Uncensored Feelings, Feedback, and More

Hi. Long time no see. If you're reading this now, I've missed you!

I'm doing great on this end of the Pacific. I still have all four limbs. My stomach is in working condition. I haven't been deported. I'm on my A-game, baby!

Before I left Guyuan for Chinese New Years holiday (yes, I know, that was back in January), I had all my students take some time to write anonymous letters to me about, well, pretty much whatever they wanted. The original purpose was to hear their honest opinions on my teaching style and how I could improve my lessons, but I left the door open for them to talk about anything and everything else. Welp, they definitely took advantage of that - with 23 different classes averaging 70 kids per classroom, my single assignment ended up being indirectly responsible for the untimely deaths of at least two fully-grown majestic redwoods somewhere out in California. May they rest in peace.

Anyway, out of all the notes that I received, a few stood out over others for various reasons. Some made me chuckle out loud, and brightened my day in just the tiniest way that really mattered. Some were poignant, and really made me think about my role and identity at the school. Others I flat-out didn't understand but still found amusing. Over 1500 letters later, here are some of the choicer quotes I read.

“Japan is a rich and beautiful, especially cherry blossom attack me.”

“You are cute and also gives us many happiness.”

“Would you mind giving me a KFC next time? I will be gold if you do it. Could you please cut you hair? It looks dirty.”

“I glad to see you at our school. I like you and your small eyes are very beautiful.”

“I really happy to have a father like you.”

“I am a poor student, but I like you as I like money.”

“You are very interesting and I think you are very lazy but I can’t say why I think you are lazy. You could cut your hair short.”

“Your English is very good, perhaps you is a American? Oh, but your wirting is so bad. You will come on, I believe you.”

“I think when you was smile, you is very cool. So, can you simile often in class?”

“As a matter of fact, I think your teaching is very very good, but the reason….. best whishes.”

“Your classes are full of happy.”

“Dear Japanese, I’m a student in class 14. I’m fat so that I must be losing weigh and have a good baby.”

“You should speak a little quacker.”

“Please I give you a name ‘Smile King’”

“At first, I feel you’re so small. After first cla$s finished I feld you is a funny teacher. I like your teaching styly and I hope you is my teacher all time. Finally, I hope you will find a good girlfriend in China.”

“Your face with smile in class, and you are sense of humid”

“Although he is a Japanese, but he is successful.”

Awesome, right?

Unfortunately, not all of them were fun and games.

“To be honest, some of my classmates hate you and look down you, because you are a Japanese. You know the war between China and Japan during 1937-1945. So my classmates hate Japanese, even our teachers like you. I disagree with them. Now, it is peace, we shouldn’t take former rule to decide tings at this time.”

I like to think that I've grown much closer to my students since then, but it was a pretty startling wake-up call nonetheless. Old values and beliefs die hard. I am writing this blog post well into the latter half of April, eight months after my arrival in Guyuan, and I still have students occasionally yelling derogatory and/or somewhat degrading remarks about Japanese people in my general direction. Just the other day, I was walking back to my office after playing basketball with some of my students when someone yelled "LITTLE JAPANESE!" behind me. I whirled around, but only glimpsed a shadow quickly melting back into a gale of raucous laughter and a third floor window of the Senior 3 building. A poor student of mine who was walking beside me was noticeably uncomfortable and extremely embarrassed. He kept his eyes plastered on the ground while repeatedly apologizing to me and telling me not to mind them. I chuckled, patted him on the back, and told him not to worry about it.

Surprisingly enough, the catcall didn't make me upset or sad in the slightest. All I would have asked for at that moment was to meet the student face-to-face, shake his hand with a smile, and have a decent and personal conversation. I desperately wanted him to know that I'm a person too, and not some modern adaption of all the antediluvian portrayals of the WWII Japanese soldier so often caricatured in Chinese popular culture and media. What bothers me now is that I may never get the chance to do so.

The one redeeming factor is that these students who banter and mock are never my students. They are always from a different grade - in other words, students whom I have never met nor interacted with. I should be used to this by now, but I've personally found that generalizations and stereotypes forcibly ascribed upon you by others are extremely hard to swallow and accept.

I'm a representative of America, a representative of Japan, and a representative of everything foreign and arcane to them.  Whatever I do will be automatically extrapolated into any and all other demographics I roughly fit into. If anything, it gives me good reason to keep a smile on my face and say hi to everyone that passes by. You'd think that this would get tiring after a while, but it's quite the contrary - I've found that most smiles are returned by one in kind, as with greetings and hellos. That's more than enough to keep me going. Talk about sustainable energy.

In the end, I just have to be myself.

The good news? According to the letters, it turns out almost all of my kids love having me as their teacher. If only they knew how I felt about them - how I wake up happy every morning knowing I'll be seeing their laughing faces as I involuntarily play I-don't-know-how-to-say-this-word-in-Chinese-so-I'll-make-a-fool-out-of-myself-instead charades, and loving every enthusiastic "Hello Seigi!" I get as I walk down the hallway.

Did I tell you I love my job life?

Editor's note: Seigi Karasaki, who grew up in El Cerrito and is an El Cerrito High alum, graduated from UCLA last year and is volunteering as an English teacher at a high school in rural northern China. You can see his introductory blog post here.