I am a dragon. Here in Princeton-in-Jishou we have divided the stu­dents into four dif­fer­ent lev­els denoted by dif­fer­ent mytho­log­i­cal crea­tures. The drag­ons are the most advanced, but I couldn’t have expected how much they would know, and how curi­ous they would be to learn. For the most part the stu­dents were incred­i­bly out­go­ing and friendly, but some expressed their excite­ment differently.….

One girl invited me, Ari­anna, and Reuben to eat lunch with her and her friends after the first day of class. Let’s call her Deb­o­rah. While wait­ing for the food to come she began to drill me with ques­tions. She was inquis­i­tive and sharp, but I was very hun­gry. She asked me about other col­leges in Amer­ica and then every­thing changed. Beneath her smil­ing, pretty faced lurked a sassy atti­tude that I could never have antic­i­pated. “You don’t like Har­vard because you’re jeal­ous.” She smiled dev­il­ishly and turned to her friends. “In fact, I think you should be in Jishou and I should be in Princeton.”

I was flab­ber­gasted. She was flu­ent in sar­casm — a rar­ity in China — and she was relent­less. Who was this girl? Why was she talk­ing so much about the Vam­pire Diaries? Wait. Had Amer­i­can TV turned her into this pre­co­cious, insub­or­di­nate she-devil? The food soon arrived and my irri­ta­tion and sur­prise sub­sided. After lunch ended I swal­lowed the truth: we were for­ever des­tined to be ene­mies, for­eign teacher vs. trou­ble­mak­ing prob­lem child.

Later that week she haunted me in Eng­lish Cor­ner, an hour ses­sion where the stu­dents  talk with the for­eign teach­ers infor­mally to fur­ther improve their Eng­lish. I must admit that I was afraid of her at first, but soon she became enrap­tured by Arianna’s love sto­ries. See­ing the unblink­ing focus of Deborah’s face as she absorbed all of Arianna’s words was a trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence for me. Although she had an atti­tude, she had a pas­sion for Eng­lish, and I respected her for that. Ok, maybe I hate-respected her.

Another reveal­ing expe­ri­ence occurred when I became sud­denly aware that one of my stu­dents was way cooler than me. Let’s call her Kim. She came to class with a dis­tinct swag­ger, and her clothes were fash­ion­able, look­ing slightly Mid­dles East­ern. Her man­ner­isms were equally chill. She nod­ded and smiled in class, and had an air of con­fi­dence (but not cock­i­ness) at all times, even when she was ner­vous. In other words, Kim is cool with­out real­iz­ing how cool she is. Nat­u­rally, I wanted to become more like her.

Me: Hey Kim!

Kim: Hi

Me: So.…..How did you like class?

Kim: I enjoyed it.

Me: Ummmm.… Are you free for lunch? What I mean is, erm.…. Well, if you want to prac­tice your Eng­lish, I would be happy to spend time with you.

Kim: I’m sorry, I have to eat with my fam­ily today.

Me. OK! Cool, cool. That’s totally cool. Are you free for dinner?

Kim: Sorry, I have dance class.

Me: Yeah. Great. That makes sense.….…Ok then. *cough cough* I’ll see you tomorrow?

Kim: Yes. See you tomorrow.

Me: .….….…

Kim can’t evade me for­ever. One day I will achieve her swag, even if she is really busy. The stu­dents are amaz­ing, and I can’t wait to spend more weeks with them.

Nick