Faces

Tonight I had one of my students, Tony, over to my house for his weekly tutoring. Last week I failed to remember it was his birthday. I felt terrible so I promised to make it up to him with one cookie (he says he is a little fat so he can only eat one), an easy lesson, and a few minutes watching the Harry Potter 4 (his favorite series but he has no time to watch movies so he has only seen 1-3). I delivered on none of these tonight.

I didn't know at the time of my promise that he would be having an English exam this coming Thursday. Nor did I realize that the one cookie mix I brought calls for a stick of butter, a commodity that is available to me in this town. The Chinese school system is all about exam performance. I thought our time would be better spent reviewing for the exam because he did not do very well on the last one. I mean his parents aren't paying me for nothing right, so my pride is a little on the line here too. I thought maybe we could breeze through the review and still be able to watch part of the film. I was wrong. It took more than the usual hour to get through the review I had arranged. He even brought up the cookie for the word "give". "Teacher, you will give me one of these things, remember"? So I had to deliver something. I had searched all the drawers and cupboards for my American candy stashes. All I had left was a partial box of Reeses pieces, un-crystallized sugar coated chunks of ginger from TJ's, and a few sour patch kids. Oh boy, I failed big time here!

After the lesson I busted out my findings and told him I was sorry about the cookies but I had these candies (or sugars as they say here) from America and that I wanted him to try them. First he tried the Reeses pieces which he thought was chocolate. I showed him a container of peanut butter from China so he would understand what it was. Next he popped a chunk of ginger into his mouth. He doubled over, spit it out into his hand and screamed, "what is this??” I died laughing. I went into the kitchen to grab some raw ginger to show him what it was. When I returned I found slowly trying to suck down small pieces. I just laughed and told him he didn't have to eat it and went to get him some tissue so he could discard it. Next I asked him if he liked sour things. He said "I little like". So he picked up a sour patch kid and shoved it into his mouth. Again his face went bananas as his noise wrinkled and his eyes went into extreme defensive squint. This time he managed to suck all the sour coating off and then I think he enjoyed the gummy afterwards.

I made him eat a few more Reeses just to end on a positive note even though he protested saying he was too fat and couldn't eat any more. Poor kid. He was a half hour late to the lesson tonight and I don't think he had eaten supper before he came. I hit him during the lesson, worked him harder than I ever have before, gave him two terrible tasting candies, didn't let him watch a video, and didn't deliver on the cookies. He left happy though because I showed him that I had bought the film and told him we would watch it someday. Oh Tony, I hope he at least does well on his exam this week.