have to be there. And the students. And it wouldn't be fair if the admin staff didn't go in. Oh, and without the janitors the whole system would collapse. But the schools are closed.' This year I had the honour of being the deputy chief invigilator for the English listening exam. It has taken me five years to reach this coveted position so I didn't mind in the least that the exam fell on a Saturday. I arrived, fresh-faced and beaming and was handed a shiny plastic badge that announced my importance to all. I reported to the front of the school hall, where a collection of teachers were busying about, and I asked the chief invigilator what I should do. 'Your job,' he said gravely, 'is to sharpen the pencils'. Four years of British university education had not been wasted. Sadly, I was important for only one day. My duties on the other days involved collecting slips upon which were recorded students' temperatures and counting finished exam scripts into envelopes. After the first exam, a fellow NET and I were on the phone comparing workloads. I was incensed because he had been asked to cut the special education department Sellotape into envelope length strips, whereas I was expressly forbidden from touching it. We guessed this was probably due to the fact that he is halfway through a master's degree. I felt better after the second exam, when he called to tell me he had been relieved of sticky tape duty because he was doing it wrong. Apparently he was excused because he was cutting the tape into the wrong lengths. He was still allowed to place the tape across the envelope, however, a job denied to me. Every time I tucked the papers into the envelope, sealed the flap and reached for the tape, one of my colleagues leapt from nowhere, tape in hand and did the job for me. After the third exam session I realised I was becoming slightly crazed with the challenge of getting to the tape first and took stock of the situation. I contented myself with remarking loudly that I understood why I wasn't permitted to touch the tape. 'We have no such tape in my country,' I said, 'so I realise you are worried I will get carried away in a taping frenzy and sticky tape everything in sight.' A few nods and bemused smiles. Still no tape. I wonder if they'll let me touch it next year. Amanda Chapman is a NET teacher in an aided secondary school
