Chapter 10
Fear and Fun in the Oral English Class
Warning:
This Chapter depicts real life and real conversations that will give offense to a lot of people. If bad, foul or four lettered language offends you, then skip this chapter.
We all know that just as two students are not the same, neither are two teachers. Students will love or hate teachers according to either their own disposition or the disposition of the teacher. Some teachers are 'nice and lovely', and others are 'strict and scary'. I fall into the latter category. Not because I want to, but because in their eyes I am an old big male foreigner and the fact that I do take my teaching seriously.
Certainly I like to have fun, but it is not within my character to 'plan' a fun class. I guess I am not that good at playing games or planning activities. Someone recently told me that they like the way I plan my stories about China. I plan my stories? News to me! I have as much of an idea where a story is going while I am writing it as the reader does when they are reading it. Come on now! Don't be nasty! If you've made it this far in the book then you must be enjoying it!
Because Oral English class is more or less seen as a 'fun time' and I am not a kindergarten teacher nor anyone's grandmother or grandfather, it usually comes as a shock to students to realise that in my class they are actually expected to work. Generally speaking, at the very beginning of a semester, students are quite afraid of me, and I admit it is something that I use to my advantage. Sometimes their fear is quite funny.
You remember me saying that in one class in HongHu that I only had one student?; well, when the day came that saw only he and I in the class, he was petrified. I decided to give him a book to read out aloud. Although it was a cold day he sweat profusely. He could have pretended that his shaking was the result of the cold; but not the sweat that trickled down his forehead. After I spent some time talking with him that lesson, he realised that he had nothing to fear, and spent the rest of the semester progressing.
I remember a boy in another class however, who, in addition to shaking and sweating profusely, was reading his homework aloud whilst scarcely taking a breath. As he read I slowly walked down the aisle and stood in front of him. Finally I reached out and using two hands, grabbed his shoulders and spun him to face me. He nearly died on the spot. Bringing my face in close to his, I loudly commanded him to "B-R-E-A-T-H!!! By the time the class stopped laughing, the boy was feeling far more relaxed.
In Wuhan I had a teacher come to me and tell me that I was scaring my students and that I should talk more quietly and move more slowly. It turns out that every time I moved suddenly, the students went into fright. Wasn't news to me of course. Those who paid attention were never surprised by the volume of my voice or the suddenness of my movements; just those who preferred to sleep.
Now while I have said that I don't plan fun lessons, I have no objection to the students enjoying themselves in class, as long as that enjoyment is part and parcel of their studies. For me personally however, the funniest occasions are those in which students make hilarious mistakes whilst talking.
There are three main ways in which students can make hilarious mistakes:
1. By mispronouncing vowels and consonants.
2. By inadvertently using idioms - thereby speaking something unintended.
3. By using Chinglish - literal translations of Chinese into English.
Article Number 9 of the How to Improve English Series deals with these topics as a teaching session, but I am going to use this chapter to relate some of the more common mistakes, and provide you with some cultural understanding of Chinglish usage.
Vowels and Consonants:
Whilst here in SuZhou students manifest relatively few of what I usually refer to as 'speech impediments', the students of Hubei manifested many. The most frequent errors relate to the use of consonants.
Like other non native speakers of English, the students mix up 'th' with 's', 'd' and 'z'. Additionally they confuse 'V' and 'W'. As such, their speech is something like you might expect a German person to speak English - Vould you like somezing else viss your zourkraut? I vas sitting in de boat sinking!
The consonants 'L' and 'N' are the most troubling. Once you get used to the fact that you can't trust words in Chinese or English that begin with 'N' or 'L', you are constantly required to check. Only this week did a student inform me that I pronounce the Chinese word for 'underwear' incorrectly. Since I learned the word through conversation, I had no idea that while in SuZhou and elsewhere in China they wear 'Neiku', I, like everyone else in Hubei wear 'Leiku'.
And so it is that when a student tells you that: 'Last week my father lost his life in the river', you have to double check to see whether or not it was his 'knife' or his 'life' that he lost. You can of course be pretty certain that when a student tells you that you are very 'lice', that he means 'nice'.
Although the less frequent error, erroneous vowel sounds cause the most problems, because the often result in the creation of words, phrases and sentences that mean nothing like what was intended, and often as not, are quite 'blue' or dirty, in the process. Just imagine a male student asking you if it was Ok for him to bring his 'cock' into class and drink it.
