One of my students is a very clever girl, a rare thing I've realized. She's 10 years old and applying for boarding school. She manages to sit patiently through 2 hour lessons of mapping sentence grammar and gravely talk about world issues like the death penalty, environment, Libya, the problems of poverty, the middle east conflict.
Most of the time she gives very nuanced answers, but I can tell that there are times when steadfast childlike logic takes over. "Why can't we just tell them to stop fighting" was one. "Why can't we just split the land in half? Right in the middle." It's almost painful for me to have to respond with a counter argument, so that she has to consider the "worldly realities" when she has such pure answers already.
I know that increasingly simple answers are considered naive, and it's true that people with steadfast conviction and stubborn faith sometimes frighten me, but in a child, it is a lovely thing.
Anyway last lesson I asked her to write about a childhood memory, as a kind of break from essays about war and poverty. I thought like most girls she'd write about going to an amusement park, or her favorite birthday party. I asked her to read it aloud, and I soon realized she was writing about the last day with her dog.
It was a simple story about the dog she'd grown up with, one of two puppies that their family had adopted, one for her and one for her sister. Yellow Labradors with "gold fur the color of the sun's smile in summer" she said. Her dog had to be put down because of cancer, and she wrote that they'd had a picnic and a tea party so that "her dog wouldn't know what was going on", and that they'd taken one last family photograph in the mountains before they took the dog to the vet.
I had managed to hold it together, until the end when I rather unprofessionally started crying. "I used to worry and wonder whether there's a dog heaven. But I don't wonder anymore, because I can see her running there. It's always summer, and she looks so happy... I know that she's waiting for me like she always did."
Monday, March 28, 2011
gestures
The past year has opened up so much more of Hong Kong to me, it's like I've seen a completely different city. I've even gained more confidence in Cantonese.
The extent is still limited to pointing at things and saying "This!", and handing over the correct amount of money without taking several minutes to translate in my head. But I think it's mostly that the intimidation and fear has lessened. I have learned to buy baskets of dimsum from a sidewalk shop (shumai fish dumplings are only $14hk for a kilo.. which converts to $2US for a half pound? 10 ounces? something cheap), socks from the lady screaming into a loudspeaker (socks don't just sell themselves!), get bus money from the recycling men who pay for paper and metal by the kilo.
small steps.
After all this time my lack of cantonese ability has made me realize that I probably should have listened to everyone's advice and just began with mandarin. It only took me 2 years to accept this.
My mandarin teacher is a very jolly looking lady. She has a way of speaking that makes it sound like she's laughing at the same time. She also has a habit of smacking my arm when I don't answer correctly, or shaking my shoulder when I'm not speaking loudly enough for her. I'm never sure whether I should be afraid or laughing.
We sit at the coffee shop, loudly gesturing at each other. She likes to act out things, rather than explain them. And because I'm confused I mirror them back at her.
I'm sure we look like we're half-mad, especially because of the occasional smacking. But I've given up being self-conscious and any attempt at dignity. I'm trying to learn a language don't judge.
From the beginning, she has never taught me in English, so most of the time the lesson is her rattling something in mandarin and me saying "sorry shenme? what?" and then her smacking me and pointing her middle finger at my head, as in "Use your brain" until I finally figure it out.
Violent charades.
I'd made the point of telling her at the first lesson that I wanted hardcore teaching, tough love, none of this "Ni Hao" "Ni Hao" for an hour. I want tough! I'd said.
She looked skeptical, saying that Chinese education tough and American tough is different.
Apparently so.
The extent is still limited to pointing at things and saying "This!", and handing over the correct amount of money without taking several minutes to translate in my head. But I think it's mostly that the intimidation and fear has lessened. I have learned to buy baskets of dimsum from a sidewalk shop (shumai fish dumplings are only $14hk for a kilo.. which converts to $2US for a half pound? 10 ounces? something cheap), socks from the lady screaming into a loudspeaker (socks don't just sell themselves!), get bus money from the recycling men who pay for paper and metal by the kilo.
small steps.
