My Chinese Students

They are lovely; I don't think there is any other way to describe them.  They are gracious and kind and thoughtful.  They are like little puppy dogs, always happy to see me.  And when I am in their presence, they stroke my arm and lean up to me and they want to shake my hand, sincerely and vigorous and for a long time.  Mostly too long a time as I usually have to shake longer than is comfortable for me, then my shake goes a little limp (hoping to serve as a social cue) and then I have to assert myself a little and just yank away. After that, they go back to stroking my arm.



When we have a meeting, someone is assigned to come fetch me and escort me to the meeting.  Someone is assigned to serve as my translator as needed.  One woman is in charge of any power point presentation I may have.  One student is insistent that I get a phone so that she can call me to see if I am safe at all time.

When I walk through campus with them, they immediately go into guard duty mode and escort me through the campus as if i am fragile and could be damaged by the other students.  So they shield me from the other students and as necessary, push and nudge the other students out of my way. They reprimand all unknown students who accidentally bump in to me.  And then my students apologize and check to make sure I am not damaged.

When we are in the classroom, they listen with so much intensity that I almost have to laugh.  And while I am speaking, they nod their heads in unconditional, constant  agreement with me.  And then the class leader gets up and translates what I just said and there is a loud raucous of disagreement. And there is all sorts of bantering going on and I can't follow what is being said.  So I just nonchalantly raise my hand. Then there is an immediate silence and they go back to sitting on their edge of their seats, listening intensely.  And it appears to me that no matter what is said in Chinese, we all seem to reach agreement in the end and we all think my idea is the best idea.  And so why wouldn't I think these people are lovely.

In 2012, I taught at Sias University in Henan Province, China