Worst Kept Secrets

One of the nicest things about my job (other than the chance to work with some of the most awesome people ever - thank you thank you thank you coworkers for Friday night - I’ve almost recovered from the shock and the unspeakable mixed drinks) is the extra temp stuff that gets tossed our way every once in a while. I’ve been doing voice recording for a while, I’ve done a little bit of private tutoring, and right now I’m teaching a class of doctors.

When I got the doctors offer, I misunderstood what I was being told. I thought it was a bunch of medical students who were going to continue their education overseas. I thought it would be a good chance to hang out with some Chinese students my age, and accepted. You can imagine my surprise when I showed up to Jiangsu Provincial Number Two Hospital for Traditional Chinese Medicine to find about thirty middle-aged SURGEONS waiting for me. Well, not all of them are surgeons. I’ve pretty much got a full hospital crew - radiologists, anesthesiologists, acupuncturists, dentists, pediatricians, gynecologists, oncologists, etc. They’re heading off to Zanzibar to help build and staff hospitals there. It’s sort of a governmental exchange program - China sends a team over every two years to help out. I’m a little iffy on the details, but I asked my doctors if they’d volunteered for the position, and, well, they said no. I’m not sure if I’ve got this straight or not, but I really think that my guys’ number came up, and they’re getting shipped off to Zanzibar away from their families for a couple of years, which is a bit intense.

Anyway, I pretty much wanted to die on my first day as soon as I realized that here I was, a twenty-six year old jerk with an undergraduate degree, standing up in front of highly educated professionals, most of whom are my parents’ age, some of whom have children my age.

Before I get any farther with this, let me make a few things clear. I sound infantile at best, idiotic at worst when I have a conversation in Chinese. Here’s a translation of my standard taxi cab conversation:

Driver: How long have you been in China?

Anne: I live China 1 year. I love China!

Driver: Do you like the food?

Anne: I love Chinese food! Chinese people are so kind!

[pause]

Anne: How many cars there are! I have a cat!

Driver: Um, that’s nice.

Anne: I love China!

So, if it sounds like I’m mocking my doctors, I’m not - it’s really, really hard to have a conversation in a language you’re not comfortable with, and half the time you don’t expect what comes out of your mouth to make any sense anyway. You just sort of reach around for anything you know how to say and let ‘er rip. Remember the Eddie Izzard sketch about learning French? It’s really just like that, and of course it’s a two way street. So I don’t mean for things like my doctors giggling hysterically at the mention of the word “girlfriend” or not understanding what dental floss is to be a reflection of their education or maturity. It’s really not, and I know that. I get into so many hilarious discussions with them, but I’m not mocking them - the language barrier is the source of the funny, not the doctors themselves.

For example, one of my “students” is an acupuncturist. I was talking to him about his work. He told me that acupuncture has been proven to cure cancer. I don’t think he meant this - I think he meant it’s a form of treatment, and maybe it is. But he swore that the World Health Organization lists acupuncture as a cure for cancer. He could have confused treatment and cure, and he also might have confused cancer with another disease. Anyway, I told him I was too afraid to get acupuncture treatment, and he told me not to worry, it doesn’t hurt as long as you do it REALLY. FAST., punctuating his words by pantomiming an action that looked like John Travolta stabbing Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. There are also a lot of really surreal moments, like when I’m teaching a class of doctors about the food pyramid (they said it looked about right) or dental floss. The dental floss confusion didn’t get resolved until I actually brought some in and flossed my teeth for them, which got the room-wide “ohhhhhhhh” of understanding (I got a Chinese doctor on the record saying, “no one really does this,” and supported my theory that the floss hegemony is a by-product of an ancient financial relationship between dental professionals and, I don’t know, string merchants or something).

Anyway, I have more fun with this bunch than I’ve ever had in a classroom. They’re not exactly there by choice (I don’t think), they’re considerably older and better educated than me, but they actually listen to what I say, ask questions, and seem to believe that I know what I’m talking about. I don’t feel like they’re sizing me up or anything. Of course, we’re just doing conversational English - I’m not trying to teach them how to write a western-style five page research paper or anything. But they’re a really, really nice, fun group of people, and I look forward to Thursday afternoons. So far, we’ve had classes based on polite language, sports and leisure, holidays and festivals, nutrition, and personal hygiene (apparently the fact that some western women shave their legs is RIOTOUSLY funny). This week, I did a music class on special request.

I HATE using music in the classroom, I really do. I’m not very good at it, and I’ve had horrible luck in the past. My regular students are always begging me to teach them about American music and music history, and they just hate it every time I do. I know that music can work extremely well in a Chinese classroom, but I can’t figure out how to do it - I either annoy them or just put them to sleep (except for “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by the Byrds - my classes LOVE that song, and it’s a great way to get into the concept of opposites - you can have a fun time waxing philosophical with them, too). Last year I spent several hours putting together a really brief, basic genre presentation, and it fell about as flat as I’ve ever had a class fall. I went to Doctor Class on Thursday with that presentation, kind of dreading it - if the hip young people were bored by it, I wasn’t holding a lot of hope for the middle-aged doctors.

Who proved me wrong like you would not believe - it’s rare that I can keep a three hour class going until after the end of the period, but they were so wonderful, open-minded, and interested in the whole thing. One of the best comments came after I played Miles Davis for them - “He puts his heart inside his trumpet so everyone can hear.” They were also completely hypnotized by “Long Black Veil” - everyone said this was their favourite song I played. We had to listen to it over and over again so they could hear the way that Johnny Cash told the story (which they thought was the saddest thing they’d ever heard). I have to bring them more story songs next week. I played some Nine Inch Nails for them and taught them all how to headbang (a moment which will probably never be topped as an instance where I wish someone had a video camera), and we talked about “Sittin’ On Top of the World.” After they listened once, they said, “it’s a sad song! His baby left!” Then I played it again, and after a while it sunk in, which made everyone laugh. They were all singing it as we took our break (”She’s gone and I don’t worry!”). They were fascinated by the Elliott Smith story (I played “Waltz #2 for them and told them about the stabbing thing). At the very end of class, I told them my news (I’m really trying not to be obnoxious about it, but I’ll be damned if I don’t want to run screaming down the street “I’M GETTIN’ HITCHED AND IT’S AWESOME!!!”), and my flirter moaned, “No! I will go to put a knife in my heart now!”. We also spent a little time on rap, and talked about its position in race relations. Usually I cannot teach a class that deals with race without getting a serious cringe moment (”but all the black people have guns!”), but the doctors were really interested and really cool and thoughtful about it. I wonder if that was because they aren’t on the steady diet of American television that my kids are, and thus aren’t bombarded with distorted images all the time. Overall, it was a really exciting and fun class to teach, and I was really impressed with them. We spent the last part of the class learning “We Are the Champions,” and they loved hearing about how Freddie Mercury was from Zanzibar (true - who knew? Also, is there anyone else out there who didn’t realize until recently that Zanzibar wasn’t a magical imaginary place, or am I publicly admitting to inexcusable ignorance?).

Weekends go so fast, you know?