Feather Pluckin’ 101: Sarah’s Been Plucked!
Ahhh yes… another light hearted tale of the bizarre events
that fill my life, heart and soul with yet another perspective on culture,
societies and the extraordinary people with in them.
I have spent the last three and a half years working in and outside of the Chinese classroom. I am not shy to say that there have been good days and bad. However, my students and my teaching inspire me everyday to find new ways to inspire them. I hope to reach them on a more personal level, believe in them, and encourage them to reach outside of the box to live their dreams. Certainly I am not out of touch with reality; my goal here is NOT to change the world… but to change the world of MY students. ((My objective is to open their minds for they are naïve and out of touch with the realities outside of China. And unless you are a teacher in China, you cannot fully understand just how out of touch they are)) BUT I am not concerned with China as a whole, but more concerned with the students who are in my reach. And I am not so cavalier to think that I am reaching the inner souls of ALL my students…but I do feel that my time in China has not been wasted, for there have been students who I have been my biggest successes in my 26 years of life.
Today, as I begin to share my story with you, I realize and appreciate the magnitude of the responsibility I have personally placed upon my heart. ((Yes I take my work personally, those of you who know me professionally, know this to be extreme and sometimes unhealthy)) Today I hope to share the events with you, so you may understand the Twilight-Zone I sometimes find myself in. So just for shits-and-giggles… here is my tale…
Currently I am teaching part time at Zhengzhou University..... My class is full of fifty students, a mixture of local Zhengzhou youth, and youth from small countryside villages. Personalities are exposed as I have spent three months with them now. And as much as I LOVE the outgoing and courageous students who try their best to speak out and use their English, my favorite thing to do is to focus on the shyest collection of students I can observe. I FORCE these introverts to be uncomfortable, and allow them a chance to expose their value as an individual thinker, and the skills they are hiding inside them. Most of these shy ones are from countryside villages, and die on the spot when I address them directly in conversation. One of these timid village students became bold and what she did was the oddest thing that has happened to me in my three and a half year residency in China.
“Bold Bella” I shall call her, for her name self appointed “English” name was Bella. When I see her in the hallways and school courtyards she squeaks and rushes away when I greet her in English or Chinese. She sits in the second row to my right, second student in from the middle walking isle. As I stand facing the class of fifty or so curious students, waiting for me to start my performance, a not so “Bold Bella” sits there head and eyes down, NEVER making eye contact with me. To tease her (with sincere love) and hopes to get her to break out of what ever traps her inner spirit, for the last 3 days I have started the class by asking “Bold Bella” a simple and easy question I KNOW she HAS the skills to answer. On this day, I make a big deal about how “Bold Bella” and I are having “girl-talk” today, and I put on the “valley-girl” accent and act as if I am chewing gum and twirling my hair, inspecting my pink fingernail polish. The students laugh and get a visual picture of this week’s lesson series on “Common Stereotypes in Modern Societies”. “Bold Bella” shrinks in her seat and is alarmed she is for the THIRD DAY in a row, put on the spot. Terrified she stands and says nothing. I stand there smiling kindly at her, smacking my imaginary gum loudly and ask again, laughter and giggles are coming sporadically from the class. For the third day in a row she just shakes her head “no” at me, saying nothing she seats herself red from embarrassment. Relieving her of enough tension for today (tomorrow we kindly try again, soon she will say something, and they always do by the 4th or 5th day, I am not one to give up so easily.), I move on to an eagerly waiting student who is dying to show her skills over the rest of the class… and the day is off to a start.
I am now hopping in and out of the isles, left and right in the front of the class explaining the topics and getting feedback and questions from the students. I have finally mastered my own unique style and flow of teaching. I love that my classes are exciting and the students get excited and relaxed in the environment I work months to create. And for some of these students, I am the first and ONLY foreigner they have met, I have learned to use the “WOW-effect” and “Shock-n-Awe” to ease the tension and sometimes create tension (I cannot resist) to break the ice with some village students. Some think I am insane, some think I am
interesting… all of them love me. (Yes I am proud of this fact)
So as the show goes on I get into my usual goofy way of things, as students are interacting with each other, I make my way in-between the isles of desks, stopping in place to concentrate on the current class discussion and listen to a student from half way back in the rows of desks. As I listen to the student share out loud his opinions and English abilities, I suddenly feel a tingle on my scalp. Shortly following, the strange needle-like-tingle suddenly transform into a SMALL but certainly HOT MELTING IRON-LIKE-FIREY pain shooting into my scalp. I wince and grab the top of my head to massage the pain away. My next reaction was to find the source of the pain. I turn around only to find none other than “Bold Bella” carefully inspecting and tucking a SINGLE strand of my hair (about 20 inches in length) away in her notebook, unaware I have spotted her and was staring at her in disbelief...... SHE PLUCKED A HAIR FROM MY SCALP! HOW DARE SHE???
