BEIJING - Maybe I don't have the worst Chinese in China after all.
Yesterday I walked into my listening class to find a Korean student sitting in my usual seat. I knew he was Korean by his bowl haircut and big, square glasses, and also because Koreans make up more than 60% of students at my level. I took the seat next to him -- it's still the first week of classes and seats are still quite flexible.
At exactly 1:00 p.m., the teacher strolled through the door and started the lesson. She played an incomprehensible tape a couple times, asked questions about the short sentences played, as if it was possible to understand between the tape fuzz and strange southern accents on the cassette tape. We students looked on puzzled for the next hour and a half, randomly shouting words that seemed related to the dialogue. Sometimes these were correct, and our teacher seemed satisfied.
The next class was reading. Here at Tsinghua, the teachers change between subjects, but the student's don't. This is the same setup we had in the sixth grade, complete with an electric bell that marks the exact end of class. Our reading teacher arrived right on time and dived into a lesson on banking. We talked about depositing money, withdrawal forms and remittances, about which I know rather little. Then our teacher announced it was time for a "对话" or dialogue. She told us to make a few phrases on the topic we our neighbor.
I turned to my Korean desk mate, who had said very little the past three hours.
"Do you want to be the teller or the person withdrawing the money," I said, in Chinese.
No response.
"So we have to make a dialogue. You can be person A or B. What do you like better?"
Again, no response.
"Right now we are at a bank. You have some money. You want to give it to me. What do you say?"
The student continued to just stare at me. Finally, he said, in English, "Chinese, no. Use English."
I was dumbfounded. This student didn't know any Chinese. Why wasn't he in this level, and how was I supposed to write a dialogue? I waved my hand and got the attention of our teacher.
"Laoshi," I said in Chinese, "I don't think this person knows how to speak Chinese."
The teacher looked surprised. "Who?" she said.
"This guy right here," I said, referring to the Korean, who seemed oblivious to us talking about him.
"Oh," she said, and then used English to encourage our new friend to switch to the introductory class.
