Awkward Question Time

Today I started class as I normally do, which is ask about their week. I’m teaching TV and listening, so I figure conversation isn’t going to ruin the entire syllabus. The students of my Thursday class are aware that I sleep late and enjoy waking up past 6am (why China, do you get up so early), so they asked what time I woke up. I told them the truth, which was 7:30. Then someone asked about what I did for breakfast, and I told them I had no breakfast.

They all gasped and told me that was unhealthy, and then they asked if I was ever hungry. And I said no, and if I don’t feel hungry I don’t go eat, and sometimes I miss lunch, too.

This created more gasps and someone asked me if I had an eating disorder, and aren’t those popular in America?

I laughed and said that I eat when I’m hungry and I’m a fan of eating as I patted my stomach. But then we started talking about anorexia and bulimia and how and why people have these disorders in the states.

These questions may seem strange, but actually, I welcome them. They’re so different from the questions I normally get (every day at English Corner, it’s “Where are you from?” “When did you get to China?” “Why did you come here?” “How old are you?”). But this was not the most amusing question of the day.

Tonight, to celebrate the Chrysanthemum festival this week (Kaifeng’s special festival), there was a concert put on by the students. I went for a little while, but then I went to English Corner, where I was the only teacher there. So 40-some students gathered around me, some left afterwards, but I told them to ask me anything at all. We talked about Mac computers, about life in the states and buying a house, etc.

It gets better.

Adam had gone to the festival, and when he came back he brought with him 4 teachers; Morgan, from Alaska/Seattle/California (not sure where exactly), Tim, from Australia (not sure where), and Toby, from Germany (also not sure where).

Toby is strange, new and exciting to the students, so they asked him to introduce himself. He said “Mein Name ist Toby” (I think, that’s what it sounded like, anyway). The students laughed and asked him to say it again, but in German. I laughed and explained that he was speaking German, and long ago, English and German were the same language, so sometimes they sound the same (but it’s important to remember that the grammar is vastly, vastly different).

So then the most interesting question of today was asked. “Do you like Hitler?” one student asked Toby. He asked me first (apparently I was a translator for fast speech or politically correctness, and I continued to translate when Adam and Toby started talking to each other quickly (Tim was doing things on his own, bein’ awesome like that)). Toby took the question in stride, with a few jokes, too, and explained that no, he did not like Hitler and Germany was very strict about not liking Hitler, to the point, he thought, that they focused on it a little too much. He’s a history teacher normally, so he thinks the history books focus too much on Hitler and could be focused on something else. He explained how the German flag is rarely shown, and how the German government cracks down on anything that might be related to the Nazi party.

There was no awkwardness, really. Just like in class earlier this morning- it’s good to answer questions as we explain our cultures, and it’s nice to have questions that are not “where are you from?”

No matter how shocking they may seem.