Little Girls, a Big Puppy, and My Appalling Chinese

At the middle school where I teach from time to time, I have gotten accustomed to being mobbed. This is partially my fault. I smile so broadly at students that I wonder if my face will crack. I pass out business cards to them, which they appear to think are made of solid gold for all the fuss they make over the little slips of paper, and when the other teachers are not looking, I set my teeth together, curl back my lips, whistle through the obvious gap where one of my teeth should be, and mouth the words lòufēng (the air leaks out). It takes the students a while to get the joke, but when they do, they run away, laughing.

In the most raucous class, on the most exhausting of days, there is Ling. "Good morning, Teacher Guo," she says when I enter the room. This is the perfect picture of studiousness, and with her spotless uniform and innocent smile, at the age of twelve, little Ling appears incapable of hurting a fly.

"Everyone calm down, it's time for class," I say.

The tomfoolery of the class continues unabated, and Ling's smile tightens. "Be quiet," she hisses to her classmates, but they ignore her. I suspect they ignore everyone. "Shut up!" she tries again, more loudly this time.

But the better part of them take no heed, which bothers me only a little. I have a long fuse, and it has gotten longer over the years. Ling, however, is a not so even tempered, and her smile, already flagging, eventually disappears altogether.

She bounces out of her chair. "Ānjìng!" she yells at her more undisciplined classmates, walloping one after the other over the head with a rolled-up book, her ponytail bouncing oh-so-delicately. The subjects of her thrashing—two boys, both bigger than she is—give me a bored this again? look, and I suspect that they are on the receiving end of little Ling's third degree fairly often. She is enthusiastic in her thrashings, and I wonder if a career in law enforcement—possibly in the Deep South of the United States—might be in her future.

"Ling," I wait for her to deliver a solid rap to the head of a third loudmouth, "please have a seat." She does, looking disappointed that her efforts have not proven more effective, and I slowly calm the class down to a state of partially controlled mania.

After class, I hustle out of the school. I am not fleeing, and I actually find being asked to autograph twenty to thirty students' textbooks an amusing, if unexpected, turn of events in my life. My brother, a talented musician with fifteen albums on iTunes and as many tattoos as a Maori sailor might well have, does not get such treatment. But either I sprint for the bus, or I wait twenty minutes for the next one, which will be so crowded that I will end up standing for the duration of the ride and trying to avoid stepping on someone's dinner, which is clucking its last, apprehensive clucks.

At the bus stop, I am distracted, thinking about what I need do before day's end. It takes a little time for me to notice the tugging on my jacket. What? I look around and see nothing. I return to my reverie and think about tofu. Can I cook it without burning down the house? Do I really need to use an entire liter of oil every time I prepare a meal? The tugging resumes. I look down.

"Ling! How did you get here?"

"I walk." Well, that was a pointless question, Teacher Guo. "Where you go?"

"Home."

"You have lunch?"

"Not yet."

"My home there." She points to a dingy block of apartments down the street. "We have lunch."

"That's nice of you, Ling, but I need to go home." This is not strictly true, but I doubt that Ling's mother would appreciate a perpetually befuddled foreigner popping in for lunch unannounced.

"You look hungry. We have lunch." She smiles broadly, and I realize that the matter of our having lunch together is not a question in her mind at this point.

"I really must go." I offer a sheepish look.

"Okay." She is downtrodden, but just as suddenly perks up. "Here. You look hungry."

Ling darts off, and I am left holding a sucker, an orange, and a box of student's milk, and as happens every so often, I am glad to be a teacher on this day.

***

I do not know what will become of Ling when she grows up—far be it from me to claim any sort of prescience—but I imagine (and I emphasize imagine) that in ten years she will become something of a Lilith.

Lilith, I am firmly convinced, does not sleep, or if she does, it is only briefly and in the manner of a horse—standing up—lest she waste hours of the day or night she could be using to pursue her dreams, be they of earning a postgraduate degree in America, traveling around China, or building a training program of her own design.

And I have learned better than to underestimate Lilith's faith in dreams.

When I first met Lilith, who was a freshman at the school where I taught, I knew she had ambition. Lilith likes to say that she has the heart of a man, and I do not doubt it, but for all her boldness, I think she may be understating the facts, and I would be none too surprised to learn that she has the rest of the accouterments as well. Be it working in the campus radio station, becoming class leader, or organizing the student newspaper, Lilith quickly moved through the ranks. Now, after three years in school, I rarely see her by herself, and she is more often than not followed by a coterie of English learners who might be better described as acolytes than friends in the conventional sense.

