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Over the past few weeks at work, I’ve been correcting essays that students have written. The topic of these essays? Me.
I have been assigned to 1 teacher and I am the TA for his 3 first year English classes. The students in these classes were assigned to interview and write an essay about their TA. About 2 weeks ago all the students in these classes were divided into groups of 3 and they had to spend 30 minutes interviewing me about my life, interests, and issues that I feel strongly about.
Before we get into the questions that were asked, I want to take a minute to share some of these students’ names with you. In China, the students are allowed to choose their own English names, and some of these names are pretty strange. Well, actually, some of their names aren’t names at all; they’re just words that the kids like or the kids made up. For example, some of the students who interviewed me are named: Laughing, Voldemort (there’s also a student named Herry Potter wandering around the school somewhere), Celle (Pronounced ‘Sally’), Windy, Cherry, Yoyo, Vesper, Ivy, Moon, Hummer, and Aborad. Of course, there are a few more mainstream names like Erin, Cara, and Eddie.
Now onto the questions I was asked. They all started out innocent enough, asking about my age, where I grew up, and how many siblings I have. Then almost every interview asked if I had a boyfriend, why I did not have a boyfriend, and if I wanted a Chinese boyfriend. I was also frequently asked if I was married and why I am not married. Apparently, in China, if you are not married by your mid twenties you are somewhat of an old maid, and I am getting awfully close to that age. The more serious questions involved my opinions on sex before marriage, having babies before marriage, the China/Japan island dispute, and American politics. Of course, there were some just random, fun questions as well that asked if I believe in vampires, why my name doesn’t have any meaning (since all Chinese names have a deeper meaning), 3 words to describe myself (I usually chose quiet, adventurous, and friendly), do I think the world will end this year, my favorite alcohol, and the most embarrassing thing I have ever done.
I thought these interviews were entertaining, but then I started to read the papers that were written based on the interviews and got even more entertainment out of them. I don’t mean that they’re funny because of how bad the English is. They’re funny because some of the information is so wrong and absurd I just have to wonder if they even tried to listen when interviewing me. Some of the best, incorrect lines are:
“Two years ago, Laura came to China” – pretty sure I’ve only been in China for two months.
“She studied in high school in Mexico, which is near to the ocean. To improve her Chinese, she spent 2 years in California College to study Chinese.” – my High School was in California and no where near the ocean.
“Her favorite movie is <<The Lord of the Rings>>” – I hate this movie.
“…she had travelled Thailand and because of being an exchange student to Switzerland…” – I’ve never been to Thailand and I was an exchange student in Sweden.
“…her university, which is near Washington, is far away from her hometown” – My University was in Southern California, which was actually far from my hometown.
“She used to go sightseeing with her family in a boat in her childhood, they enjoyed singing under the sky and watching the beautiful surroundings together.” – huh?
My absolute favorite essay began with the following 2 sentences:
“Laura Braden, an Australian, was born in Queensland. She studied international geography in Queensland University as her major which located in Brisbane.” – I don’t know what to say about this. America and Australia are pretty different, and I’m not sure where either Queensland or Brisbane are, so I have no idea why the students think I’m from there. This group also believes that I went to Mexico to teach children to make their own clothes.
