Day 10 - The "n" word and a gift

Saturday, July 12

5th day of teaching


Today was a pretty uneventful day. Here is what we did:

• morning interviews to get in the door (it's our new morning routine and we love it!)
• Basketball tournament. One of the other classes challenged my class to a basketball game. I told my class and they were super excited to compete. I'm not sure if they knew it or not, but it turns out that Gayna's class somehow got all of the talented athletes. They won 50-something to like 8. It was that bad. Really really bad. I quit watching after awhile and played frisbee with the girls. It was too painful.
• practiced words with "TH". This is a sound that doesn't exist in the Chinese language. The students have such difficulty saying it. We practice and practiced. The students made lists of words that have the TH to practice on their own. I gave them homework for tomorrow: learn to correctly pronounce "nothing". I told them that there would be a very important examination on ONLY this word.
• Song study: "Sing" by Ed Sheeran
• "Happy" practice
• had a very interesting discussion with my assistant (see below)
• recieved a very thoughtful gift (see below)

The interesting discussion:

Since the first day in China I have noticed many people saying some word that is very offensive to my ears. I literally heard it in the airport in Beijing upon landing and a million times since. I've been trying to ignore it, but finally I just had to ask. I hear EVERYONE saying some word that sounds an awful lot like "the 'n' word" in English. You know the one. They are saying the slang version -the one with no 'r' that ends in 'a'.

Every time I hear it I cringe, without even meaning to. So during one of our breaks I asked my assistant: What is the word I hear so much that sounds like ______?

She was a little confused at first but she figured out what word I meant. She was having difficulty explaining it's meaning. She first said it's not a real word, but more like a noise or a pause. She said it's poor Chinese and shouldn't be used when trying to speak properly. The best I could figure was that it is like our "um" and so I asked if it was and she said yes. I'm still not sure exactly what it means, but it's slang, and not a real word, and has no real meaning. Much like "um".

So then I told her why I was asking. As best as I could, I explained about the "n" word in English. I told her what it meant and how it should never be spoken or said, even if you hear others use it. I explained where it came from and why it is so offensive.

When I was done she sort of laughed/had an aha moment. She said that there was another foreign teacher visiting the school awhile ago who seemed to get very upset by that word, but no one could ever figure out what the problem was. She said she finally understands. I explained to her how shocked I was to hear it and how it's taking some getting used to, to not be shocked when I do hear it. I think this was an interesting cultural learning moment for us both. I wanted to ask, "Please don't use this word around me or other Americans. We find it very offensive." But, how could I even think that they shouldn't use a word that is part of their language, just because it sounds like something in my language? Of course, I couldn't and didn't. But I wanted to.

A gift

I've been wanting to buy a set of Baoding balls since I got here. You've seen them before, but perhaps don't know them by name. Here's a picture:



They originate in Baoding and I've been seeing them everywhere. However, they are expensive (sometimes) and heavy and I just wasn't sure. And honestly, I was hoping to get a set as a gift from the school (the teachers in another group did) and didn't want to buy some and then get more. So I was waiting it out.

Then today, one of my sweet little girls, Sunny, brought me a set. She wrote me a sweet note explaining where they come from and how to use them and stuck it inside the box.

not the best picture, but it's me and Sunny and the gift she gave me :)

I am constantly impressed with how kind and thoughtful the Chinese people are. I never gave random gifts to my teachers and none of my American students do either. At least, they aren't giving gifts to me. (Yes I know, there are probably other contributing factors to that, like how mean I am, etc. But still.)

Tomorrow we are trick-or-treating. We're excited!