The following is an article I wrote for the Beijing Review. Here is a link to the magazine’s web site: http://english.beijingreview.com.cn/eye/txt/2009-01/05/content_173268.htm
I didn’t expect any of my students to care about American politics. When I first moved to China to teach English in August 2008, I figured some of the children would know who George W. Bush is, and that’s about it. Why should I have expected more? It’s not like an overwhelming amount of American middle school students can pick Hu Jintao out of a lineup. In fact, I’d be willing to bet a large population of students in the United States couldn’t locate China on a map.
Imagine my surprise when I realized my middle school students in Shenzhen not only cared about American politics, but also were following the presidential election.
I discovered this on nine-eleven.
It was the second week of school, and I was teaching one of my senior classes for the first time. I asked the students what they wanted to know about America this year. I got the usual responses-movies and basketball. I was writing Kobe Bryant’s name on the board, when a boy in the back of the class shouted out, “Nine-eleven.”
It caught me off guard. In the middle of writing the “y” in Bryant, I stopped and stood there, staring at the chalkboard a moment. I didn’t know what to do or say. I had been told to not get political in class. Finally, I wrote “9/11″ on the board, and then turned around and faced the 60 students in the room.
“Today is a sad day for my country,” I said.
“A very, very sad day,” a girl in the front row said.
“We are sorry for your country,” the girl next to her said.
Fighting back tears, I said, “Thank you. It was a sad day for the world, and there have been a lot of sad things that have happened as a result of that day.”
I had everyone’s attention, which I had already discovered was rare. I rolled with it. I went over to the overhead and showed them a picture of me standing in front of the White House.
“What is this?” I asked.
“The White House,” several students shouted.
“Who lives here?”
“Boosh,” even more students yelled.
I stuck both thumbs down and said, “Boosh.” The students cheered. When it quieted down, a boy in the second row said, “Obama.” One by one, students began saying the Democratic candidate’s name. I stuck my thumbs down again, but this time I said, “McCain.” The class cheered again.
I didn’t want to overwhelm the students with American politics, so I waited a month, and then began to sprinkle politics into my lessons. I gave one class five minutes to describe a picture of Barack Obama and his family on a piece of paper. I showed my smartest group a couple of campaign advertisements, and during the week leading up to election day, I taught every class the basic differences between Republicans and Democrats.
Not all of them understood (not all Americans do, either). But the ones who did ate it up. All of it.
I had one class on Wednesday, November 5. It started at 11 a.m., and when I walked through the door, Obama had Ohio and my home state of Pennsylvania in the bag. I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. I simply picked up a piece of chalk and wrote on the board, “History is being made in my homeland.”
When I was in the middle of writing “homeland,” a boy yelled, “Obama.” I finished writing, turned around and yelled back, “Obama.” We went back and forth, and pretty soon, the class was chanting, “O-bam-a. O-bam-a. O-bam-a.”
Tears in my eyes, I leaned against the chalkboard and put my hands on my hips. I was teaching English in southwest China, and my 14-year-old students knew the name of the man who was about to become my country’s leader.
Every Wednesday, I have Chinese class in downtown Shenzhen. All of the English-speaking teachers who are a part of the company I work for attend. During the election, several of us never made it into Chinese class and went to a nearby square. Sitting next to a fountain, all we did was talk about the election.
“Palin handed it to Obama,” one person said.
“It was Palin and the economic crisis,” said another.
“Obama’s not going to be able to deliver on most of his promises,” a third person said.
“They never do,” I said. “All he has to do is fix the economy or get us out of Iraq, and he’ll win again in four years.”
“Oh, is that all?” the first person said.
The sky was clear, and the air was warm. I couldn’t stop smiling. When class let out, a crowd of us went out to dinner. We drank Tsingtao beer and made a ridiculous amount of toasts. A toast to Sarah Palin. A toast to Obama. A toast to America.
The metro was crowded on my way home. A group of men gathered around one of the television screens. Clips from Obama’s victory speech were playing. The men were speaking fast and pointing at the screen. I could only make out one word.
Obama.
The author is an American living in China