When I first attended Chinese kindergarten, I knew I was different because I only went to school for a few classes a day and then went home and played. Since I was only four or five years old, my brain soaked up everything it heard, and learning the language was not a problem. I knew I was Canadian and that everyone else was Chinese, but at that time nationalities and skin color made no sense to me. I had pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes whereas all my other classmates had tan-colored skin, black hair, and brown eyes, but that was not what made me different, I thought. What made me different was that I went to school part-time and was a head taller than everyone else.
As I grew older and continued on in the Chinese school system, I began to notice that people looked at me differently. Parents who had never seen me before would stop and stare, and some teachers would give me special privileges. However, by grade two or three, most people were used to seeing me. I had my friends, and all 50 of my classmates 同学 (tóngxué) thought of me as just another student. I loved my amazing teacher 老师 (lǎoshī), and although I did not realize it, it was because of her that I was able to last until grade three in a bustling public school.
Later in grade four my family and I moved. I then went to a private Chinese school with only a dozen classmates. The first day I walked in I felt very self-conscious. My height did not help. As I sat waiting for the other students to file into the room, two boys ventured up to get to know the tall foreign girl. One of them asked in halting English “Do you…speak Chinese?” Expecting this, I grinned and replied in flawless Mandarin, “Yes, I speak Chinese.” Surveying me, one joked to the other “Her English is better than mine!” His friend retorted “Heck, her Chinese is better than yours!” Laughing, I knew that this school would be ok and that I would be accepted.
Throughout that first day of 4th grade, others came up and got to know me in their own way too. One boy sauntered up to me and said with an all-too-innocent smile “You seem pretty good at reading Chinese, can you read this aloud to me?” He showed me a slip of paper that said 我是二百五 wǒ shì èrbǎiwǔ (I am 250). Knowing that the number 250 in Chinese meant stupid, I just smirked and replied, “I could, but why don’t you?” My classmates were goofballs and really fun to be around. Over the course of the next few months, I made friends who saw me as 楠楠 (nannan) my Chinese name, their smart and funny classmate, not just as the tall foreign girl.
In general, I liked my teachers as well. I only went half-day and did next to no Chinese school homework, so many of them thought I was sure to fail exams, but I usually passed in my Chinese literature 语文 (yǔwén) classes, and much to many teachers’ surprise, I competed for top marks in the class in math 数学 (shùxué) a few years in a row. Sadly, my grade 7 math teacher 数学老师 (shùxué lǎoshī) was not as good. When she saw me, she thought that I could not speak Mandarin. Then when she realized that I actually could, she still thought that I probably was no good in math so she asked me only the simplest questions. It was embarrassing to be treated like a 1st grader in a 7th-grade class. Later, once she discovered that I was actually quite good, she then compared my fellow classmates to me in terms of grades. If others scored poorly on exams, she would sometimes say to them “Even the foreign kid did better than you!” I always felt so bad, and it definitely did not help people like me.
It was not just that teacher, though, that made grades seven and eight tough. Chinese middle school is very hard with tons of pressure coming from teachers and parents alike for students to succeed. With my classmates studying from 7am to 9 or 10pm every single day and still not finishing all their homework, everyone was tired, stressed, and grouchy a lot of the time, especially the teachers. At that time I also struggled because part-time Chinese just was not enough in order for me to keep up. My parents decided to switch me to English school for 9th grade.
I will always treasure my memories and the valuable knowledge I learned from kindergarten to grade 8 in Chinese school. Not only am I fluent in reading, writing, and speaking, I also have a firm base of Chinese history and cultural knowledge. Chinese middle school was tough, but despite that, I am grateful for the strong and important friendships that I developed during those two years. Along with my teachers and classmates, I realized that being different is not bad and that it is ok to stand out. My classmates accepted me as I was, and I will always be grateful for the impact it had on my life.
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