Not quite a Tower of Babel

IAmong the many concerns I had about teaching in China was whether it would be a problem that I had a Southern (non-standard) accent. No problem! We have "international" teachers from London, Australia, the Phillipines, Canada, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and North Carolina all working on PC's in this cramped room. So you constantly hear English being spoken in several different accents. Of course, we also have several "local" teachers who are from all around China; they are part of the massive migration from the provinces into the cities. My favorite local teacher is from Mongolia, but he sounds just like he's from the US when he speaks English because he lived for 2 years in Georgia and has a good ear.

Our job, of course, is to teach English all day, and in the course of preparing for lessons the local teachers frequently have questions about the meaning of certain words or phrases. So someone will ask you something like "What's the difference between heaven and paradise?" or "Do you say I read it ON the newspaper or IN the newspaper; I heard it ON TV or IN the TV". But sometimes they'll ask a question that we disagree on, usually depending on which country we're from. So the local teacher asks what a "duplex" is and the Londoner tells her it's 2 separate buildings whose walls meet. I clarify that in America, it means one building separated in 2 by a wall. And sometimes the Australian will chip in with "We call that a gaboorabamba." Sometimes it's funny, as when the Londoner asks if anyone needs to use the "guillotine". I ask him what that means and he says "It's the thing you use to cut paper with; what do you call it in the States?" I say, "We call it a ....[dramatic pause] PAPER CUTTER."

On the flip side, none of the international teachers are fluent in Mandarin, so we often need their help with personall issues (talking to the phone company or building maintenance, for instance). But often it's about references in lessons. An international teacher will ask "Will the students know who Elvis is?" (Answer: "No, but they know the Beatles".)

The local teachers frequently speak Mandarin to each other and, since none of the international teachers are fluent, we usually ignore what they're saying. However, last week several of them were talking when I heard the unmistakable sound (to me) of "Keith Bernard". So I pipe up, "I HEARD that!" They all laugh and I ask how my name came up.

Juliet says she just talked to a student who had an unusual accent, and she asked where he was from. Turn out he's from Japan. She said she asked him what level he was. Because he was higher level, she said you have to go see Keith Bernard (international teachers handle the higher levels.)

She said if he'd been lower level, she'd have to refuse to have him in class. I had heard things before, so I said, "Y'all don't really like the Japanese, do you?" Monica, who is teaching me Chinese and is always very sweet, uncharacteristically said with bitterness, "We hate the Japanese." No one needed to say why. We all knew that when the Japanese occupied large parts of China before World War II, they treated the Chinese like dirt and committed many atrocities.

The local teachers went on complaining about the Japanese for a while, eventually saying they were worse than the Nazis. Monica said, "They're still trying to take over our companies...And getting parts for a Japanese car takes forever because they don't like the Chinese."

I'd heard about some bitterness toward the Japanese before, but it's really eye-opening when you hear it for yourself.



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