The First Lesson

Well, introductions are over. The second week of classes has arrived, and I had better do my best to try and teach these poor students something (aside from what a poor teacher I am).

Actually, thus far, the first lesson has come off rather well. And I could not be more surprised.

Last week, I had difficulty getting the students to ask me questions using Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Understandably, I was a little concerned going into week 2. So it was that, late on Sunday night, I found myself sweating it out over a notebook, rubbing oily palm on stubbly face, trying to devise a plan to teach them parts of speech.

Noun. He. She. It. Desk. Student. Me. You. I.
Verb. Is. Am. Are. Was. Run. Jump. Swim.
Adverb. Very. So. Quickly. Fast.
Adjective. Strong. Good. Fast.

I drew this on the board and ran through it slowly and methodically. Using the sentence, He is very strong, I did the best I could to illustrate how the various parts of speech work. To my delight, they actually seemed to get it!

Some classes were better than others. A few got the distinction between active and passive voice. Others understood This/These and That/Those, and how they can operate as (pro)nouns, adjectives or adverbs. It helped that Chinese has a direct translation for every different singular form of This and That.

Zhege - This (pronoun) i.e. What is this?
Zhe - This (adjective) i.e. Who is this student?
Zheme - This (adverb) i.e. I can jump this high.

They almost universally understood the concept of Near and Far, thanks to me running around the classroom and flailing my hands like an idiot, and how it relates to This and That, in basic terms.

Last and most fun, two classes actually managed to understand prepositions, which is fascinating considering the differences between Chinese and English in that grammatical regard.

When each class seemed to have digested about as much as they were going to take in without getting bored and unruly, I wiped the whole board clean, divided them into two teams, and started making them play mad libs.

Only one class out of the six I've taught so far has had any trouble with it. But some pretty weird thoughts have come up.

Why (verb) you (verb) (prep) (noun)?

Became

Why do you jump to him?


Anyway. It'll be interesting to see if it stays successful throughout the week. And even if it does, I have no idea where I can go with the plan next week...

I guess that'll come to me.

Here's a picture of my blackboard the first week, where I let them try to give me a Chinese name. The first one is some sort of egg breakfast food. I don't know (or want to know) the rest.




They've ended up giving me a name I probably don't deserve, but I feel compelled to humor them because I guess it's a pretty high honor. The Shui Hu Zhuan (Outlaws of the Marsh) is one of the four great classical Chinese novels. Written in the early 14th century by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong, it details the exploits of a band of outlaws in the Liangshan Marsh in the late 12th century, during the Song dynasty. (Thanks, wikipedia).

I had actually read most of it in college because it's the basis for a series of video games I used to play, Suikoden. That, and I was taking an awesome Chinese Lit course at the time. I was planning to read it again here, and word must have gotten around with the students that I was talking about it.

Here, they all know the book. Think Shakespeare. Hamlet. Only, they don't sigh when you talk about it. So it's like somebody went back in time and had Shakespeare write about Batman. That's not how I view it, of course--I can't read the original Chinese prose. But that's the only way I can understand a bunch of 12 and 13 year old kids revering this ancient work.

At any rate, the name they gave me. I have a couple of characters I like from this book above others:

Lu Zhishen, called the Tatooed Monk, a giant ex-military man turned monk who metes out vigilante justice as he sees fit (with an 80 pound!!! staff) and gets rip-roaring drunk at every opportunity.

Li Kui, called the Black Whirlwind, a fiercely loyal whirling dervish of death who wields twin axes and uses them to answer every problem without ever thinking of a better solution.

Of course, you can see that these are both vastly flawed, but basically good men, as I myself am. As most of us are, if we're being honest.

But they did not name me after one of them.

They did not name me after any of the 107 very fallible, very morally ambiguous heroes they might have chosen from this 100-chapter, 2000 page masterwork.

Instead they chose the one character in the whole damn thing who is pure of heart and mind.

The leader of the 108 bandits and undisputed hero of the story, Song Jiang.
The Opportune Rain.
Known for benevolence.
Pheonix-eyed, and swarthy (which I am decidedly NOT).

Needless to say, that one left me scratching my head. Feeling humbled. And welcomed.

Here is a picture of me at the English corner, where I was so named. It seems like a good photo to stick next to "mobbed" in the dictionary.