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"I would like to buy a pencil," my classmate said, with a little too much enthusiasm. "OK," I replied, "one pencil is 2 yuan."
"Good. I would also like to buy a pair of shoes," he went on, to which I give him an important choice: A red pair for 5 yuan, or a blue pair for 8 yuan.
"I want blue shoes," he answered assuredly, and then added: "Plus, I want a frog."
I paused. We had been role-playing during a Chinese language class in Beijing, me as a surly shop assistant with an odd pricing system, and my classmate as a guy who apparently thinks there is a store somewhere that stocks pencils, shoes and live frogs (I wouldn't write it off in China).
Learning a foreign language gets harder as you get older, I'm told. I'm not sure how true that is, but sitting in a classroom certainly does.
I hated school the first time round; the schedule, the classrooms, the teachers who throw chalk, the exams, or even worse, the clocks they put in exam halls that tell you exactly how much time you've already wasted sharpening your pencil.
So perhaps taking a year off from work for a full-time, intensive Chinese course at a Beijing language school was not the best idea.
To be honest, after six years in China, I'd got tired of everyone presuming I could speak the language well just because I'd married a Chinese woman. "You have a free teacher at home," people would joke.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn from, or teach anything to, a partner knows that that way disaster lies. Partners don't have the inexhaustible patience with each other that a good teacher will have with a student. Hence, arguments are inevitable.
Shortly after my parents started dating, my father tried to teach my mother how to drive. The ordeal lasted just under 30 minutes. "It ended with him screaming and me in tears. We nearly broke up," my mother said.
That simple driving lesson could have prevented me from ever being born. (Bad for me, yes, but on the plus side global supplies of Cadbury's chocolate would be enormous.)
My wife and I had already started to bristle whenever one of us corrected the other's grammar, most likely because the instructions usually ended with "you idiot" or a suitable equivalent. So compared with an acrimonious divorce, going back to school didn't seem such a bad idea. At least it'd be cheaper, I reasoned.
I knew I was in trouble from day one. The language school's magnolia hallways instantly evoked memories of traipsing between history and math as a teenager, being told not to "drag my feet" by coffee-breath teachers, while my first time discovering chewing gum stuck to the underside of a desk in two decades was not a nostalgic treat.
The day of the role-playing exercise, which came a month or so into the course, was the final straw. "A frog? I don't have any frogs. Just give me 10 yuan," I said, allowing the expression on my face to add: "And get out of my shop."
I'm sorry to say my resolve crumbled after that. It all started to feel so stupid. I began missing classes and dropped behind in my homework. I passed my finals, but I didn't bother signing up for another semester.
At least my wife was supportive. "I can teach you Chinese," she said with a wide grin. "I will only charge 200 yuan an hour."
Maybe I can have it knocked off future alimony payments.
Contact the writer at craig@chinadaily.com.cn