After all this time my lack of cantonese ability has made me realize that I probably should have listened to everyone's advice and just began with mandarin. It only took me 2 years to accept this.
My mandarin teacher is a very jolly looking lady. She has a way of speaking that makes it sound like she's laughing at the same time. She also has a habit of smacking my arm when I don't answer correctly, or shaking my shoulder when I'm not speaking loudly enough for her. I'm never sure whether I should be afraid or laughing.
We sit at the coffee shop, loudly gesturing at each other. She likes to act out things, rather than explain them. And because I'm confused I mirror them back at her.
I'm sure we look like we're half-mad, especially because of the occasional smacking. But I've given up being self-conscious and any attempt at dignity. I'm trying to learn a language don't judge.
From the beginning, she has never taught me in English, so most of the time the lesson is her rattling something in mandarin and me saying "sorry shenme? what?" and then her smacking me and pointing her middle finger at my head, as in "Use your brain" until I finally figure it out.
Violent charades.
I'd made the point of telling her at the first lesson that I wanted hardcore teaching, tough love, none of this "Ni Hao" "Ni Hao" for an hour. I want tough! I'd said.
She looked skeptical, saying that Chinese education tough and American tough is different.
Apparently so.
rainbows
I've been attempting to walk more ever since I was inspired / guilted by an article about a 90 year old man who runs the New york marathon each year... when he crosses the finish line, he celebrates by downing shots of scotch.
I was walking home from work the other day when I saw three women. They looked like the type of women my mother would go to church with. Frosted hair and manicured nails, color coordinated outfits from Talbots and Ann Taylor, and bags made of fabric patchwork.
For a moment I wondered if I was seeing projections, some mental flicker. But no there they were at the corner of Western district, the three of them huddled over a map, standing in front of a dried fish stall and next to a counter where a man was solemnly chopping the hooves off a pig's leg. They flinched each time he slammed his cleaver.
They were trying to look like they weren't lost, but unfortunately it was dinner rush hour, and they stood out, a solitary still island jostled by the waves of people pushing to catch a bus home.
I asked them where they were trying to go. And they turned to me, blankly relieved. They wanted to go see the light show they said. They were going to take the ferry to the pier, to see the lights from the harbor.
"I was so worried we'd" one of them said, her voice lowering to a whisper, "wandered into the wrong part of town.."
Wrong part of town? "Um.."
"You know like we'd accidentally crossed into the ghetto."
She giggled as she gestured around her. The man with the pig feet was still cleaving grimly and glaring at us.
I laughed too, couldn't help it. The ghetto? I guess she hadn't noticed my grocery bags.
"No this is not the ghetto... " Far from it lady... look at the cities in the U.S. "No this is a real nice area." Real nice area? my English. "Actually I live here. It's residential. Kind of like the suburbs. A real nice area." I repeated. Not really like the suburbs at all, but I didn't know what else to compare it to.
She looked slightly surprised, still unconvinced, like she wanted to say something, but she only said thank you.
As I watched them walk away, I wondered what it was that she saw. Perhaps it was just after seeing the chemical shine that is downtown central, the decapitated pigs and ducks hung by their long necks was a shock. The rows and rows of mysterious looking dried things set out on the sidewalk, the laundry flapping outside the windows of what seem like grimy buildings, the men with rolled up sleeves pushing carts of trash, the flickering lights of chinese lettering, the bamboo scaffolding with men sitting on it, while shoveling rice and chopped goose into their mouths.
I suppose I understood why they were confused. It's the panic of seeing any new place, it's hard to see past the foreignness. I remember the first time I saw New York, it was orientation week at NYU. I came out of 4th street station, duffel bag in hand, and all I could see were the rows of 6th avenue sex shops and the court where guys played pick up basketball, while people cheered and rattled the chain link fence. There was a small area of benches were people were sleeping and a man sweating in a huge coat was screaming into a megaphone and passing out pamphlets. And I thought oh no... what have I done.
