Translated…
Classrooms are everywhere in life, the schools are classrooms, the world too, even the prisons are also, classrooms…
When I was thirty-three, I’d started out a business with a friend, and took up the role of the assistant CEO. But, at the height of my life, I was, betrayed by my friend, and without any warnings beforehand, my company had bankrupted, and I’d had to, pay the price of over thirty million dollars, causing my own household to be in debt.
The friend who knew the law, already gone, flown abroad to evade his responsibilities. And, I’d gone from someone that everybody looked upon with admiration, to someone that everybody spits on, and I’d gotten a seven-year jail sentence for breaking the law too………
A Day in Prison
There are mediums for learning all around, the schools are a classroom, the world is too, the prison system, also one as well. When you’re supposed to be in class, DO pay attention, stop whining about anything, and, you’d eventually find the fun in the happenings in the classrooms in the prison.
not my photo still…
Now, let me introduce you to, a day in prison for me.
Hungry? Great, the prisons serve the meals very early! How early you asked? Before 4:30 in the afternoon, someone can head into the cafeterias for their supper. There was a small whole right by the door, place the dinners inside the “basin”, using the plastic wash basins as a wok (later, the prison systems started using the real, ironclad woks), and after this basin came in, then, we’d waited, for the prisoners who were serving the foods to place the food into our basins.
The size of our sleeping quarters are about ten single beds’ size. I have no clue of the square meters, but, we’d done everything we’d needed to, from sleeping, eating, to going to the bathrooms. We have limited resources, limited space, and, under the circumstances of the prisons being overly crowded, having seventeen to eighteen people living together in one room is considered normal, and, the overpopulation problem is happening in ALL the jail systems around.
Because I’m “new”, that first day, I’d borrowed the eating utensils, the bowl, the chopsticks, as well as a quilt, with the plastic mat as a table, sat on the floor, facing the plastic food basin, I can’t have any appetite at all, but seeing how the “classmate” next to me had full servings of EVERYTHING, I’d forced down, a few more bites.
After the meals, came the labors, we have a man in charge, the person in charge of our sleeping quarters, which were selected by the managers of the jails.
something productinve, happening in priosn…
The person assigned me to wiping down the floors, and, there are no brooms, no mops, because they’re considered, “dangerous”, so I could only, roll up some newspaper as a broom, and used a towel as a mop, flattened myself toward the ground, running, and cleaning at the same time.
Another Place for Learning
There are rules for everything in the prisons, I’d learned a couple of things:
First, we can’t go directly over the placemats, we must go around them.
not my photograph…
I think this is because, when you’re hungry, nothing else really matters, we’d already gotten to this sort of a place, and, we’d only needed to, keep up with the most basic of all our needs, and so, meal time became especially sacred. And the table which each one of us had to eat in, is the place of the meals, naturally, we shan’t step over it.
Secondly, the newly admitted will need to have a face mask on for five days, to help ward off the germs, and to keep the newly admitted from speaking out of terms.
Warding off the germs, that’s clear-cut, including the germs that were brought from the “outside world”, as well as the “mental germs” too. I’m pretty sure, that all of my companions had all seen their shares of those first-timers crying as they walked in. And, seeing so many case, all of our empathies had, drained dry, put your face mask on! I’m nowhere NEAR interested in hearing YOUR sob story!
Third, on the very first day, we were to write a five-hundred character autobiography, and in two weeks, we’d needed to produce a book of rules to follow in here.
The autobiography is for the managers to know you better, the autobiography, plus the book of rules, it’d taken me a couple of days, and later on, I’d found, that all of these activities were meaningful, to help the newly admitted to have something on their hands, and, keeping oneself busy takes away from the nervousness, the sense of helplessness, and that feeling of loss too, along with the other negative emotions as well.
How, do we write? Naturally, NOT on those desks, no computers either. I’d had to turn the wastebasket over, placed the chessboard on top as a desk, and kept working until eight in the evening, curfew, then, no words of exchange shall pass for the rest of the evening.
How, do we sleep then? Changing into the outfit we brought n, placed the quilts on the floor, that, would be the bed. There’s also, entertainment in the room too! No, really, there’s a television, we can watch Da-Ai Television, until nine, when the lights go out. This 20-inch plasma hung high up on the walls, with the channels preset, and you can’t turn the channels without letting the personnel know first.
Actually, this television made me feel surreal, I still can’t believe, that I’m, in jail. I’d told myself, I’m prepared for this, I will work hard in here, I will be brave, lying down, shutting my eyes, oh, how I hope, that when I wake back up again, all of this would be, just a dream.
But, in actuality, this is not, a dream, I’d still needed to wake up, to face the harsh realities.
So, I’ll just, treat this place as an alternative kind of classroom, that’s going to teach me about life, about how to tone myself down a bit, how to put up with things, and adjust too.
not my photograph…
There are, a lot of processes of learning in my life, and this, is just one that is unique and one-of-a-kind, I guarantee, that it will, leave a deep impression with each and every inmate who’d served the time, and, reflected to them, the regrets, the wrongs they’d done in their pasts.
And so, being in jail gives you that needed discipline that you may not have had, and that may have just been, what got you in there in the first place, and, this rigid scheduling, will put that needed discipline back in your life, and hopefully, when you get out, you’d been, reformed, and will not do anything bad again, because being in jail is not a good experience, but you can turn it into an opportunity to create change in yourselves, a chance to learn…
Life, the Obstacle Course 