This week we intro­duced the con­cept of “prom” to all of our stu­dents. Many of our stu­dents lamented the fact that they had never had such an expe­ri­ence. “I wish we had prom in China.” “Was prom the best expe­ri­ence of your life?” The middle-aged sub­ur­ban heli­copter mom inside of me became deeply unset­tled by these com­ments. “They’ve never had a prom? Gosh dar­nit, I’m gonna give them a prom they’ll never forget.”

As I entered the local super­mar­ket noth­ing could stop me. Ari­anna and I blew our bud­get on count­less potato chips, choco­late, and soda – our stu­dents would not be denied sug­ary con­fec­tions and high calo­rie foods dur­ing their spe­cial day. On prom’s eve Ari­anna and I brain­stormed an obscene amount of prom stereo­types. From Tony, who was last year’s prom king intent on a dou­ble crown, to Betty, the over­pro­tec­tive mother who went to prom with her daugh­ter San­dra (who’s makeup wasn’t applied prop­erly and was cry­ing to every­one about her fug­li­ness), we made sure Jishou would expe­ri­ence the quin­tes­sen­tial Amer­i­can prom.

The spe­cial day finally came. Our stu­dents were each assigned a role for prom and they per­formed them flaw­lessly. Dur­ing the pre-prom photo shoots the “mean girls” insulted other stu­dents while the social out­casts hated on every­one else for lik­ing prom. In the photo booth sta­tion our stu­dents took suf­fi­ciently awk­ward prom poses and gen­eral excite­ment built when “Tik Tok” started play­ing in the background.

Ari­anna and I donned sun­glasses and became bounc­ers as the stu­dents shuf­fled into class­room 306 – the des­ig­nated space for the dance floor. Reuben turned on Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”

Oh. My. Lady. Gaga. High-pitched girly screams pierced the air as each of the cou­ples rushed the floor for the des­ig­nated slow song. While I sep­a­rated cou­ples that were danc­ing too closely (Ari­anna and I were also the act­ing over­pro­tec­tive par­ents), I had flash­backs to my own prom expe­ri­ence. As I wit­nessed the pan­de­mo­nium of the class­room, I mar­veled at the spec­ta­cle in front of me: per­haps locked inside of every mild-mannered Chi­nese col­lege stu­dent is an Amer­i­can prom diva wait­ing to be unleashed.

So per­haps prom looked like a glo­ri­fied class­room party. Maybe the kids didn’t even really under­stand how to dance to YMCA. Regard­less, I can now sleep soundly at night and cher­ish price­less photos.

Prom King Yaya and Prom Queen Erica…too bad they broke up dur­ing prom

–Nick