As I have said, it took me a month to clean my classroom in Hong Hu and I was very strict with the students about keeping it neat and clean. One day this boy barreled into the classroom holding a can of coke. I looked at his 'coke' and then at him, and he stopped dead in his tracks. Quickly bowing he asked me if he could bring his 'cock' into class and drink it. I did my best to control myself, but couldn't. I fell onto the desk in hysterics. When I finally got myself under control I immediately gave an impromptu lesson on the difference in sound between 'coke' and 'cock'. If you think that example was funny, try explaining the difference to a student between the words 'alarm clock' and 'anarmcock'.
In my last semester in Wuhan, I had 36 students living on my floor, and it didn't take us long to start living in each others pockets. (See : My 36 Neighbours in China.) I was sitting in the lounge one night dunking chocolate covered biscuits into my coffee when a boy asked me what I was doing. I told him that I like licking the chocolate off the biscuits. He promptly announced: 'Mmm! I like cocklick!'
I nearly chocked! It took ages to get him to pronounce chocolate correctly. His first attempts were halfhearted and he really couldn't be bothered. It was only after I got one of the boys to translate what I heard into Chinese, that the boy applied himself to correcting his pronunciation.
The Australian word bum or bottom, is also called the 'arse'. 'Arse' in American English (an oxymoron to be sure) is pronounced 'ass', although it can also be referred to as 'Fanny'. Just a note to you yanks, in Australia, a 'fanny' is a part of the female anatomy, and you should never threaten to kick a girl in the fanny, or else like one American I knew, you might find the girl's father grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and threatening to beat you senseless.
Armed now with the knowledge of what the word 'arse' means to me, and you can imagine my shock when a 12 year old girl said to me: 'You have beautiful arse!' I was teaching a group of primary schoolers in my home, and nearly fell over backward when I heard her utterance. I was just about to ask her to repeat (just in case I had misunderstood), when she added: 'they are so blue!' As I began to laugh, my flatmate Zhan Yan, realising what I thought she had said, began to laugh as well, and then told the parents why we were both laughing.
I have several times since then encountered this mispronunciation of the word 'eyes', and barring one time, it has had no effect on me. I simply correct it. The other time it affected me, I was in Judy's apartment, having a conversation with her and Jessica. Judy is a Chinese American who taught for 6 months in Hong Hu at the No 5 Middle School. (See: Interview with Judy) Jessica was a national teacher from an altogether different school, whose English was normally impeccable. When in conversation she announced that she had told the students to grow up and open their 'arse', I was in the process of swallowing coffee. After I had recovered from chocking, laughing, crying and nearly blacking out, I was able to both explain and correct her mistake.
Another common word that is mispronounced is the word 'See' which is often pronounced 'Say'. 'Come and say something' should be understood as 'come and see something', unless of course you are at a gathering. But you'd better make sure of the person's meaning before you get up and make an 'eyes' out of yourself.
Smile is another common word that is often mispronounced as 'smell'. I've had many students tell me that they like my smell. The first time it happened I started talking about Jean-paul Gaultier perfume. It was very confusing. Sometimes conversations with students run something like Abbot and Costello scripts.
Is Gao Jie here?
She's 'ere.
Where?
At home!
So she's not here?
Yes she is.
Well where is she?
She is at home!
Why?
She is very 'ere!
She's What?
She's ere! Maybe she will see the doctor.
Oh! She's ill?
Yes! We already told you!
The mispronunciation of vowels and consonants can really be funny at times, like the time my students were reading from the textbook and read: 'The museum was filled with many rooms and whores!' Whores being the way they pronounce 'halls'. I have had arguments with students who say it is not necessary to pronounce English exactly, and I usually fail to convince them that that is not always true.
In Jiangsu Province, the students frequently mixed up 'R' and 'L', so you can imagine my confusion when a student said that he hated his school because it gave him too much 'pleasure' (pressure). In February 2010 I was flying back to Baotou from Australia, and on the Beijing to Baotou flight the stewardess providing the English translations of the Chinese announcements was hilarious.
She told us that we should make sure our 'sheet belts' were fastened tightly, and informed us that it was a 'pressure' to serve us.
Accidental Idioms.
Not long after I arrived in Hong Hu, the coalition went to war in Iraq. One day in class during the middle of a discussion, one boy jumped out of his seat and loudly proclaimed: "I want a piss!"
