Necessary Voodoo (All-American Girl)

[jheti]

No, sensei, I'm sorry, they don't remember Tiananmen Square. They were born when it happened. Also, they have no idea who Chairman Mao was.

I remember the tanks, there's a picture of tanks and a small man in white shirt in front of them, to and fro in front of the tank, and they don't show the end of the footage.

I remember sitting in the living room, being six and trying to grok the Berlin Wall, Desert Storm (eerie green ballet of lights, every one of those green lights in the dark a weapon, a rain of bullets and ordinance, weird and beautiful and awful--I'll remember that until I die) and the fact that one morning, I woke up, and all of a sudden there was NO MORE SOVIET UNION.

That one was too large. There are moments I still don't understand. The world is all different, faster and uglier and everyone hates us more than before.

At least they had to be nice to my face. These people don't owe you that.

You should not be surprised. I always am. I know they're the same way, shocked by my knowledge and slightly less uncomfortable with my ignorance--if only because that can be attacked, haha you don't KNOW, I'm smarter than you, ha.

Oh, in the race to have all the facts, you might beat me to pieces. But you don't understand what you know, and you don't know how to frame it correctly, either. They all think they do. They're going to bomb the exam. I have never met one who could listen.

When she says, "Please do your reading", dork, it means "this will be on the test." When she says, "I think maybe we will do something with the map I gave you in the first class" she means "Burn this into your brain. It's worth at least six to ten points on my exam."

She doesn't give homework, because the extra readings are the homework. You should read and read and read until you memorize, until the backs of your retinas glow with the imprint of the text, because all that "extra" stuff?

IS GOING TO BE ON THE EXAM.

What? That's not hard. Oh no, you had to think like somebody from another culture for five whole seconds. Your eyeballs didn't melt. For Christ's sake. Grow up. *Fangs.*

Our Chinese guest speaker had the most incredible accent. It was beautiful. She sounded like a cat speaking, soft low thrumming words that rolled, sea-like. I didn't ask questions, because I knew what would fall out of my mouth was "Your accent! It's beautiful!" and that's rude.

Better to keep silent and seem a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt. <-- That's the best piece of American advice EVER.

The other kids were already heckling her about romantic relationships and had NO IDEA how intrusive that was. People from the east flinch with their eyes. She basically recoiled from the question. I felt so bad. I can't call attention to it, I can't say, "You're embarrassing her," because that makes her shame worse, because I'm white, outsider. For me to try and take care of her in that fashion is fairly insulting.

Fuck it. I'm tired now.

Oh, wait. In this class, I take notes as fast as possible and my words melt into Engrish when I do. Not because she uses it, but, apparently, rather, because I think in it at some deep transitional level. When you punch the "foreign relations" button in my head, you get Engrish thought structure.

Ex DEE.