Middle School: The Meltdown

I love Tim. Every time I see him, he has more facial hair—in new places! This is only one of the charms of teaching middle school.

My students are in that funny in-between phase, and (luckily for me) on the cuter end of it. So while one girl comes up to me for hugs or (as I suspect one of her teachers weaned her onto) high-fives, others show me pictures of hot guys in magazines.[1] And there are of course notes passed in class: “Jimmy and Emma—husband and wife!” “I’m in eighth grade and like you a lot—do you want to go out? Check yes/no.” I’ve intercepted a few in class (which I guess doesn’t speak too well for my teaching and ability to engage the students). One in particular gave me heart pangs. Having caught one that I couldn’t make out myself—actually, that would be all of them—I brought it to my co-teacher after class. She giggled and explained that it was a note from a girl to a boy in the grade ahead of her, asking if he wanted to be her boyfriend. He had checked “no.” It’s OK, Jessica reassured me, they pass these notes all the time, and the girl would likely send out another offer to a new boy the next day. Still…thinking of all those Beverly Cleary books and the excitement among my own middle school classmates over boyfriends and girlfriends, I figured it had to sting a little. But I digress. I have caught boys—boys!—blow-drying their hair between classes. (They like to spike it up a bit. Think Japanese manga.) My students complemented Jessica and me on our “sexy” dresses for the costume competition at Wu Jie. (See earlier post.) They always ask if I have a boyfriend. The boys in the grades that I don’t teach wing by me in the hallways and at my desk, shouting “hello!” and “good morning!” I get the feeling that they’ve been dared by the other boys inevitably surrounding them. When I answer, they all break up into laughter, bowling over each other and slapping the back of my greeter. What a lot of commotion. I alternately raise my eyebrows sardonically and sheepishly grin at the girls I’ve been chatting with, and look around to see if we’ve disturbed anybody. The other teachers take no notice.

Since the highest grade I teach (of my two) is eighth, attitude is mainly puerile, with kids shouting out of turn and walloping each other behind the teacher’s back. They also fall asleep a bunch in class and get rather pissy about being asked to spruce up. The girlfriend-boyfriend thing is also directed more at other people (idols, teachers) or cutesy almost-pretend dating amongst each other. To suggest them to be actually dating each other is a near-sure way of making the whole class laugh. One or two weeks ago, I was writing an example on the board where I needed to list two names. Joking around, I wrote the name of one of the boys in the class (who happens to be very good at English, so he kind of has it coming to be singled-out like this) and asked which girl’s name I should write next to his. “Emma!” shouted a bunch of students. Emma is also very good at English. “OK,” I said, and scribbled it. “No, no, no,” moaned the boy (Michael), and waved his arms in frantic Xs. “OK, who?” I asked. He wanted out. Desperately, he put forth the first option that seemed neutral to him. “My mother,” he called. “Oh my god, I never knew!” I cried. He covered his face and everyone laughed. I wrote down Madonna. I hope this doesn’t seem cruel to you. We were all joking around, and it was very clear that this was all in jest. The rest of the class went very well, and I think it was at least partially due to the good-humored bantering that we began with.

My next class did not go so well. There had been no teasing at its opening. Connection? A whole row of boys did not pay attention, chatting amongst themselves and claiming to not understand what I was saying. “But I know that can’t be,” I bitterly complained to one of my roommates when I got home. “All of my other classes understood, even the seventh graders.” “No,” she agreed, “they were just being little shits.”


[1] Last week, Jocelyn came over to me with a magazine full of pictures of idols (pop stars). She pointed to one man/boy she found very handsome. “Girl,” I said dismissively. Unfortunately, many Asian men come off as appearing somewhat feminine to Western eyes. “Nan,” she corrected. (“boy”) “Girl,” I retorted, not taking it. “Nan,” she emphatically repeated. “Girl.” “Nan.” “Girl.” “Hanguo.” (Korean) “OK,” I laughed, he’s excused. [“Nan” actually means “male” and “Hanguo” is “Korea,” while “Hanguoren” would be “Korean,” but the words above are what she meant colloquially.]

