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September 11, 2005
Those who can't do...
It’s a little romantic.
She sat in front of him in middle school. After they graduated from middle school, she went to the city’s top high school – going there is called “getting one foot into university” – and he went to a technical school. They often exchanged letters (no computers or cell phones), and after she graduated from high school they started dating. Now she’s a junior English major; he’s been working at a power plant for a few years. He monitors the coal burning to make sure the furnaces don’t get blocked.
There is an expression in Chinese: 门当户对 “men dang hu dui”. It means that, when choosing a mate, you should choose someone who matches you, someone on your level. Her parents say: a power plant worker is far from good enough from a soon-to-be university graduate with a marketable Business English degree. They’ve tried their hardest to get her to break up with him – unsuccessfully. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this kind of story.
This summer they gave her an ultimatum. She has three choices: 1) break up with her boyfriend; 2) pass TOEFL or IELTS and go study overseas; or 3) become fluent in English by the end of this year (her fluency will be tested by native speakers). If she fails to do one of the three, they’ll stop paying her university tuition.
Thus I got an urgent e-mail this July: she had chosen option 3 and wanted my help. She couldn’t offer me money, and her Chinese teachers wouldn’t help her without it. Her appeal was her desperation and her love for her boyfriend. He’s hardworking, she says, he just doesn’t like studying. And he already earns enough money to support her – almost as much as I make as a foreign teacher. She’s sure they’re right for each other, if only she can get her parents to agree.
And so I’ll be helping her every Saturday afternoon with “everyday English”. She made a plan of the things I can teach her – things like making phone calls and going shopping. I like her; it should be fun to hang out. And I have a nice warm maiden-aunt-helping-young-lovers-overcome-obstacles-to-a-happy-life-together kind of feeling.
| By huzzlecoo | 10:28 PM
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