Of course a year later, I was living behind those 6th avenue sex shops, and realized that what seemed like dark mysterious streets were actually expensive oyster bars and underground wine clubs. And the basketball court, a place for talent agents to scout new talent.
With more time, they would have noticed that within the rows of what seem like carelessly dried seafood, a fistful of dried maggot-like things is the cost of a small diamond, and a few dried phallic shaped sea cucumbers is worth more than a fabric pattern bag. They would have heard that the high humidity is what makes the buildings look rusted. And underneath they would have seen the buildings shine in pastel paint, robin's egg blue, mint green, and vivid orange.
As I walked the rest of the way home, I remembered riding the ferry by myself in the first year, whenever the dust and chemical clouds seemed to be suffocating and too dark. And I would watch the way dancing lights shone through the fog, like seeing the faint rainbows in spilled oil.
I was walking home from work the other day when I saw three women. They looked like the type of women my mother would go to church with. Frosted hair and manicured nails, color coordinated outfits from Talbots and Ann Taylor, and bags made of fabric patchwork.
For a moment I wondered if I was seeing projections, some mental flicker. But no there they were at the corner of Western district, the three of them huddled over a map, standing in front of a dried fish stall and next to a counter where a man was solemnly chopping the hooves off a pig's leg. They flinched each time he slammed his cleaver.
They were trying to look like they weren't lost, but unfortunately it was dinner rush hour, and they stood out, a solitary still island jostled by the waves of people pushing to catch a bus home.
I asked them where they were trying to go. And they turned to me, blankly relieved. They wanted to go see the light show they said. They were going to take the ferry to the pier, to see the lights from the harbor.
"I was so worried we'd" one of them said, her voice lowering to a whisper, "wandered into the wrong part of town.."
Wrong part of town? "Um.."
"You know like we'd accidentally crossed into the ghetto."
She giggled as she gestured around her. The man with the pig feet was still cleaving grimly and glaring at us.
I laughed too, couldn't help it. The ghetto? I guess she hadn't noticed my grocery bags.
"No this is not the ghetto... " Far from it lady... look at the cities in the U.S. "No this is a real nice area." Real nice area? my English. "Actually I live here. It's residential. Kind of like the suburbs. A real nice area." I repeated. Not really like the suburbs at all, but I didn't know what else to compare it to.
She looked slightly surprised, still unconvinced, like she wanted to say something, but she only said thank you.
As I watched them walk away, I wondered what it was that she saw. Perhaps it was just after seeing the chemical shine that is downtown central, the decapitated pigs and ducks hung by their long necks was a shock. The rows and rows of mysterious looking dried things set out on the sidewalk, the laundry flapping outside the windows of what seem like grimy buildings, the men with rolled up sleeves pushing carts of trash, the flickering lights of chinese lettering, the bamboo scaffolding with men sitting on it, while shoveling rice and chopped goose into their mouths.
I suppose I understood why they were confused. It's the panic of seeing any new place, it's hard to see past the foreignness. I remember the first time I saw New York, it was orientation week at NYU. I came out of 4th street station, duffel bag in hand, and all I could see were the rows of 6th avenue sex shops and the court where guys played pick up basketball, while people cheered and rattled the chain link fence. There was a small area of benches were people were sleeping and a man sweating in a huge coat was screaming into a megaphone and passing out pamphlets. And I thought oh no... what have I done.
Of course a year later, I was living behind those 6th avenue sex shops, and realized that what seemed like dark mysterious streets were actually expensive oyster bars and underground wine clubs. And the basketball court, a place for talent agents to scout new talent.
