Second day of ESL

I discovered something. Last time my student and I ran late by about a half an hour, but she reassured me that it was okay, no problem, no problem.

I found out today that it in fact was a problem.

In our culture of course, if we have somewhere important to be we'll interrupt and so "okay, I've gotta go" and explain where that is, (pick up my son, meet my ride, etc.). That's a trait of an individualistic culture, the task takes precedent over the relationship. People can break off a conversation to leave without being rude.

China (like Tibet) is a collectivist culture. A personal schedule isn't as important as the needs of the group, your friends, your teachers. This makes sticking to a schedule while you're over there damned near impossible (unless it's a larger group and everyone's going). My friends and I used to joke "oh, we're on Tibetan Time," which meant 3 o'clock could mean anything from 3:30 to 6:00. Ish. But could potentially mean 2:45, so look sharp.

For her personally, running late wasn't a problem. But she couldn't tell me without being inconsiderate and rude that she needed to pick up her son from daycare.

Of course in China, picking your kids up late isn't such a big deal. Everyone understands the schedules need to be loose and "oh my class ran late" is perfectly acceptable.

But down in the good old American daycare... it turns out she had to pay an additional $4.00 for the extra time. For her to even mention it to me, that must have been a bit of an affront.

I think of all the times that my friends were frustrated with "they should have said so!" in the past, and am grateful that I have a little experience with this. I just wonder how I can explain it to her with her current limited English vocabulary. The combination of being isolated by her English and these confusing different customs must be really frustrating. I mean, those people in the daycare must have seemed unreasonable and rigid and perhaps rather selfish.

Meet readers in Person?

So last night I discovered another HP fanfic reader. She's in my English class and I rattled on about Percy for a good hour.

So I asked her, "Have you read wikdsushi?"

She's been meaning to, just hasn't gotten around to it.

A thought occurred to me. Um... Have you ever read Icarus?

"Oh yeah, of course."

Squeeeeeeeal!

The best part was she didn't jump up and down and tell me 'oh wow, you're such a great writer.' It was just, "Yeah-yeah, everyone likes that." Pure entertainment. She didn't know what she'd read, but from the sound of it (length) it was Primer to the Dark Arts.