Teaching the teacher: The China underneath

Every Friday I sit down with sixteen different students and listen to them talk. 

One by one, they sit across from me in the bright orange felt chair and, for ten minutes, they tell me something. Depending on the week's topic, it may be the value of historical sites or the difference in eating habits between men and women.

They talk, and I listen. It serves as part of their preparation for the speaking portion of the IELTS (International English Language Testing Sytem). My job is to correct their grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and coherence so that they can achieve a highly coveted 5.5 or higher on their exam.

At the outset, I had my reservations about this arrangement. Other ESL teachers will surely back me up when I say that speaking assessments can be incredibly tedious. There are few things quite as mind-numbing as sitting through an endless succession of students who have failed to grasp the concept of subject-verb agreement or the basic tenets of syntax. While I was happy to have a Friday morning free of classroom teaching, I wasn't sure that this was an improvement.

Up to this point, much of what I had learned about China (and subsequently written about on this blog) had come from my everyday encounters--on the bus, at the store, dining out, etc. I don't really have any Chinese friends to speak of (just brief, cordial encounters with my Chinese co-workers), so my knowledge of China and Chinese culture has been limited. Unlike in Ecuador where I was living with an Ecuadorean family and engaging in their culture on a very personal level, my engagement here has been largely confined to superficial social exchanges and observations.

Then March rolled around. The new semester started, I was assigned speaking assessments, and my students started talking. 

I remember sinking into my teal felt chair (to complement the bright orange one, of course) on that first Friday of the semester, trying to determine how quickly I could speed through the questions without raising eyebrows. The topic was family that week--an easy enough topic to kick things off with--and the first few students sped by in a unremarkable blur of incorrect verb tenses and canned responses ("I have a mom and a dad." "My older brother is nice." "I have a small family.") The next student took their seat, a girl this time, and I began to work my way through the questions. 

Here we go...

"How many people are in your family?"

"I have four people in my family."

"Okay, can you be more specific?"

"In my family, there is a mom, a dad, me, and my little brother."

I mindlessly checked off the question and robotically continued. "Great. Alright, next ques--"

"Wait. Well...actually...there are five people."

I'm not sure whether to be interested, or concerned with her counting skills. Let's go with interested. 

"Oh?"

"I had a twin. When I was born, there were two of us. But--but they killed my sister because there could only be one."

"....." 

I know I did not just hear what I think I heard. Right?!? Because if I did how do I even begin to address this? Perhaps she's mistaken or chose the wrong word. But which word could you possibly confuse with killed?

While I scrambled to find an appropriate, teacher-ly response that was both compassionate and not overly alarmed, she continued, "They chose me so I feel very lucky."

Words finally began to form. ".....they--they what? That is...I mean...you had a twin? That's so terrible. How, uh, how old are you?" 

"Sixteen."

I unsuccessfully tried to subtract the years to determine at just what time in recent Chinese history it was either okay or mandatory to kill one of your baby girls to meet government requirements. (It was unnecessary--it still is.)

I found my words again. "I'm so sorry. How awful."

"It's okay. I have a little brother now."

I spent the rest of her ten minutes in a daze--her hesitant English tapping an uneven rhythm against my eardrums but not quite breaking through. 

Although she had spoken of the incident almost casually--her eyes reflected astonishment. As though even she, sixteen years later, still couldn't quite comprehend the pain caused by the loss of her sister just moments after drawing her first breath.

I, like most Westerners, was aware of China's one-child policy long before coming to this country. Yet somehow, I had foolishly convinced myself it had long since been confined to a questionable past. An archaic law that perhaps had affected my students' parents, but certainly not the Taylor Swift-loving adolescent sitting across from me.

As the weeks have passed and our Friday conversations have continued, bits and pieces of the China "underneath" have continued to fnd a voice in my students. 

I listened as one student told me her grandmother's success story. How she left her small village as a teenager, the same age as my student, to work 14 hours a day in a factory to support herself and then continued on to become a street vendor and finally own her own business. 

I listened to another tell me of how she was born and raised in Hungary until she was 8 and how she can speak Hungarian, Mandarin and English and how she still goes "home" most summers.

I listened to students explain dejectedly how they see their parents only twice a year or how their mothers and fathers live in cities on opposite sides of China.

I listened to a student recount how she came out to her friends and instead of facing the standard rejection and humiliation typical of Chinese society, was embraced and supported. 

I listened to students jokingly admit how Chinese people will eat anything and everything, but don't trust the integrity of much of the food produced here.

I listened to them describe their ideal family, one where "the children see their parents and everyone loves each other." Or how, perhaps, it is best to be an only child because then your parents might love you more. 

With each, subsequent Friday, my initial apprehension of these speaking sessions has given way to an intense curiosity and eagerness to learn. Unwittingly, my students have morphed into my teachers--each week expounding through story on culture, history, politics, and social norms. Each week peeling back the layers of China so that, for ten minutes, I can peek at what rests beneath. 

My days here--these Friday "lessons"--are fast dwindling and it would be a shame to leave this country knowing only what I've learned from my time on the surface. So as I show students how to form the "th" sound and explain the difference between experiment and experience and remind them to say learn about and not learn on, I also listen.