One Letter Changes Everything

Hey Yall-

清明节快乐！(Qing Ming Jie Kuai Le). Happy Tomb-Sweeping Day! It was actually this past Saturday, but oh well. This isn't a very big holiday in China, especially with today's generation. It is an older and more traditional one. People visit their family's tombs, clean them, burn fake money, and sometimes leave food. Most people I talked with didn't act like they were going to celebrate it. I think now it's turned into more of "have a day off from work day." So we got Monday off. I went with two teachers from my school to Zunyi, a city about 3 hours north of Guiyang by train. There are 4 other volunteers there and we all met up one night for dinner at one of my teacher's sister's new hot pot restuarant. Not a whole lot of details about the holiday. Like I said..just a reason to have a day off.

Now let me explain the meaning of this blog's title. After spending a lot of time with my students and teaching them, you learn a lot about the English language. First off..it's really confusing..Also, my knowledge of grammar is really bad. I have no idea why we say and do some of the things we do with our language. And so it's really tough to explain these reasons to my students..The best I can do some of the time is just say "just because..." But in fairness to our language, Chinese is the same way. They can't explain most of their grammar either and you just have to say "just because..."

Another thing I've learned about our language is that if you change just one letter in a word, phrase, or sentence it changes everything..Last week in my writing class I taught them about memoirs..The hardest part was getting them to pronounce the word correctly...The topic was "6-word memoirs." I got the idea from Phil, who also wrote about teaching them in his blog..The main idea is to use 6 words and write your memoirs..It can be just 6 words, a phrase, or a short sentence..So for homework they had to write them about themselves and then in class, they got in groups and wrote them about famous people. I picked (stole from Phil actually) Liu Xiang (110 meter hurdle runner), Bill Gates (everyone here knows him), Deng Xiao Ping (older President-Phil chose Mao Ze Dong but I'm not as brave or daring as him yet), and then of course me! I told them I was famous in our school, so it's ok.

The twist was this though..I told them certain words they weren't allowed to use because I knew everyone would write the same old stuff and I wanted them to get creative...For example: Bill Gates..you can't write: money, rich, computers. And for me I wrote: boy, man, handsome, funny, humorous, American, teacher...I'm not trying to sound cocky or anything, but they overuse the words "handsome" and "humorous" to describe people...They came up with some good ones..for example..for me: "Always has his pen in mouth" (I chew on my pen in class and in my office a lot)..."Puts his pen behind his ear" (Again with the pen...when I'm not chewing it it is usually behind my ear)..."Don't be shy have a try" (I tell them this all the time)..so overall they did a good job..but now one group made a small English mistake with their's..and like I said..one letter makes a whole new meaning.

So I had them write them on the board and we could all look at them and go over them as a class..I didn't look until they were all finished writing them on the board, and as I turned around and looked at them all I saw: "The gay from Guizhou Education College"...and my mouth dropped and my face looked in shock...I went to that one and asked "Who wrote this?" And I tried my best to keep my emotions out of it, but they could tell something was wrong..I wasn't angry or anything, but just shocked..

The word "gay" can be a touchy subject in China..people's opinions vary a lot here..and Peace Corps warned us that if any schools or students knew a volunteer was gay, it could possibly hurt their reputation, appearance, or credibility..And also from talking about this with others, volunteers here that are gay do not let their schools know. I feel like I should add a "Not that there's anything wrong with that." A little shout out for Seinfeld.

So back to the story..after the guilty (just kidding) group raised their hands..I pointed to the word and asked "Do you know what this word means?" They all said yes..So I asked again, "Are you sure?" And then I told them to check their dictionaries..After a minute or so of looking up the word, they realized what had happened..It turns out they had meant to write "Guy" because I told them they weren't allowed to use "boy" or "man", so they went with a substitute..but I'm guessing it's the first time they'd used the word before and just messed up with the vowel..

After everyone finally understood, the next part took me by surprise..the girls started crying..Wasn't really expecting that..Then came the apologies..After that I apologized too and told them that they need to be careful and make sure and check their writing after finishing..After looking back on it and talking with some others, I realized I also made some mistakes too..I made the whole thing too public and embarrased the students accidentally..I also should have realized what they meant to write, but it never entered my head..So overall it was an interesting class and we all learned a lot...I learned a lot about my students and also about the difficulties and many layers of the English language..