Little Girls, a Big Puppy, and My Appalling Chinese

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"Morning, ladies!" I smile as I say it, trying to unbutton one of the several coats I am wearing to shield me from the icebox cold of the classroom in which I am standing. The students collectively let out a giggle. College girls are still girls in China, and they are no more likely to think of themselves as women than I am to think of myself as a bespectacled, dancing tarantula, which I am not. (For the record, I cannot dance.)

Brant Goble (L) with one of his Chinese friends [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

I flair my nostrils a bit. "Does anyone smell that?" I pause. "Do any of you, my beloved and oh-so-charming students, smell what I smell?"

This piques their curiosity a bit, and thirty-five diminutive noses, all in various shades of brown, are momentarily redirected upwards from QQ-enabled mobile phones to the surrounding atmosphere. The class sniffs, but cautiously.

"Diesel?" offers one of my best students. She is probably the only person in the room other than me who knows what the word diesel means.

"No. Try again." I do my best to give an encouraging look.

"Stinky tofu?" suggests another, and I realize, God help us, that I too can smell it.

"A little, but that's not what I meant."

"Teacher Guo, is your stomach bothering you again?" The student—the girl—who asks calls me by my assumed name (which was given to me by a different student, one who smartly noticed that her peers addressed me as Gwobell), and she is genuinely concerned. My dyspepsia—of primarily (but not exclusively) the physiological sort—is quickly approaching legendary status, and I have been helped to the local clinic for IVs by friends and students more times than I can easily recall. I keep a little bottle of creosote and belladonna stomachic from Thailand in my coat for just such occasions. They are of dreadfully limited effect.

"No, but thanks for asking."

The class is getting bored now, and I have learned that they can quickly transition from curiosity to consternation to sleepy indifference, so I decide to deliver the punchline.

"It's progress!"

The class is puzzled, but only slightly. This ranks low on the list of peculiar statements I have made in class. A few students look at me askance. They are smart enough to suspect, correctly, that I am not quite finished.

"Do you ladies know what else is a sure sign of progress?"

"What?" asks a lone, brave voice.

"Tests!" I grin. "Get ready. You're all giving presentations today!"

"No!"

"We want to watch a movie."

"You're no fun!"

"Don't moan as hard as that. I'm afraid you'll hurt yourselves, and I'm too old to be fun." At twenty-eight, I am only half joking when I say this. I have worked with teachers—whom I thought were interns at the time—small and enthusiastic women without a wrinkle on their smooth faces or the dullness of cynicism and exhaustion in their bright eyes, despite the classrooms full of screaming children—their charges—whom they teach for years on end, and asked in perfect earnestness, "So, when do you graduate from college?"

They pause, not quite certain if they have heard the question correctly.

"Oh me, I've already finished college, but my son graduates next year."

Hmm! And for all the advanced medicine of which I have had the benefit, I feel as though I am coming apart at the seams. This is one stereotype that I am beginning to suspect is right, at least a majority of the time: The Chinese visibly age at a rate that is but some small fraction of that of the rest of humanity.

***

I have my first conversation with the woman who is to become one of my best friends during our first, disastrous date, which is arranged by another friend sympathetic to my lack of companionship in a way that no one in the States had ever been.

The friend who arranges the date is Hunanese short, which does much to explain why I thought she was eleven years old when I first met her, and with skin the color of coffee and cream. For some reason, I imagine her friends as all looking about the same, as though friendships amongst Chinese women are based solely on being able to share ID cards, blouses, and makeup.

Pale, with black zyl hipster glasses and pink Converse-knock-off shoes, the woman at the gate of my school—my date—is not what I expect.

"You're so damned tall!" These are the first words this unfortunate soul hears me utter. And she is. As I am to later learn, we are exactly the same height when standing barefoot, and my dress jacket—the only bespoke clothing I have ever owned—fits her as though it has been cut for her lanky frame. I hand her my little gift, a calligraphy brush set, distractedly.

She smiles. "Really? I never noticed."

"Where are you from? The north, I suppose."

"Miluo."

"In Hunan?"

"Yep!"

"Where the poet, uh … Qu, Qu … Oh Lord, my rotting brain." All this thinking is getting painful.

"Qu Yuan."

"Yeah, Qu Yuan. Thanks. Isn't that where he … " I walk two of my fingers through the air before making them swan dive into an imaginary river. I whistle a bit as my hand goes down and add a splashing sound at the end for effect.

"That's the one."

"Ah yes, Miluo, a great place to die!"

"Hey!"

"But it's such a nice place to die, and we've all got to check out sooner or later."

She narrows her eyes to slits in mock anger. “And some sooner than the rest of us.”

We sit down at a table at the restaurant where the boss always laughs when he sees me. At first, I attributed his good cheer to the novelty of seeing a foreigner frequent his establishment, but I have revised my opinion. Instead, I believe the real source of mirth is my Chinese, which leaves something to be desired. The fact that I am a vegan does not make ordering food any simpler.

"Nǐhǎo!" I pause. "Wǒ … yào … tāng.... Wǒ … bú … yào … er, uh … ròu." I mean I want soup. I do not want meat, but my speech is naturally flat, almost robotic. My voice sounds as though it belongs to a despondent, if not suicidal, Ben Stein, and trying to successfully imitate the curious musicality of Chinese is beyond my abilities. At best, I sound as though I am warbling away to a tune that only a wàiguórén can hear—a drinking song to be attempted by only the most hopelessly inebriated of men. At worst, I sound as though I am in the throes of a particularly painful vocal spasm, so as often as not, the boss wanders away, trying to figure out if I want meatless soup, candy, or given the vagaries of my vowel pronunciation, a serving of vegetarian pain, preferably with a side of wǔshù sauce.

"Your Chinese is appalling." My new friend is restrained, but I can tell that she is enjoying this.

"You know, you look like a big, goofy puppy with that haircut." I point to the shoulder-length locks that hang down her head in a way that reminds of the ears of a Cocker Spaniel I once owned. "What's the Chinese for puppy, anyway?"

"Xiǎogǒu."

"Okay, dàxiǎogǒu." I can remember that dà means big, and I take great pride in my Chinese vocabulary of a little more than ten words. "Get whatever your big puppy heart desires. I just want something with no meat, no eggs, no bones, no milk, and no animal oils. That should be easy enough."

She roles her eyes. I have just eliminated everything on the menu but the rice.

I still cannot imagine why Big Puppy does not want me.

***