Since I started teaching in China last fall, my students have come to me with questions about various issues. Most of the questions I receive deal with international relations between countries such as the US and China. As the students get more comfortable with me, I get more specific questions. Many of the questions are about things we were expressly or tacitly asked not to speak about; issues of concern along the lines of religion, freedom of speech, Tibet and Taiwan.
I walk a fine line between giving my students various opinions on large ideas and giving them my opinion. I want them to be able to make up their own minds, and I don’t want my opinion to become THE American opinion. We’re still working on the idea that anyone can have any opinion. To progress from one level to another in their English classes, the students take standardized tests. People familiar with standardized tests from undergrad or graduate school know that in the big scheme of things, when you have 25 minutes to write 500 words on “the environment is a major issue, agree or disagree,” the answer is generic. But to pass the tests, the students have mastered the art of skirting the meat of an issue or even their own complex opinions. They scribble down “I agree because…” or “I disagree because…” and move on to the next question. To reach an easy and succinct answer, they pull out generalizations. I strive to encourage my students to see that just because one person believes a certain way, they don’t have to agree. And just because one outspoken person in a country believes something, not all of their countrymen have similar beliefs. Many Americans, I think, could use the same exercise when learning about political affiliations.
Popping up on my email, I get questions that are not really questions. Students will ask me how I am, tell me how their New Year is going and then say something along the lines of, “your President is meeting with the Dalai Lama.” I agree, and then I ask, “How do you feel about that?”, which makes me seem more like a psychologist than a language teacher. Our university holds an English Corner every Friday night on one of the school’s campuses and students come by and practice their English with native speakers. It’s good practice and I’m glad they take advantage of the opportunity. I’m normally surrounded by at least a dozen students at English Corner. One student was talking to me about basketball and then quickly changed gears. “Why does America concern itself in China’s involvement with Tibet?”
I froze for a moment, side-stepped his question and moved on. I did this for a few reasons: 1. I was shamefully unprepared to answer in a manner that would not get in me trouble; 2. I didn’t have the time to fully analyze the issue right there at English Corner and; 3. I had never before thought that an American President meeting with the Dalai Lama was a problem. I’m embarrassed that leaders of great countries resort to middle-school tactics when dealing with each other. “I won’t talk to you, cuz you talked to him and I don’t agree with him.” If no countries spoke with each other because of differing opinions, would we lead our countries, lead the whole world, with our heads in the sand?
China’s current position is the same. Obama recently met with the Dalai Lama and China has a problem with the US involving itself in the dispute between Tibet and the PRC. Unfortunately, during English Corner, the student came back to my little group and informed me that he thought I should have more diverse ideas and dismissed me as yet another uneducated American. I wish I could start a more open discussion, although I know my boundaries – a military officer briefed my friends and I after our first few days in Wuhan and curtly informed us that we should keep our various Western opinions to ourselves.
Still, I question which opinions are Western and which opinions are international. My friends and I visited Hong Kong last month. Hong Kong is a tricky situation. At first glance, it is London with much better weather. Most people from Hong Kong over the age of 25 will not say that they are Chinese, and why would they? One of my Chinese friends, Vanessa, traveled from mainland China to Hong Kong with me, and went through the same amount of screening and paperwork to get through. Once in Hong Kong, we made our way to the University of Hong Kong, where we saw the Pillar of Shame. There a few pillars around the world and according to the artist Jens Galschiøt, the pillars are placed to “remind us of a shameful event which must never reoccur”[1] and cannot be forgotten. The Pillar in Hong Kong is to remind people of the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989. A piece of history that is neither sanctioned nor censured; it is not discussed.
Students have the ultimate challenge of taking all the information thrown at them every day and making sense of all the news and chatter around the world. Finding and analyzing this information becomes incredibly difficult with clear boundaries dictating what things you cannot speak about. Based on the questions that I hear in class, it is not that the students do not think about the world’s problems, but that they are not allowed to express ideas about these problems. They are lovely young people and so eager to learn. As intelligent as my students are, and boy, are they intelligent, a full education cannot come with ignorance of life issues.
Even while I’m hop-scotching around ideas, such as explaining why Christmas is called Christmas without mentioning Jesus Christ, they understand that there are many questions that do not have an easy answer. Around Thanksgiving, I had my students tell their classmates what they were thankful for. The most common answer: the government. This is not to say that the government does not deserve its people’s thanks, but that the government has set itself up as an unquestionable force.
In class, I have had a few situations in which a book declares absolutes about Americans that I have to defend myself against. One book stated that Americans never ate together and only ate fast food. My students accused me and all Americans of not having close relationships with our families. Then, I have found myself railing against the topics and tone of their book to encourage them to think realistically about the world around them. The most important part of my job is not about turning any of my students toward my beliefs or opinions, but exposing them to all opinions, every side of a three-dimensional box. Just knowing about others beliefs makes you a more intelligent person, regardless of your stance on the issues. Knowing more about cultures and beliefs lets people understand human behavior, which is at the heart of every international issue.
The best I can do from my position is to encourage my students and all people to seek out broader worldviews thank just their own. If they don’t have the opportunity or the rights to share that information openly, then at least they can educate themselves. In regards to the one student who called me out on deflecting his questions, I can only say that I did what I needed to do. Clearly, an open auditorium with discussions of maple leaves and the NBA is not the place to discuss US foreign policy. But understanding why people from other cultures act the way they do is essential to not only protecting the world against ignorance, but accepting that cultural ties run deep and are not easily removed.
Just as the US does at times seem to have its head in everyone else’s business, so China often is very ready to close the door to outsiders at the mere suggestion of a differing opinion. It can also be said that China’s reasons for this are pragmatic, and keep the country safe from outside pressures, while the busybody US, can (almost) always be counted on for those in need. In the news and around the world, when people mention a topic, they speak of the “what” and the “who,” without asking, “why?” The best anyone can do is to work on the “why” of the issues, find out the purpose behind a person’s actions and understand them a bit better. The main issue people are having today isn’t about religion, or protests or freedoms; it’s about whether they are allowed to discuss those issues at all.
Katrina Otuonye