Completely astounded by this peculiar situation, I didn’t know what to say or how to react. So I simply just shouted (with a big smile) “BELLA! Why did you do THAT?” (giggles filled the room) She jumped and I am certain she didn’t breathe over the next 3 minutes. She sat there looking at me strait in the eye, knowing she needs to say something, but fearing the use of English. Her bottom lip starts to quiver. And at seeing this I am worried she will now start to shed tears, so I wink at her, and again smile. Immediately she starts to speak in Chinese, obviously frantic to explain her actions. Shortly after she stuttered a few sentences her classmate began to translate! **((AH HA! Now I have got her where I want her… in a spot where I will now force her to speak ENGLISH to me for the first time. ))** I quickly and strictly, I “SHUSH!!” the translating student. And ask for little Miss “Bold Bella” to tell me in English… giving permission for her classmates to help her with making a sentences. She was then able to successfully tell me that in she has spoken with her father and mother on the phone telling the story of the “CRAZY-Foreign-Redheaded” Teacher (pat on my back, I am proud of this title,
wink). Her family members including grandparents have never been more than 50
miles from their village and certainly not often to big cities. They did not believe her when she had told them about my natural hair color. And she was leaving that afternoon to visit her hometown and family for the holiday. So it was her last chance to prove to them her story of the foreigner.
Ok, now really, what does one do or say in a situation like this… a confession so bold certainly humbled me. In that moment I realized that sometimes we have impacts on people and we don’t even know it. And as a teacher and a parent, this is something that should always be kept in mind. We never know how or who we affect. As a small town girl from the USA, I am touched by the effects, and would like to argue that my lessons learned from these unusual situations are far more valuable then the lessons they may or may not be learning. So I did what any CRAZY teacher may think to do… (Or maybe just me)… I reached up to my hair and PLUCKED from my scalp three more long strands of red hair and passed them carefully to “Bold Bella”. She instantly dropped her eyes to the ground and reached out and accepted the three hairs, seated herself, and began to tuck the four together in her note book and closed it, now refusing to look at me. I continued class, smiling and thinking to myself… “How in the heck am I going to explain THIS in a blog??”…. LOL.
The following week “Bold Bella” returned from her holiday, only this time her head held slightly higher, and instead of a squeal, I get a softly whispered “Hello”…. So this is a TINY breakthrough, born from bizarre circumstances in which Chinese people seem to put me in… and it may not be believed but I have been plucked three different times by three different students, in three different schools, for three different reasons… Doo-DOO-doo-dOO … Doo-DOO-doo-DOOoo (Twilight-Zone Theme… hehehe)
>>>>I have non-Chinese friends who are also living in China, and we love to talk and share experiences about life in China as single-white-females. One of the most terrifying and ISOLATED events shared was a beautiful blonde friend from ....California.... had gone into a salon here in Zhengzhou....(my city). She asked for a trim of about 2 inches off the bottom and what they took was 6 inches… and with each cut she saw them carefully placing the hair on a towel (our guess is to sell the hair later) . Terrified and unable to communicate in Chinese, she sat there in the chair crying as he finished … and now her hair was just above her chin line… and she never went back to ANY salon in China. Again I want to make it clear that this was an ISOLATED EVENT… but a true one at that.
Personally I have a head full of thick, curly, long red hair, a very rare sight to see in China. I have had my share of situations where total strangers in the supermarket, bus, and social events reach out and touch/grab my long hair in their hands, inspecting it closely with their eyes. They are not shy about calling their companions’ attention to this… and chat about it as I stand there stupefied and annoyed at their bold rudeness. Shy to show my annoyance, I usually thank them for their interest and politely and EAGERLY wait for my chance to escape their grip. (LOL) I do try to understand their fascination and curiosity, but I am baffled as to what they are really thinking. It is hard for me to imagine such awe over something I have seen to be so common in the west. (Again another perspective from China. I am forced to think about: Diversity or lack there of) So after hearing of my blonde Friend’s experience … ***I have been haunted in my dreams of standing on the street at the cross walk, and a stranger
coming and grabbing my hair and cutting it off and running away. I wake up suddenly with the last image of him zigzagging through the crowd holding my red locks of hair in high his hand and it bounces out of sight, lost in the crowded streets…. Do I have issues? Certainly. *** Needless to say, I manage my own hair trims and even started cutting and styling the hair of my foreign friends. (Just to be on the safe side…lol.) <<<<