Mae day

A slow week at work, with most of the staff and students still on holiday, leaves ample time for students and teachers to get into more detailed discussions than normal. Not that the regular "where are you from?", "what do you think of Shanghai?", "can you speak any Chinese?" discussions aren't fun, but yesterday I had an exceptionally rare candid conversation with a couple of students. One in particular, we'll call her Mae to protect her identity (and because I forget her real name), astounded me with insight both new and old to me, but rarely discussed within the walls of EF.

Or first exceptional topic was philosophy, which is a pretty incredible thing to discuss with a group of Chinese. We were comparing the two 'fathers' of Eastern and Western philosophy: Socrates and Confucius. It was noted that Confucius is a fan of order and respect to elders, leading to students, sons and citizens asking less critical questions of their superiors, where as Socrates seemingly encourages systematic revolt in some students. At this point Mae chimed in that Confucius was one of many Chinese philosophers, but because his views supported the existence of whichever government held power, he had always been touted as the best. This insightful haymaker was followed by her rightfully calling Confucius a misogynist (in so many words). I was a little shocked, but honored to be present, for a student letting slip such candid opinions, especially because I can't help but agree with them.

The next topic was one which I felt slightly more uncomfortable about: Guns in America. Students often ask this, expecting reality to bear out their wild imaginations of gun crazed Americans waving firearms in the air as they race to be first in the supermarket check out line. I try as delicately as I can to dissuade this notion from my students minds (although my inner regionalism leads me to believe it may be true somewhere in Houston). After covering this initial base yesterday, the students asked about the gun laws and why they aren't changed, and I explained the lines of though (guns are dangerous vs. guns are for protection/protected by the constitution) as well as the politics surrounding them - ie the NRA. This was when Mae again chimed in with a though which seemed impossibly radical being made among a small group of Chinese and their American teacher. She said she though guns were good for people because if people had guns, they had the power, not the government. She proceeded to express her opinion that people in China have no real power, that the government holds it all, but if people were able to arm themselves they would be prepared to disagree with the government when the time came. She said this is why democracy in America works, because the people have the power. I don't know if I'd never thought of it that way before, or if Mae saying it just caught me off guard, but it hit me like a revelation.

The conversation was lengthy, and we certainly did discuss the mundane topics of the day - the meaning of toddler for example, but any conversation with a few wonderfully insightful ideas is a good conversation. It was memorable and surprising perhaps because they seemed such western ideas coming from such a Chinese woman, or perhaps because I'm not used to hearing this kind of talk coming from my students, but I think it struck such a chord because I agreed with Mae.