Assignment: Make a phone call to any famous person.
Voice: Hello, Mr. Lincoln, how are you?
Lincoln: I’m very good, thank you. May I ask who’s calling?
V: Certainly. This is Mr. Li from China. I want to know what about you recently.
L: I’m very well in heaven. The God invited me and other famous people in history yesterday. We talked about man’s world today. The God said, “Men are more greater than ever. They have invented so many kind things even I haven’t thought of it.” Then he took us to look at the scene of today’s world. I looked at many changes have taken place from our alive years.
V: Yes. There’s many changes from your era. When you were the president of the US there were only 13 states in the US but today there’s fifty.
L: OK, I’ve heard of it. But I can’t look at it because of cloud.
V: I think that it might made of dirt because of pollution.
L: Pollution? I’ve never heard of it.
V: There are 4 crisis in our era. They are population, energy, food and pollution.
March 4, 2008 at 11:04 am
Fascinating bit of social anthropology. Was this student maybe a Christian, or were they using a popular understanding of Christian God and Heaven to impress the American teacher? Also, the historical mistake (13 states under Lincoln) belies an admirable familiarity with American history — I certainly couldn’t get that close to correct about Chinese history! And the “4 crises” smacks of dogmatism — was this a categorization put forth by the Chinese government?
March 8, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Glad you thought so. I considered not including samples of student compositions in this book, but I found them just too fascinating. Their writing was a unique window into their mindset.
None of my students was a Christian to my knowledge. Maybe s/he (can’t remember now) figured it was an appropriate concept for a piece about Lincoln? Maybe it was just a fun foil for speaking to a dead person? You or I might use reincarnation as a foil to achieve a humorous effect, even though we don’t believe in it.
I hadn’t thought of that. Wow, you’re right — quite humbling. My knowledge of Chinese history is also abysmal.
Yes, I’d put money on that — good job sniffing out the propaganda. The Communist Party seemed to be good at packaging its political messages into simple, easily digestible bites. The number four seemed to be prevalent — note the four smaller stars on the Chinese flag (the big star represents the Communist Party, the other four are social castes), terms like the “Gang of Four.”
In regard to crises, the number four seemed particularly appropriate as it was their superstitious number, akin to our thirteen. When pronounced with a low bouncing tone, si meant “death”; si with a simple falling tone meant “four.” So emphasizing four crises may have had, for the Chinese, a particularly ominous resonance.