With more time, they would have noticed that within the rows of what seem like carelessly dried seafood, a fistful of dried maggot-like things is the cost of a small diamond, and a few dried phallic shaped sea cucumbers is worth more than a fabric pattern bag. They would have heard that the high humidity is what makes the buildings look rusted. And underneath they would have seen the buildings shine in pastel paint, robin's egg blue, mint green, and vivid orange.
As I walked the rest of the way home, I remembered riding the ferry by myself in the first year, whenever the dust and chemical clouds seemed to be suffocating and too dark. And I would watch the way dancing lights shone through the fog, like seeing the faint rainbows in spilled oil.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
counting
The past weeks, I've moved on from self-help books back to fantasy. I guess I'd had enough of drawing mind maps and reading about list making and circular sleep cycles and mice.. Instead moved on to sci-fi vampires (the passage!), dragon eggs and war of the roses.
"nerd!" says the crowd
Someone recommended Game of Thrones to me - I can't remember who.. but I wish I could thank them, so good I finished it in a day.
I've been reading books on my phone, which is probably burning my eyes from the inside, but it's so addicting, and even better causes it's not embarrassing to carry. I used to read a book while I walked, but it looked pretentious and seemed to invite people to knock into me. Now I just look busy. I know that I should be spending my energy reading the law - but I guess reading pages and pages on debating the official procedures of how to "summon" someone (just summon them?) or "deliver a letter" (just deliver it to them?) isn't very compelling.
--
I finally taught my dog to shake hands. Maybe not that momentous, but after two weeks of bribing and begging - and finally to resigning myself that maybe my girl just wasn't the future Lassie ":shrug: who needs smarts anyway, my love for you is unconditional... Ahh please just shake hands!" she finally did it. sigh so proud.
--
sometimes I feel like I'm in that scene in the matrix, where neo is surrounded by numbers and code - except that while he reaches out with a hand in a cool keanu way, my life is like code fragments pouring down on me.
Dates are wrong, my timing is wrong or off by weeks. I prepped for an exam that was apparently a week later, I went to class and when I got there campus was closed (I was 2 days early), I tried to watch the super bowl, but miscalculated the time difference, then did the same thing with the oscars. I don't know what's wrong with me.
I have one very coherent memory about numbers from when I was a kid. We'd just learned the time tables in school, up to the 8s. 1x2 is 2. 2x2 is 4 blahblah - kind of an annoying chant that I was cheerfully chanting in the car on the way back home. To me it seemed more like a poem of sounds, rather than numbers. We pulled up to the garage, and my father, always the mathematician asked me what 8x12 was. I told him we'd only learned up to the 8s, 8x8. And he said that if I understood the concept of numbers I should be able to figure it out. And that I couldn't leave the car until I'd figured it out - and then he went inside, shut the car doors and locked the garage. My kindergartener brother stayed with me in the dark, and tried helpfully to count with his fingers and toes.
I think this was supposed to be my father's Gausss-like experiment - Gauss, the mathematician who as a child was forced to add all the numbers from 1-100 as a punishment, but then did it in like 5 minutes to the amazement of his teachers. He'd figured out some theorem.
Obviously I was not Gauss. or a prodigy. I didn't understand the concept of numbers. It took so long my father lost track of the fact that we were inside, because eventually he came looking for us, and asked us what we were doing in the car.
I'm still not sure what 8x12 is. hah
"nerd!" says the crowd
Someone recommended Game of Thrones to me - I can't remember who.. but I wish I could thank them, so good I finished it in a day.
I've been reading books on my phone, which is probably burning my eyes from the inside, but it's so addicting, and even better causes it's not embarrassing to carry. I used to read a book while I walked, but it looked pretentious and seemed to invite people to knock into me. Now I just look busy. I know that I should be spending my energy reading the law - but I guess reading pages and pages on debating the official procedures of how to "summon" someone (just summon them?) or "deliver a letter" (just deliver it to them?) isn't very compelling.
