On snow, colours, breastfeeding, guns, cultural differences, and common humanity.

Here are some of the questions I've gotten from students and teachers over the last few months.

Students:

• Does it snow in America? Promptly followed with intense excitement by: have you ever made a snowman?
• What are your parents' names?
• What colours do Americans like? (Me: "Do you all like the same colours?")
• Do all Americans dress like you? (Me: "Do Chinese people all wear the same clothes?")
• What’s the capital of the USA? (This was asked by several students, particularly after we learned how to say the USA, the UK, Canada, and China.)

One student asked me, "Isn't it true that your president's name is  Àobāmǎ" (Obama)? (To which I responded, yes, and what about China's president? She had to think about that for a moment…"Xi…Jinping".)

Teachers:

• Does it get this cold where you live in the US? (Especially in December when they saw me shivering…my answer: yes, but we have indoor heating. If not electric or hot water, than at least a fire in the fireplace!)
• Do you breastfeed in America? (Some do, some don't...I made noises about working on the one hand and the healthiness of breastfeeding on the other...I'm not sure how intelligible I was.)
• Will your parents be visiting you here in China? (Maybe.)
• When do people in the US get married? (It depends...)
• Does your family own a gun? (After I got past thinking she had asked if my house had walls...the word for house is also the word for family and the words for wall and gun differ only by tone...I said no. But they clearly were bewildered by the idea that it was possible, so I tried to explain the psychology involved in the right to bear arms, including “if the government knows that the populace has the ability to revolt, then it needs to consider what actions might cause the citizens to do so”. This in a country that is officially a “democratic dictatorship”.)

I thought the questions about colours and clothes particularly interesting because they showed me that at some level my students understand that people from other countries (e.g. me) are different from them. But they didn't yet know what sorts of characteristics are common to all humans. I hope that regardless of how much English they learn, they will begin to understand not only the diversity of people and cultures, but also our common humanity.