Confusion Says

A good deal of my time here is spent in confusion. More than I would like to admit, certainly at the time it occurs. But it seems that each week (if not each day) brings clarification to something I had previously thought I understood. During orientation, the state of Taiwanese education perplexed me--just how many students do go to college? At the beginning of the spring semester, I learned that we would be moving into the newly-constructed wing of Wu Jie Junior High in April. This surprised me since I could have sworn I was told in September that the wing would not be completed until 2010. This morning, my coworkers oohed and ahhed at my newly straightened hair (yay for Taiwanese hair salons and Jill's birthday bash) and asked me if I had tang zhi-ed it. Yes, I nodded, hearing "straight" (zhi) in the question. But some further miming (and coworkers) later revealed that they had asked if I had permed it. (Is tang at all related to soup?) Oh, no, I said. Ah, said a coworker, emphatically ironing her hair with pretend tongs, "you dgkjsgf???? zhi-ed it?" Yes, I said, nodding at the make believe tongs, not quite sure if we had hit the mark the second time either. And just now--only moments before I sat down to write this post!--I had my latest confusion encounter.

Last week, I went to Poya, a large store that sells household items. Anything from cosmetics to stationery, shampoo to soup pots, scooter helmets to popular and imported candy, pillows (small--for couches or desk-top napping), cleaning solvents to house slippers can be found in this store. It's a grand place, but if you call it by "Poya," locals will give you a blank or confused stare. "Baoya" will get you a smile and nod of appreciation--the same type you might get from mentioning Costco to a friend. Anyway, I went in search of one thing (which I have since forgotten, a shame since it turned out to be one of the few things that cannot be found in this megastore [along with large shower hair-catchers]) and of course walked out with my arms fully loaded. One of my impulse buys was a package of something from Quaker Oats. It now seems that I had been mislead by such words as "coffee" and "latte" on the labeling to believe I was holding a beverage. Funny how that happens. No, no, my office-mate told me (the same one who had mimed ironing her hair). What I had bought was a food item, but one that I could drink. ??? Yes, food that I can drink. I decided to open a package and test this definition of "food." (This had all started, just so you know, because she had generously offered me a packet of instant Barista coffee. Barista is a knock-off of Starbucks, which they also have in Taiwan, but tends to be more of a luxury item. [This does not prevent them from having the same desperate signs now populating New York--Starbucks is committed to making the best coffee possible and begs you to tell them how they can improve. A downward trend is a downward trend, it seems, and is not confined to the home-culture. Or maybe this is what happens when you franchise across oceans. Problems in one place are credited toward another, regardless of the actual reception of the merchandise in the new territory. I also saw these signs in Thailand.] Anyway, when she proffered her powdered latte, I proudly bust out mine. I was a little excited to show that I had finally caught onto the Taiwanese tendency to keep small food and drink supplies at one's desk. (It helps a lot with lunch, because the schools don't supply drinks. One of my schools has a hot/cold water machine in the hallways, the other has one in my office. But there's nothing flavored at hand.) Yeah, so anyway, I offered her a Quaker Oats not-coffee latte in exchange for her Barista latte. Of course, no exchange is necessary, but everyone here is so nice and keeps looking out for me and giving me things that it's nice to be able to return the favor. And that's when she told me that my drink was not a drink. And so I tested it, emptying the packet of powder and oat flakes into a cup and filling it to the top with hot water (from the machine in my office). And you what--it was thin. The powder and flakes floated around in the muddy water and had to be mixed in with a spoon. It strongly resembled a drink. I brought it back to the desk. My office mate and I peered into the mug. "You don't need a spoon," she told me. "The flakes will melt." It was starting to look more and more like a beverage. I drank it.

P.S. The flakes never fully melted. A few light ones floated, the rest sank to the bottom. I scooped them out with my spoon. Final status of food designation: inconclusive.