Although class has been going

Although class has been going on for the last week and a half, today was the first time our Cantonese teacher, Dr. Leung, actually came to class (he was away at a conference in Hong Kong last week). The door to our classroom is a self locking door that requires a combination to be entered before it can be opened from the outside, and usually the way the students enter the classroom is that we wait for the previous class to leave, and then grab the door before it locks all of us out. We're sitting in our seats waiting for the teacher to enter into the classroom when we hear the sound of the doorknob rattle, and a Chinese man in his mid to late 60s trying to enter into the classroom. We jump from our chairs and open the door for him. It's Dr. Leung, and as he drags his small luggage-style suitcase in, he wears the look of a man who gets right down to business. He unpacks his suitcase and in a methodical style begins to lay out his books and papers. He mutters a word or two about the stuff left on the white board from the previous class, says a short and terse jouh sahn and as we wonder what exactly this teacher is like, he asks us in a voice that can only be heard standing 2 feet away from him what we've learned in the week that he's been away. The class murmurs an answer and he asks us to speak louder. His English is crisp and clear, without a hint of Mandarin or Cantonese influence. We answered that we learned fruits and introductions and we watched a video on Friday. "So you finished lesson one, then. Maybe you are ready for a quiz now." We all gasp in surprise at the mention of a quiz, as he says "Let's go over the material. Turn to page 18." He begins going over the fruits with us. We're all sitting there, dreading the thought of the quiz.

One of the students asks him something about grapes, and why is it that he learnt it as pouhtaihji while the book just abbreviates it as taihji. Dr. Leung provides an long-winded explanation about how grapes are from the area of the Silk Road and Turpan, but never manages to really give the answer to the question, and I thought, oh great, he's one of those teachers.

He starts on going over the introductions and starts off with "ngoh meng Kai" (I am called Kai) and then he adds "That's Kai, as in Kaiser, which means prince, not hospital". As we go over introductions, he makes us go over everyone who has gone on before. I say, "ngoh haih Mike, neih haih Kai, neih haih Winnie, neih haih Barbara." At this point, Dr. Leung bursts out laughing and says "Why are you changing my name?" I repeat it, and he gets frustrated with me, and still laughing he says "Okay, next!" and moves on. I realize at that point what I had been saying and why it was wrong. Neih means "you"... and what I was supposed to be using was supposed to be "keuih" which means "this person"... We go around the class and we introduce everyone, and then we count off one by one. "Yih, yiu, saam" Dr. Leung and the two students ahead of me count off. "sei." I say. "Higher!" Dr. Leung says. "Sei" I say again. "Higher!" he says. "Sei" I say, as he says "Good, next".

Even though from what I've written he probably sounds like a rough teacher, he had the class (including myself) in laughter for most of the hour, as he explained the romanization of Cantonese in his flawless British accent, and introduced new vocabulary to us. He made us look at the sylabus and repeat "ching chaau choi ngauh laam mihn" to get us used to hearing the 6 tones of Cantonese. Then he broke it up to "ching chaau choi" and "ngauh laam mihn" Choi is like bok choy and chaau is like "chow" which means fried... and then as he explains ching he goes into this story about how he lived during World War Two, and how they had to have stir-fried vegatables everyday... and how ching doesn't really have any meaning at all...
Next, he told us to go to the Chinese restaurant on Jackson Street and ask for ngauh laahm mihn. mihn of course is mein or noodles, and ngauh laahm turned out to be cow stomach, or tripe.

Very funny teacher. At the end of the class, I couldn't help wishing that I had taken Mandarin with him as well. It's pretty rare (at least for me) to find teachers that I genuinely like. I found myself much more impressed by the teaching staff here in SJSU than I ever did at Cal, and I find myself realizing that better education doesn't always equate to bigger or more prestigous or more expensive school, but that the true value of a university education is in the teachers that support it, and the willingness of the student to learn.

I went to the Admissions office to turn in my forms to add classes today, and they said that since I had completed my Bachelor's already, I was registered as a Grad student. One of the Administrative assistants for the foriegn language department saw me outside a classroom studying my Mandarin, and asked me what I was taking. I told him I was taking both Mandarin and Cantonese, and he said that if I minored in Chinese, I could probably get a scholarship. Events like this sometimes make me wonder why I didn't take more advantage of university resources when I was an undergrad.