--
I finally taught my dog to shake hands. Maybe not that momentous, but after two weeks of bribing and begging - and finally to resigning myself that maybe my girl just wasn't the future Lassie ":shrug: who needs smarts anyway, my love for you is unconditional... Ahh please just shake hands!" she finally did it. sigh so proud.
--
sometimes I feel like I'm in that scene in the matrix, where neo is surrounded by numbers and code - except that while he reaches out with a hand in a cool keanu way, my life is like code fragments pouring down on me.
Dates are wrong, my timing is wrong or off by weeks. I prepped for an exam that was apparently a week later, I went to class and when I got there campus was closed (I was 2 days early), I tried to watch the super bowl, but miscalculated the time difference, then did the same thing with the oscars. I don't know what's wrong with me.
I have one very coherent memory about numbers from when I was a kid. We'd just learned the time tables in school, up to the 8s. 1x2 is 2. 2x2 is 4 blahblah - kind of an annoying chant that I was cheerfully chanting in the car on the way back home. To me it seemed more like a poem of sounds, rather than numbers. We pulled up to the garage, and my father, always the mathematician asked me what 8x12 was. I told him we'd only learned up to the 8s, 8x8. And he said that if I understood the concept of numbers I should be able to figure it out. And that I couldn't leave the car until I'd figured it out - and then he went inside, shut the car doors and locked the garage. My kindergartener brother stayed with me in the dark, and tried helpfully to count with his fingers and toes.
I think this was supposed to be my father's Gausss-like experiment - Gauss, the mathematician who as a child was forced to add all the numbers from 1-100 as a punishment, but then did it in like 5 minutes to the amazement of his teachers. He'd figured out some theorem.
Obviously I was not Gauss. or a prodigy. I didn't understand the concept of numbers. It took so long my father lost track of the fact that we were inside, because eventually he came looking for us, and asked us what we were doing in the car.
I'm still not sure what 8x12 is. hah
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Kids
2011 realizing time really has passed when a 16 year old student said to me very wearily, "kids these days".
Which made me want to snap "yea you're right, kids these days...You kid!"
although I suppose she doesn't think she is one. That day she was wearing her I <3 BJ shirt.
Which wouldn't be anything, as BJ apparently refers to Beijing, (I asked) but at the end she'd written an "s" in black sharpie.
Clever.
Along with the middle schooler kid who wrote an essay on conformity about giraffes with phallic necks and another middle schooler who chose to write about buying jeggings for the topic "If I could change one mistake in my life it would be..."
I felt weariness.
I suppose that's how my shipping professor feels- a very old and dignified British man who speaks about ships as though he were from a time when those new fangled 'aeroplanes' just wouldn't do.
Our class is a lesson in failing geography
"is anyone familiar with the ports in Turkey? No?"
silence
"oh well.." continues with a disapproving stare.
"how about ***?"
silence
"ah that is a small port town in India on the southern part near the isles of ******
"Is anyone familiar with German geography?"
a german student raises hand
"have you heard of port vuw@&$?"
german student looks down in shame.
I suppose his distaste is justified, especially as I still giggle each time he says "seamen"
sigh.
Kids these days.
New year, I'm ready.
Which made me want to snap "yea you're right, kids these days...You kid!"
although I suppose she doesn't think she is one. That day she was wearing her I <3 BJ shirt.
Which wouldn't be anything, as BJ apparently refers to Beijing, (I asked) but at the end she'd written an "s" in black sharpie.
Clever.
Along with the middle schooler kid who wrote an essay on conformity about giraffes with phallic necks and another middle schooler who chose to write about buying jeggings for the topic "If I could change one mistake in my life it would be..."
I felt weariness.
I suppose that's how my shipping professor feels- a very old and dignified British man who speaks about ships as though he were from a time when those new fangled 'aeroplanes' just wouldn't do.
Our class is a lesson in failing geography
"is anyone familiar with the ports in Turkey? No?"
silence
"oh well.." continues with a disapproving stare.
