class sampler

“For our lesson today we will finish talking about computer games,” I announce to Class 6.

The boys, previously engaged in disorganized noisy ruckus, now erupt in a unified and appreciative noisy ruckus.

The girls sigh and put their head on their hands, although one looks excited.

I throw up a few slides of in-game screenshots. The (male half of + single female appreciator) goes wild. Today’s vocabulary lesson: FPS is for First Person Shooter. RTS is for Real Time Strategy. I am aware that I am losing half of my class, but I feel like this is penance for making my brighter students sit through a vocabulary drill on words like “laptop” and “keyboard” last week. And the boys look so damn happy. And that one girl too.

I land on a slide showing a virtual field of vegetables.

“This is rubbish,” dismisses one boy. Another yells “This is a girl’s game!” The girls look a little more enthusiastic, except for the one previously discussing the finer points of headshot tactics and invasion strategies with her desk partner.

Those who are among Facebook’s more ardent timewasters might be more familiar with Happy Farm, but for my part I had only seen it furtively played on office computers and in Internet cafes all across China. I “What do you do in this game? Can someone explain it to me?” I wheedle.

“Grow flowers. Steal vegetables.” The boy in glasses waves his hand dismissively. “Is that all?” I check. “Yes that is all. This game is rubbish!” The less vocal girls begin to look a little cross. “OK,” I hastily say, “let’s move on.” I can and do happily use my teaching position to examine and confirm the existence of some of contemporary China’s cultural phenomena, including this new kind of social gaming that Chinese youth and bored salaryworkers are both driving forward, but when half of your class demographic looks like it wants to murderize the other unsuspecting half it may be time to move on to your next hook.

With a sweeping hand I erase the chalkboard and throw up a pro and con list. “When we want to make decisions about something we can make one of these – who knows what the words advantage and disadvantage mean?” A few hastily scribbled happy and sad faces clarify the subject material. I see lost faces. Time to improvise. “For example, what if you are hungry and you want to eat, but you do not know if you want to eat a hamburger” – I hold out my left arm and raise an invisible hanbaobao to the sky, then take a chomping bite out of it – “or noodles?” The right arm’s turn to shine and fork nonexistent noodles towards my mouth.

Food is common ground for all cultures. Thanks to American cultural imperialism, so are hamburgers. Half the class votes to kill some cows. (Do not confuse this for a 50-50 split with the noodle option: 25% of the class never speaks anyway.) Pros mentioned include convenience (”Easy and clean! You do not have to cook!”) and flavor (”Delicious!”). Some of the girls who have been participationally disenfranchised by an entire lesson on computer games finally find a foothold to protest the health effects of hanbaobao consumption (”Too much fat!”), and there arises a small disagreement on whether McDonalds constitutes lux livin’ (”Too expensive!”) or whether Nanshan is to Shenzhen as Beverly Hills is to Los Angeles (”Noooo.”)

I attempt to wind it back to relevance. “So what are some advantages and disadvantages of playing computer games?”

“NONE” bellow the boys.

“No disadvantages at all?” I ask. “NONE” they bellow again. I get a few arguments that they “improve your brain!” Or at least your brain’s ability to perform headshots, which is always useful when you need to killabitch, whispers the small snark in my brain responsible for keeping me sane while on the podium. I’ve learned that it is best to not vocalize what he says.

I advance to the next slide. “Then tell me…who is Jia Junpeng?” A few boys begin cracking up but most of them seem puzzled. I toss the feathered jianzi that I use to call on students at one boy who I know has good fluency. “Can you explain please?”

“Yes, one day was a posting on the W O W internet board and it reads only ‘Jia Junpeng your mother call you to come home to eat’ and many people find it very funny!” (Look at the link for a more comprehensive explanation of another fun – and now confirmed, thanks to my dedicated cultural sleuthing! – Chinese meme).

I waved onwards a slew of slides with pictures of the meme (scroll down for them). “So yes – remember that if you play video games too much, you may become like Jia Junpeng! Your family may begin to miss you very much!” Of the pictures, the boys and girls seemed to appreciate the Counter-Strike in-game spoof the most, but interestingly seemed puzzled by the Soviet Realism-throwback poster that resolved “together we shall all bring back Jia Junpeng!” Generation gaps, I guess.

The train of pictures and laughs ended with one of Obama requesting Jia Junpeng’s return home in big red, grammatically incorrect Photoshopped letters. “OK, does anyone notice anything wrong with Obama’s English?” I asked them. The class seems a little bored. Obama is a classroom superstar under normal circumstances, but that is when the rest of the lesson consists of verb forms and direction games. Against a lesson on video games with a big picture of a Gundam on the first slide, Obama is small potatoes.

“Come on, if you correct this sentence in 4 different ways I will give you an E,” I bargain. Hands shoot up instantly.

“To be call you home!” “Call you to the home!” “Call to home!”

After some wonderful teaching moments I get the correct verb tenses up there on the board and begin to ask the class what kind of reward movie they would like to see next week for their good behavior, which has gotten them to MOVIE. Only Class 1 has also gotten to MOVIE so far; most other classes are stuck at MO or MOV, while Class 12 dipped to a negative M last week after tossing my jianzi out their 4th-story window. The bell rings and the discussion is tabled; I tell them to email me with requests if they have them.

I pack my jianzi away and sling my bag around my shoulder, getting ready to leave. As I bend down to pluck my USB drive from the computer, a student comes up to me. “Teacher, there is another funny thing: as you know, China recently had 60th…uh…uh…”

“Its 60th anniversary?”

“Yes, anniversary, so there is another saying, ‘Taiwan, your mother is 60 years old and is calling you to come home to eat,” he grinned.

I laughed and patted him on the back. Whether you are Pan-Blue or Pan-Green, it is always a good thing when your Chinese student remembers his proper tenses in conversation. And can extemporize political humor into your lesson plan.

……

Much later at night, in my email inbox RE the movie reward:

“Dear teacher:
I want to watch The Oprah Winfrey Show, about MJ programme next lesson? I’m looking forward to watching it.”

Man. China.