I was a little stunned to hear him express himself that way, but as the matter seemed pressing, I did not object to his language. When I immediately replied with: 'Well go then!', he said: 'What?'
I said: 'You want a piss? Then go! Out the door and down there!'
Frankly I thought that I was being rather polite under the circumstances, but the class broke out into an uproar. Everyone was angry and demanding to know why it was that I was sending him out of the room and I told them quite pointedly that it was because he wanted a piss!
It took a full 5-10 minutes before everything became clear. While what he said sounded like a very common or base way of stating his desire to go to the toilet, in fact, he had said: 'I want Peace!' Of course like so many students, he couldn't help adding the extra 'a' vowel sound on the end of 'want' and mispronounced the word 'Peace'.
It must have been in Hong Hu, around the end of the second semester in 2004, (May/June), that I had begun appointing students to be in charge of and to direct, classroom discussions. On one of those occasions the students were talking about what they like to do on their one day off per fortnight. After several students in turn had informed us of their likes and dislikes, one girl announced: 'I don't like to see anyone. 'I just like to go home, go to my room, lock the door, and play with myself.'
Naturally I corrected her. 'In this situation you must say "by" myself.' I went to the blackboard and wrote it. Little did I know that she was one of those 'you are just a foreigner - what would you know' types, and she immediately began to lecture me on grammar and the fact that I didn't know what I was talking about. Finally I just wrote the word 'Masturbate' on the blackboard.
'What does that mean?' they all chorused. 'Look it up in your dictionaries' I told them. Well sure enough they found it - but most didn't understand the Chinese translation. Those few who did, dropped their heads on their desks and began to giggle. I eventually had to force one of the male students to explain what 'masturbation' was in Chinese. This then drew the ire of several students who said that I had no business using bad language in class. I politely pointed out that it was the student who had said something 'Yellow', and that if in future they do not want me to correct their English, then I would not, and that they could bloody well just make fools of themselves later in life.
Of course it is not just the Chinese students who make such mistakes. In 1988 I was living in a hostel in Adelaide South Australia, and spent a month in the company of four French guys. One day, Rene and I were walking in town when I decided to inform him that I was jealous of his ability to travel around the world. Instead of using the correct phrase: 'Je vous envie' - literally translated, "I you envy', I said: 'J'ai envie de vous', which literally translated should have meant 'I have envy of you'. Unfortunately that particular expression was a colloquial expression and translated as 'I want to F--- you!' The poor guy stopped dead in his tracks and demanded that I explain in English what I meant.
That night back at the hostel, his friend was sitting up late in the Kitchen with a young English girl, who at midnight announced: 'It's very late. I'm going to go to bed now!' To that the French guy announced: 'In that case, I will go to bed with you!' She put him in his place in quick time.
In SuZhou, I taught a special class of seven boys, who were additionally doing a one semester Italian course in preparation for going to Italy to study. Their Italian teacher discovered first hand how easy it is for students to accidentally make really 'yellow' remarks, although she maintains that my mistake in Italian was the best. Sitting in on the class one day, it came my turn to answer a question.
It was a simple question and I answered it easily. 'No!' she flared before correcting my pronunciation. I knew better than to ask her in front of the students, what it was that I had said. Later she informed me that because I had said; 'Ani' instead of 'anni', I had altered the meaning of my answer from: 'I'm 53 years old' - to - 'I have 53 rectums'. [Oh I can just imagine what some people who know me are now thinking.]
Actually, the worse mistake I have ever made in Chinese was made in Hong Hu when I mispronounced a boys name and called quite literally 'little c**t'. It sent the class into hysterics and embarrassed the boy no end.
Chinglish.
Chinglish is what results when you translate Chinese (or Chinese Culture) into literal English, or else results from commonly shared faulty Grammar. The story I have previously related about QC wanting to Play with me and Sleep with me, are perfect examples of Chinglish.
One boy one day was telling me how in love he was with his former teacher, saying such things as: "He was so beautiful. He had such a lovely face. I used to dream about him all the time.' When he finished his story I had only one question to ask: 'Is HE a man or a woman?' The Answer? 'A Woman of Course!' One can never trust the use of 'He' and 'She' when it comes out of the Chinese mouth, and so you should never take the subject matter's gender as a given. The reason for this? In Oral Chinese there is no difference between 'he' and 'she'. (There is a difference in writing!)