"how about ***?"
silence
"ah that is a small port town in India on the southern part near the isles of ******
"Is anyone familiar with German geography?"
a german student raises hand
"have you heard of port vuw@&$?"
german student looks down in shame.
I suppose his distaste is justified, especially as I still giggle each time he says "seamen"
sigh.
Kids these days.
New year, I'm ready.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
am present.
my booklist has been taken over by a series of self-help books. Never thought I'd be the person to say, "so i was just reading this book about love languages and..."
=.=
But it is addicting, each seems to hold a promise of some self-improvement.
currently - how to control your emotions. ha great.
Was reading an interview, the writer was saying how hard it was for her to remember what person she was. Vague, but somehow I understand exactly what she means.
Floating along - in some space. And then suddenly with a jolt - perhaps on a bus, sometimes in the middle of a lesson, on an escalator. This isn't right. Wait I'm a alive. Where am I supposed to have been? And as I stumble and fall, it's like I've become an abstraction. And I have to grasp at something, some certainty, what was past what was present. What was merely a dream, what was real, what was imagined. what made me happy. what is being sad.
And then like those schoolday equations a=b=c, a=c.. slowly, the mind reaches and slow steps, dogs with caramel spots, ice cream left on a spoon, covers spread like the ocean, slow certainties, moment caught, bodies alphabet shapes, skylights from a bus, and the present is present. am present. and that is All There Is.
=.=
But it is addicting, each seems to hold a promise of some self-improvement.
currently - how to control your emotions. ha great.
Was reading an interview, the writer was saying how hard it was for her to remember what person she was. Vague, but somehow I understand exactly what she means.
Floating along - in some space. And then suddenly with a jolt - perhaps on a bus, sometimes in the middle of a lesson, on an escalator. This isn't right. Wait I'm a alive. Where am I supposed to have been? And as I stumble and fall, it's like I've become an abstraction. And I have to grasp at something, some certainty, what was past what was present. What was merely a dream, what was real, what was imagined. what made me happy. what is being sad.
And then like those schoolday equations a=b=c, a=c.. slowly, the mind reaches and slow steps, dogs with caramel spots, ice cream left on a spoon, covers spread like the ocean, slow certainties, moment caught, bodies alphabet shapes, skylights from a bus, and the present is present. am present. and that is All There Is.
Friday, November 5, 2010
New things.
I like.
Riding the tram in autumn. Especially at night when it's quiet and all you hear are the sounds of metal and rail.
Milk swirls in coffee. (everytime makes me hear that lyric - clouds in my coffee)
The diner scene in True Romance - it's perfect.
Looking out the window to see sky. If I could I'd walk around with my head tilted upwards. Or maybe ask for another set of eyes on the top of my head.
Disney songs. Walking around with a very serious expression and headphones. What hard-core music could she be listening to?
"He could clear the savanna after every meal! Lalalala"
Hku library 'leisure reading'. People don't do anything for leisure, much less read. so all mine :)
Black hair. Honey. The moment of a student finally understanding something. Rare but it happens.
Description in duras' the lover - the paper thin dress and gold heels. Bright umbrellas in grey rain.
Dreamless sleep.
Riding the tram in autumn. Especially at night when it's quiet and all you hear are the sounds of metal and rail.
Milk swirls in coffee. (everytime makes me hear that lyric - clouds in my coffee)
The diner scene in True Romance - it's perfect.
Looking out the window to see sky. If I could I'd walk around with my head tilted upwards. Or maybe ask for another set of eyes on the top of my head.
Disney songs. Walking around with a very serious expression and headphones. What hard-core music could she be listening to?
"He could clear the savanna after every meal! Lalalala"
Hku library 'leisure reading'. People don't do anything for leisure, much less read. so all mine :)
Black hair. Honey. The moment of a student finally understanding something. Rare but it happens.
Description in duras' the lover - the paper thin dress and gold heels. Bright umbrellas in grey rain.
Dreamless sleep.
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