So…MMK is the title of our service project: More for Migrant Kids. Today was the first day we taught at the migrant school. First, we introduced all of us (the Chinese university students, the cultural exchange students, and the study abroad students) to all of the classes, then each team was assigned to a class. My class is superrr cute!! So, as planned, we played alllll games with them today. We first assigned each kid an English name because a lot of them didn’t have one. We gave them common names though, like Daniel and Kyle and Annie and Mary. And there were these two boys that sat next to each other and looked like best friends, and we named them Tom and Jerry. HAHA :) But they were both adorable, and I actually think those names fit them really well. After that we split into groups and played a name game so that everyone could get used to their English names. So…my name is Kortney, but no one could say it or remember it…so I tried to change it. I told them they could call me Kort instead, but that wasn’t any easier…and then some kid called me “Cookie” and it just kinda stuck. So now I am known as Cookie, because Kortney is wayyyy too hard for Chinese people to say. Anyways…yeah, that was the day. We just played games all day. This might have been our mistake, but we played games that had the 3 groups competing against each other, and our group got SO competitive. It was almost scary…they were calling each other stupid & idiots and they were just so passionate about winning. It was probably a bad idea to have them compete…but because things were so heated, we sort of rigged it so that everyone won, and there wouldn’t be any bad feelings. Overall, though, everyone had fun and as they were leaving to go home they asked us if we would come back tomorrow. They were adorable :)
The only thing I regret today is that I didn’t get closer to the kids..I found it REALLY hard to interact w/ them because I didn’t speak Chinese. I couldn’t play some of the games because it required speaking, and I lost one of the games because the game required me to be blindfolded and take direction from my team, but they were all shouting in Chinese so I didn’t do so well. I think I’m the only one that feels this way though…Michelle and Nikki seemed okay. I think it’s because I got a lot of put downs today because I couldn’t speak Chinese. One of the children asked Tiffany (who could speak to him) why I didn’t speak Chinese, and she told him that I just never learned because my family spoke to me in English my whole life. So then he laughed at me and started singing a song to me about how the whole world is speaking Chinese and something about Confucius. And all throughout the day, Alex kept speaking to me in Chinese, even though he knew I didn’t speak it. I know he didn’t mean to, but it’s natural for him, so I wasn’t so bothered by that…but when I was playing the game where I had to take direction from my team and lost because I confused 2 words, he said to me, “A word of advice, Kortney: if you haven’t mastered something, don’t try it.” And I was like, excuse me, but WTF is that supposed to mean? So since I haven’t mastered Chinese, I shouldn’t be in China? Okay, yeah, well I’d rather be home anyways. The whole point of me being on this trip is to better understand your culture and try to connect with you so that I wouldn’t have such a negative view of the Chinese. But okay, if you want me to keep that prejudice against you, then I will. That really bothered me. I KNOW he didn’t mean it because he’s really nice all the other time, but that was like wtf. So after that, I was just really discouraged and didn’t even want to try to connect with anyone.
I hate not knowing my own language, because everyone thinks I’m an idiot. I get crap from EVERYONE about not being able to speak Chinese even though I am Chinese but guess what? It’s a choice. For the past 20 years I’ve hated the Chinese language, culture, and people. So I CHOSE not to learn Chinese. I CHOSE not to be a part of the culture. And now even though I’m making the effort, it’s still not appreciated. And, watch, even after I take this language course and even if I’m fluent in Chinese, people will still probably be like, “Why don’t you know Cantonese? Why do you know Mandarin? That’s stupid; you don’t even know your own people’s language.” Yeah, I expect to see that coming.
Maybe I’m just grumpy because I’m tired. But today I found myself pondering ways to get out of going back to the school tomorrow. So far, my best bet is that I feel sick. But I don’t think I’ll give up that easily. I know I’ll get up at 7am again to go back to that school, where the kids think I’m stupid because I don’t speak Chinese, where I sit on the sidelines and watch the groups play games because I can’t understand anything, where the classroom is so hot that I’d rather die, but where I still have faith that those kids will teach me something invaluable, whether I like them or not. Yeah, they’re rowdy and rambunctious, and the room smells like balls all the time because the AC isn’t powerful enough to fill the room, and everything is so dirty and germy that Adrian Monk would just drop dead on the spot, but I know G has something to teach me throughout all of this, and I won’t learn it unless I endure the rest of it.
At least the kids are cute. And I’m learning simple Chinese like left and right, and the numbers. So there are some perks. Just not that many.
That’s all for now….We’ll see how tomorrow goes.
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