Blast From the Past

Whaddup Lokes, 

As many of you are new to the blog, I figured that I should share more info with you to help you better contextualize what’s going on now. Last year I taught English at a university in mainland China. Below is a post I wrote about my first day, which was one of the craziest experiences I’ve had. It’s long, but a quick read. Check it out!

…….

Dig, if you will, the picture: I’ve just arrived in mainland China for my one year teaching stint and I’m having a SEVERE culture shock. People are staring at me everywhere I go, and not just a casual stare—it was an “I just saw a ghost” stare. They’re asking to take pictures with me, and those who aren’t that bold just pull out their camera phones and try to take my picture on the sly. They’re pointing and whispering “Hei ren! Hei ren!” (translation: “Black person! Black person!”) whenever I come into view. So I start to think: If they’re freaking out this much when they see me walk down the street, just imagine how my students will react when they find out they have a black teacher.

I started to get really nervous about teaching. But before I knew it, the first day had arrived.

I woke up, hopped in the shower, threw on some slacks and an oxford shirt, went over my notes and made my way to class. On my way walk, I was surprised by how nervous I was—I never got like this! Before I entered the room I took a deep breath to collect myself. I began to walk in, carrying myself as if there was nothing odd about a black man being in China teaching Chinese students who were the same age as him, or older. As soon as my foot hit the threshold and I was within eyesight there was a collective gasp amongst the students.

Oh shit.

From the sound of that horrific gulp, I thought I would look up and see faces paralyzed by fear. But when I turn to look at them I saw that they’re really giddy and excited. “That’s promising,” I thought. ”I can work with students who get this happy, even before I say anything.”

So I come in, get settled, and begin my introduction: I tell them where I’m from, why I came to China, my past experiences (being careful not to let out any clues about how old I am, because any little authority I have in the classroom would be out the window if they knew we were the same age), why I came to China, how the course would be ran and how they’d be graded. Then I asked if they had any questions.

One student meekly raised his hand and stood up, “Will you please rap for us?”

Now, I had only been in China for a few days, so my mind was still very much carrying all the baggage of America’s racist history, and of course, in America that would have been racist as hell. I thought that he trying to be funny. I was going to nip this shit in the bud—real quick. Right as I was about to launch into my diatribe, I looked at the boy and the rest of the class and noticed that no one was laughing, or even smirking. They were all looking at me, sincerely waiting for me to bust a rhyme. I had to check myself. No one meant any disrespect. So I smiled and responded, “No,” at which point everyone sighed in disappointment, “but maybe I can bring in some rap music for you to listen to.”

Another kid raised his hand and in broken English managed to get out,”It always been my dream play basketball with a black man. Will you make my dream come true?”

 Again, no one seems to think this is funny except for me.

 ”Um, I’m not very good at basketball, but sure, maybe one day we can play together.”

 More hands went up.

(During this whole time, there’s a large crowd of passersby starting to form at the classroom door.)

 ”Can you dunk?”

 ”Did it hurt when you put holes in your ear?” (meaning getting my ears pierced. Very few people here—men or women—have their ears pierced, so people are pretty intrigued by these little $2 cubic zirconias in my ears.)

One kid asked, “My old English teacher told me that in America if you meet someone named Jack and say hello to him he will rob you. Is that true?”

 ”Um….what?”

 ”Is it true that if you meet someone named Jack, and say hi to him [waves to illustrate] he will steal from you?”

 ”…Uh, no. Who told you…OH! You mean highjack! Yeah, no, highjack is a word,” I write it on the board to show that it’s not “Hi Jack.”

“Highjack means to take over a vehicle illegally.”

 ”Oh,” he looked embarrassed.

 ”No, I understand why you would be confused. Anyone would be. Good question.” I said as I ran over to give him a high-five.

 Another girl raised her hand: “May I ask, how old you are?”

 Now at this question, people began to smile. Out of everything, this was the one thing they knew was inappropriate to ask. So I told her that if she could guess my age I would tell her if she was right. She guessed 24. I asked if there were anymore guesses. Someone shouted out 25, and someone else said 28. I stopped it right there.

 ”All those guesses were incorrect….and that’s all I’m going to tell you.” Everyone laughed, and more hands went up. Although I was thoroughly entertained by their questions, I had to save time for them to introduce themselves.

 At my teaching orientation, I found that that the standard practice is to give your students English names. Something about that didn’t sit right with me. Even when Asian Americans have “English” names, I don’t really like it. Assimilation should only go so far. Your name is your name. Don’t change it to accommodate other people. Sure, it may be difficult for them to pronounce it at first, but they’ll learn.

That was my firm stance. Until I realized that I would have over 200 students in total, and it is really difficult for someone who doesn’t speak Chinese to pronounce the names properly given that the Chinese language is tonal—not only would I have to remember their names, I would also have to remember the proper tone of each syllable in their name. So with this realization my stance softened. I told them they could tell me their name: English name, Arabic name, Swahili name, whatever they chose. Luckily for me, they chose names that I would remember, and in fact, would never forget.

In America we mostly choose names based on how they sound. In China they pick names based on what they mean. So when students choose English names, they pick names that mean something. Here is a short list of my students’ “English” names:

 ”I-Can-Do-It”—because he can do whatever he puts his mind to.

“Ball”—because he likes sports.

“Apple”—because her head is shaped like an apple.

“Nintendo”—cause he likes Nintendo.

“Teabags”—cause she likes tea.

“Allen Iverson”—because he likes…take a guess.

These names were funny to me at first, but now they’re just their names, and I use them as such: “Hey, I-Can-Do-It, you need to stop speaking Chinese in English class,” or “Good job on your essay, Teabags!”

But the freshmen don’t have English names because most of them have never had a western teacher before. So almost everyone asked, “Will you please give me an English name?”

And, of course, I had to oblige, but it was hard for me to think 30 names on the spot. I knew I wasn’t going to give them generic names like Bob, Tim and Betty. Then it hit me: I would give them the names of the people I knew when I was growing up. Here’s just a short list of the English names that I gave my freshmen students:

Keisha

Leroy

Big Mike

Rasheeda

Jamal

Shaquita

‘Tasha

Peaches

and my favorite, Pookie Inem.

 

Ignorant, I know, but who says those names are any better or worse than the Jen and Steve. Besides, what’s in a name? That which we call Shaquita by any other name would smell just as sweet.

They will keep those English names definitely until they graduate, and if they work for a western company they’ll use those names for the rest of their careers. It’s nice to know I made my mark.

Negronizing the world one classroom at a time, 

TG

My favorite class. They were ALL stalkers: somehow they found out my number and would call me incessantly. Still, I miss these little fuckers.