Of all the people I know here, she hides her capabilities the least, yet by American standards, she is, if not modest, justified in her confidence. I know that her direction has earned her nearly as many detractors as admirers, but she is no daddy's little girl, coddled and indulged to a state of disability or content to trust in her untested aptitudes and an absolute faith her in own self-worth. I could not easily abide her company long if she were. Rather, she is thick-skinned and determined to test her mettle, to see how far her will and luck and hard work will take her.

***

In class, I give my students their assignments. Working alone or with the partner or partners of your choice, try to solve the dilemma or question given to you. You may provide your answer in whatever manner you see fit, so long as the language of presentation is English. Extra points will be given for creativity.

The questions I give to my students earn more than a few head scratches and even the occasional tiānna! I am not oblivious to culture differences, but rather than sweep them under the rug, I try make my students aware of them—let them know that there are many different ways of thinking. And more than anything else, I try to give my students questions that are unusual enough so that they will be compelled to think on their feet rather than reciting something they downloaded the night before.

If given the chance to live forever, would you do so?

Should high school students have babies?

When should people be fed to lions?

If you and your family were stranded in a snowstorm, whom would you eat first?

The answer to the first is a resounding no, which surprises me, but the reasons my students give me are rational. To want to live forever is desire to be truly apart from the rest of our species, and I can understand why this does not appeal to them—these girls who walk arm-in-arm and call their families three times a week.

The answer to the second question is no as well, but none of the students believe me when I tell them that teen pregnancy was a common enough occurrence in my hometown that we rarely did so much as bat an eyelid at the sight of high school girls with watermelon bellies and penguin walks.

To the third, I receive an answer profoundly obvious: When the lion is hungry, of course. This is given with such perfect earnestness, with such a genuinely sweet smile, that I cannot help but reciprocate.

"Well, I agree. We wouldn't want the lion to waste his dinner, now would we?" I say, and I mark down an "A" for my student.

The last question is answered by not one girl, but a group of five who have chosen to give a performance rather than an ordinary presentation. I can hear them laughing in the hall, where they are practicing, but I do not know what they are saying.

I open the classroom's door and look out. "Come in, now. It's time for your examination." Everyone stops giggling.

They shuffle into class and line up at the front of the room. They are silent. I am now the one looking at the stage, if not askance, at least with a certain skepticism. I do not know what to expect.

Three of the girls start to sniffle, and before long they are rubbing their eyes and wiping away imaginary tears. One of the three rushes up to a forth—the round, maternal one.

"Mommy, Mommy, we are hungry. Please feed us. Please feed us," she pleads in her most childlike voice, and I am reminded of a Japanese cartoon.

"Oh, my little babies," says the little mother, stroking the girl's hair, "I have no food."

The other two babies gather round and wail as they huddle close to her.

"Mommy, we are sick."

"Mommy, we are cold."

"Mommy, please … "

At this point, they are competing to see who can sound the most pitiable, and it is a fierce competition indeed.

"Father, oh Father, whatever shall we do?" The mother looks towards Lilith, and I realize that Lilith is, inevitably, the father.

The three girls rush towards Lilith.

"Bàba, Bàba, please. We are hungry," they moan in unison.

"We do not want to die!"

"But children," Lilith begins, sounding hopeful, "there must be something we can do. Where is the dog?"

"We ate the dog."

"Okay. Where is the cat?"

"We ate the cat?"

"Well, where are the mice?"

"I ate the mouse," says the smallest one.

Lilith feigns a despondent look. She is puzzled.

"My children, do not be afraid. We will think of something." She surveys the room, and suddenly, as though I have materialized out of thin air, recognizes me.

"Teacher Guo! What are you doing here?"

"Like a bad case of athlete's foot, I am with you always." As I say, I wonder if anyone in the room is familiar with athlete's foot.

"Teacher Guo, do you have any food?"

"I am sorry.” I shrug. “Do I look like I have any food?" It is a rhetorical question. I am not small, but I am raw-boned in a way that people apparently do not expect in an American—a citizen of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Bacon Cheeseburger—so I am always assumed to be hungry.

Lilith, beaming with a warmth and satisfaction fit to melt a glacier, raises her eyebrows slightly.

"Children, I have an idea. Come here and listen!" Lilith draws her brood near, and a whispering commences.

They turn around suddenly. Everyone looks happy now.

"My dear children, my wife, tell me, what do you want?" Lilith rallies the troops. "Tell me, what could make you happy?" She is nearly yelling now. "What could fill your little stomachs? What could save us all?"

They—children, mother, and husband—all point in my direction. I brace myself.

"Teacher Guo barbecue! Teacher Guo barbecue! Teacher Guo barbecue!"

I realize that I have been outsmarted, and I smile, genuinely content with myself. The students have finally exceeded the master.

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