Day 17: A Day of Gifts

Though the thunder roared all afternoon, the sun never faltered, and the rain held off until nightfall.

Word of our English class has by this point made its way around the village; this is evidenced by the fact that although we started with two classes, we have been expanding and today split into four separate classes. The youngest class (of kindergarteners) is rather small, only seven or eight students, but the others are all fairly full. As there are only four of us, I have to teach my own class. I taught the age group up from the kindergarteners today (the second youngest group of four). I was a bit apprehensive coming into today, as these kids know even less English than those I was teaching before, and thus I will have to use Chinese more, but I soon discovered that I can use my Chinese to express most of what I want to say; it just won’t be pretty. The kids were patient with me, though, and for that I am grateful. I started by giving them a simple, sample, conversation: just an exchange of greetings and “How are you”s. This went fairly well, so I continued teaching basic English. I covered numbers, which they seemed to already know to some extent, and then math, which they did not know. By math, I mean I taught them the English words for “plus,” “minus,” “times,” “divided by”, and “equals” (I realize there also exists “add,” “subtract,” and “multiply,” but in the simplest construal of mathematical sentences, these words are not used). I also taught them how to answer the question “How old are you?” Later, I taught them the days of the week, the word “week,” and the word “weekend.” With each topic, some of them had studied it previously, but most hadn’t. It sounds like I covered a lot, but I’m sure that I will have to revisit all of these categories in the coming days.

About halfway through our class session today, the four of us were called outside to meet with some journalists. Unbeknownst to us, the principal of the school had also prepared gifts for each of us: a small desk organizer and a certificate (the translation reads “Honorary Credential” but that isn’t quite right; “Certificate of Honor” would probably be closer). The certificate reads: “During your summer vacation of 2009 in Gaoxiang, you wholeheartedly provided guidance for the students of Gaoxiang. This is an obvious and resounding achievement, and therefore the local people think highly of you. We give you this certificate to express our gratefulness.” This is obviously an imperfect translation, but such language is not used often in America. We were photographed with the principle holding our certificates, and then each of us said a few words on camera. At first I spoke in English (for which Cherry wrote a Chinese translation) and then I spoke in Chinese (I didn’t read the translation; I just greatly simplified what I said). I could care less about the media coverage, but I thought the gifts were a nice gesture, and I was a bit taken aback. I am told that this is a common custom in China, but it still made me feel good, which I suppose was the desired effect.

After lunch, we all rested a bit (as today was excruciatingly hot all day), and then we headed out to the worksite. As I mentioned in a previous post, most of the work at this point is at least semi-skilled, so we are limited in what we can do. All we did today was move up some marble slabs for the workers to install. The paths we dug out obviously lie below the surrounding ground, and these slabs are being placed on the sides as a sort of wall.

We had to cut our work short as one of our students (Feng Jichen, who I believe I mentioned previously) invited us over for dinner as a thank you. There were several of our other students there (related to her I think), and we spent about two hours eating an extravagant meal. Then one of her relatives (a very young student of ours) played some traditional Chinese music on the hŭzhēng (I don’t believe there is an English word for it). It is a long stringed instrument, which one plucks, and in order to play it one wears finger picks (like for a banjo). The music itself was beautiful, although it is always a bit startling to hear music that is so foreign to my ears as the Chinese microtones.

Today was a rather emotional day. I hope this does not sound too condescending, but although I am grateful for the gifts I have received, I can’t help but feel a little bit sad that I am taking something from someone who has so much less than me in the way of material goods. I know it is custom and they think nothing of it, in fact they are happy to do it, but it is still difficult to receive something that they worked so hard to give when what I offered in return (English lessons and the park) did not require sacrifice on my part.

On that note, I should probably go to bed, so that I can be refreshed for another day of teaching on my own. Good night.