"My name is Ollie. My name is a very famous character in America. I am skinny and my lover is Bobby."
This is how a student introduced herself on the first day of class. I have just started teaching, not in the computer science department, as I had expected, but for the Foreign Languages department. Anyone born in an English speaking country is assumed to be able to teach English, so that is what I am doing.
I had asked each of my 50 students to individually stand up and tell me their names. If they had chosen an English name for themselves, I asked them to tell me that. It is potentially easier for me if I can address them with English names, since I am not very good at understanding (or remembering) Chinese names. Unfortunately, I have learned that I am also not very good at understanding their English names either.
While many of them have chosen what they think of as English names, what they have really chosen are English words which they use them as names. This may not seem like an important distinction, but outside of a commune in the 60's would you ever expect to have students named "Rainbow", and "Crystal" and "Reflection"? Even allowing for the positive associations, does it seem like a good idea to be called "Aroma"? The words "Courage", "Kind" and "Better" are nice sentiments, but not good names. And what about the boy whose English name is "Christ"? You can't exactly say it's a bad name; maybe just too presumptuous.
But getting back to Ollie. She said her name was famous. Had I misunderstood her? The only famous person I could think of with that name is Ollie North and he seemed like an unlikely role model for an 18 year old Chinese girl. And as far as I remembered, he was neither skinny, nor did he have a lover named Bobby.
I asked her to please spell her name.
"O - L - I - V - E. She is a cartoon."
Olive? She must mean Olive Oyl! And her "lover" would be Popeye, not Bobby. (Who ever knew Popeye had a sex life?) It's still not clear to me why she would want to be named after Olive Oyl, or how she ever heard of her. But I have even less of a clue about why other students in the class would choose the names "Wudy", "Sunnet", "Penguil" and "Wartain."
I teach another class called "Western Culture" at a neighboring school. Aside from being raised in a western culture, I have no qualifications for teaching this class, any more than speaking English qualifies me to teach it. But I got hired for the job over the phone, by a school administrator whose only concerns were that I had the proper visa (I had to tell a white lie about that), and that I could get to the school safely by riding my bicycle. She asked no questions at all about my teaching experience, which is good, because I have none.
I was interested in knowing what Western culture means to the students, so I asked them to write down three things that they know about the West, and three questions that they have about the West. I got 83 responses, and while the replies are all over the map, there were some common sentiments. They believe that everybody owns a car (mostly true) and everybody carries a gun (less true, I hope.) We westerners have also established a reputation for liking sweets and fast food. Less benignly, we are known as unrepentant imperialists, or, as they put it:
"American has great ambition to occupite the world."
"Most of the West looks down upon the East."
"The president Bush is a cowboy, a rude man."
"Who is the most respectable person in America now? Won't be W. Bush?"
Our political positions puzzle them, both internationally and domestically. They have trouble understanding the reasons for the war against Iraq (join the club), and wonder about American race relations.
"How about the living condition of the Black people in the USA."
"What rights are black people have in your country?"
"Do most of the Americans still look down upon the Black people?"
"What is the relationship between American and Indian?"
After reading through a pile of these, I began to wish for a question or two about a famous cartoon character with a lover named Bobby.
To be fair, not all of the questions put Americans on the spot. There were a lot of flattering remarks about America's film industry, with Disney singled out for special praise. (All that money spent promoting "Mulan" has paid off on this side of the planet.) Basketball, Nikes, and Adidas are other admired aspects of America. And at least one person in China believes that "Most Americans have beautiful pupil color."
Some of their impressions are hard to account for.
"In America, there are too many psychologists."
"Gentlemen prefer cigars to cigarets."
"'The Little Prince' is very popular."
"Everyone has a big nose" (well, I can't argue with that...)
Sometimes the range of observations from a single student can be breathtaking.
"Three things I know about USA:
1. They have enough human rights.
2. The food is delicous. In my opinion.
3. The US Army is so power and cool."
"Three questions:
1. why they don't eat animal's inside?
2. why they can travel any time as they like?
3. what is the real beauty girl in their opinion?"
These being college students, questions about the opposite sex appeared frequently.
"Why do the people fall in love at a very young age? Do they need to study first?"
"How does a man ask for marriage to a woman he loves in the U.S.A."
"What will you do if you like a girl, but she likes other?"
"What do they do when they lose his/her lover?"
I got an assortment of queries into my personal romantic preferences, along the lines of "Do you want to choose a Chinese woman as your wife if it is possible? Why?" But one student was much more persistent. He asked three questions. The first was, "What's the difference from the west woman and the east woman?" The last question was a little racier "Do you have an experience about being seek by Chinese woman?"
But the most salacious question was the one that was crossed out in between the two. He must have had second thoughts about being so direct. I have tried as best as I can to read it through the heavy scribbling. From what I can tell, it reads "What about to sex. How do you deal with your need for" (really really crossed out) "in China?" Now I'm looking for a data recovery service that works with ballpoint pens.
Perhaps out of embarrassment, on this page of questions, the student also crossed out his Chinese name. But he left his English name intact - "Dick." Sometimes I think students choose an English name without much regard for meaning, but this boy got it right on target.
Finally, one unnamed student asked two simple questions, with a clarity that cuts through the noise of the others like a haiku. The questions are -
"1. Do American love peace?"
2. Do people in USA know East?"
If I can answer only those two, I'll feel that I've spent my time here well.
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