The Chinese constantly use the terms 'brother' and 'cousin brother' to mean 'cousin'. I remember a student telling me that that girl down on the playground was his sister, and that her father was a teacher in our school. After a short but confusing conversation (about which I wrote somewhere), I was finally made to understand that he was in fact referring to his 'cousin'.
Although a cultural thing, (not 'chinglish'), foreigners should also understand that the Chinese do not consider it strange to compliment 'same gendered others' by saying things like:
- "You are very sexy!"
"I love you!"
"You are so handsome!"
Now even though I did put a warning at the beginning of this chapter, I am wise enough to know that some who have read this chapter are thinking that I am pretty disgusting for having written what I have. But I would ask: 'Why?' What's wrong with a good laugh?
Unfortunately in this day and age, political correctness has just about succeeded in robbing us of all the simple joys of life. You can no longer tell a joke about women, gays, ethnics, the non Christian religious, or tell jokes containing unacceptable words. Notice I omitted saying that one could not tell jokes about men and Christians. Such is the non discriminatory manner of political correctness. Additionally, we have seen nursery rhyme after nursery rhyme go the way of funny jokes.
The world is becoming a very dreary humorless place. Every activist and his dog lives for an opportunity to be offended and sue someone. It has been my experience in rural China, that the average Chinese has as good a sense of humor as the average 'common' Australian, amongst whom I count myself as one - a true blue dyed in the wool dinky di Aussie.
We live in a world full of war, litigation, competing ideologies, and abuse. Suicide rates amongst young men in Australia have gone through the roof; drugs and alcohol use to cope with the pressures of life are common place. What once passed for 'free speech' countries, now control every legislated thought and action, and truth no longer matters. Historical traditions are being thrown out the window in favour of the more exotic, except generally speaking, the exotic is not considered exotic by those who are stuck living the exotic lifestyles.
If you think that the Chinese are exotic, then kindly note that students at college do not turn up to class wearing cute costumes or practicing quaint customs. In those nice touristy places in the remoter parts of China that you visit, those exotic people have neither exotic bathrooms nor go to exotic toilets and nor do they do their 'business' in an exotic way. Urinating in the street in China is as common to see as drunk louts on a Saturday night in the Brisbane City Mall.
Life is a reality that must be faced, and if the realities of life have a funny edge to them, then why not have a good laugh. This following example of an apparently true story, which some WILL find offensive, is alleged to have had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and undoubtedly caused the embarrassed female news anchor to think before she speaks in future.
What happens when you predict snow but don't get any? We had a female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked: "So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?" Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too, they were laughing so hard! (Original source for this story is unknown.)
Whilst so many in the secular west look down on Christianity, and whilst others praise exotic religions, stoically defending them from some real or imagined offense, how many Christians do you think would read the following and not find it funny......
Not a Jot or a Tittle shall be changed or pass away.
- A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up. In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.
The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." So, he goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.
Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He finds him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the "R", we missed the "R". His forehead is bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.
The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?" With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was CELEBRATE!"
Being that I am an English Teacher in China, I found this joke on Harry Leichter's Jewish Humor site, quite funny:
- During the first day of Hanukah, two elderly Jewish men were sitting in a wonderful deli frequented almost exclusively by Jews in New York City. They were talking amongst themselves in Yiddish - the colorful language of Jews who came over from Eastern Europe.
A Chinese waiter, only one year in New York, came up and in fluent impeccable Yiddish asked them if everything was okay and if they were enjoying the holiday.
The Jewish men were dumbfounded. "Where did he ever learn such perfect Yiddish?" they both thought. After they paid the bill they asked the restaurant manager, an old friend of theirs, "Where did our waiter learn such fabulous Yiddish?"
The manager looked around and leaned in so no one else will hear and said... "Shhhh. He thinks we're teaching him English."
People often ask me: 'Why do I like living in China?'
Maybe that answer is that it is because I find more to laugh about in life, and don't have someone breathing down my neck just waiting for an opportunity to be offended.
[This topic continues in Chapter 11]
R.P. BenDedek
Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com
Hardcover Publishing inquiries welcomed!
R.P. BenDedek is the pseudonym of an Australian who has been teaching in China since 2003. He currently lives in Baotou in Inner Mongolia. In addition to contributing to Magic City Morning Star News as a columnist, he also is an assisting Editor for the Newspaper.
Additionally, BenDedek is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at www.kingscalendar.com
