In last semester's speaking class for non-English Department teachers, I had one man, Zhang Weigen, who arrived speaking about five words of English. Unlike most of the other teachers in the class, his reading ability was not significantly better than his speaking ability. Frankly, the class was really too difficult for him, but he attended without fail, and consequently, I translated everything into Chinese for him. Now I must say that my spoken Chinese really hasn't improved very much here, and if I weren't having such a great time I might feel pretty disappointed about that. But to the extent that I have improved at all, it is because twice a week I had to translate for Zhang Weigen.

Because he is older than me, and a respected botany professor, I call him "Zhang Laoshi" (Teacher Zhang). He calls me, "Teacher." Zhang Laoshi is somewhere between 55 and 60, and while his height and pale skin are hallmarks of attractiveness in China, his Frankenstein haircut, extremely poor teeth, and general air of wackiness disqualify him from being considered good looking. What he lacks in English he makes up for in humor. Although his presence made the class more difficult for me to teach, I must say that I came to appreciate the spirit he brought to the group.

I also appreciated that on Wednesday afternoons, when the shuttle bus up the mountain to the campus doesn't run, Zhang Laoshi drove me on the back of his motorcycle. For a man of his age, one might expect more responsible driving, but on his motorcycle, the adolescent spirit of Zhang Laoshi was unleashed. I know that if I had followed proper motorcycle habits, I would have sat sidesaddle on the back of the motorcycle and casually held onto the seat. But I didn't. I straddled the seat and clutched his shoulders for dear life as we careened through town, dodging potholes, goats, and swerving bicycles. Neither of us ever wore a helmet.

One day, when we were studying ways of phrasing complaints, I asked the students to practice the following scenario with their partners: when the phone bill arrives, it includes a $20.00 bill for a call to South America that they didn't really make. Complain to the phone company. After I explained this all to Zhang Laoshi in Chinese, he threw up his hands and exclaimed, "Meiyou banfa!" This is an all-too-common Chinese expression that means "no way," "there's nothing to be done about it," and consequently, "what's the use?" He turned to his partner and said in Chinese, "Do you think in America you can actually complain about your phone bill and get it fixed?" By now the other students were listening. They asked me that same question in English, and I said, yes, the phone company would remove charges for calls that were incorrect. There was a stunned moment of silence before one student said, "In China, we often pay for other people's phone calls."

A few weeks earlier, in the speaking class Max and Forrest attend, the question, "If the whole world were listening, what would you say?" had elicited surprisingly impassioned and even eloquent responses. I had been moved by the students' pleas for world peace, respect for the environment, and aid for the poor. I had been less moved by my most politically correct student's address about the glory of China's communist path, but certainly no less interested. Since Zhang Laoshi was born before Liberation, he is old enough to remember Mao, the famine of the early 1960s, the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen Square massacre. I was genuinely curious about what he might choose to tell humanity, even if it meant he would first say it in Chinese and I would slowly coach him through the English.

But when I explained the question to him in Chinese, he shrugged exaggeratedly and said, "Meiyou banfa! Wo bu xin." ("It's useless. I don't believe it.") I reiterated the question, faltering because I don't actually know the Chinese words for "imagine" or "pretend."

He replied to me in Chinese, "My wife doesn't listen to me, my daughter doesn't listen to me, even half of my students don't listen to me. Why should the whole world listen to me? I don't believe it!" And with that, Zhang Laoshi declined to issue any statement to the rest of humanity.

Another time, I introduced a game in which the students wrote five statements about themselves. Of these, three were true and two were false. After each student said his or her five statements, the other students had to guess which were true and which weren't. I knew this would be very hard for Laoshi Zhang so I was keeping a close eye on what he was writing.

His first statement was : "My wife is 20 years." Now, he does have a daughter about that age, so I asked him in Chinese, "Is this your wife or your daughter?" With a wicked laugh, he replied, "My wife!" I thought, "Okay, so this is one of his lies and oh boy, is it a whopper!"

I strolled around the class to look at the other students' work. When I came back, Zhang Laoshi had another statement. Given that his handwriting is poor and his spelling very creative, I wasn't exactly sure about this one, but it seemed to me it said, "I eat Viagra." Viagra is available in China, but it is not likely that a teacher could afford it. What's more, despite his fantasies about a young wife, Zhang Laoshi just didn't seem like a Viagra kind of guy. I asked him in English what that word was. His answer was unintelligible, so I then asked him the Chinese word for it--vegetables! My dirty mind!

When it came time for him to tell the class his statements, he said, "My wife is 50." I asked him, "Do you mean to say 50 or 20?" Of course the other students were amazed that I could possibly think he had a 20-year old wife so I had to explain to them what he had previously written. There was much laughter and teasing from the other students, most of who are 30 - 40-year old women.

After the class ended at 10 pm, while we waited for the shuttle bus back to our living compound, Zhang Laoshi yawned. I said to him in Chinese, "Teacher Zhang, don't be tired! You have a young wife waiting for you at home! Right now, she is looking at her watch and thinking, 'oh, my husband will be home soon!'" He laughed at this idea, but not nearly as much as the female students did. He received much ribbing, not all of which I understood. Then I asked him if this was his first, second, or third wife. Practically choking with laughter, he insisted he only had one wife.

I think this was the first time I ever teased anyone in Chinese.