Let's start from the beginning, shall we?
My language class currently consists of 12 Chinese students, 5 Arabs, and ME. Which means, 17 students from honor/shame based cultures and little ole me from a non-shaming culture. The US is a justice based culture: everything is all based on right and wrong. This means I show up for class and try to get all the answers right. It means my classmates won't raise their hand to answer a question if they know the teacher will yell at them for getting it wrong.
And guess what? We have a teacher who yells at us all the live long day. We actually have three teachers: Strict Teacher, Scary Teacher, and Nice Teacher.
Strict Teacher is the one who yells at us. After about a week, we figured out when she yells. She doesn't want anyone to move, touch anything, do anything, or speak to anyone whenever anyone else in the classroom is speaking. If you do any of those things (move, touch, do, speak), you might make a noise, and that sends her into the yelling...because we're supposed to be listening to whoever is talking.
Even if we don't understand a word they're saying because their accent is so thick it makes comprehension impossible. Just sit and pretend like you're listening.
Scary Teacher also yells at us, but not in a way that makes you think he might pull out a gun at any second and go all crazy on you and kill the whole classroom. He yells at us with this glimmer of a smile in his eyes. I think he's just trying to put the fear in us, sort of like establishing who is the Alpha Dog. Unlike Strict Teacher, he laughs alot, so I think he might be okay. But he still scares me. But I don't think he'll go postal on me.
Nice Teacher is fantastic. She let us play Taboo in French, which was AWESOME. She gets the best teacher award.
So on day 1 of class, Strict Teacher's already going postal on the Chinese students. They have these little electronic translator machines that they all use to help them understand vocabulary words. However, at the level of class we are in, they're not supposed to use those (or translation dictionaries either). If we don't know a word, Teacher or another student is supposed to describe it--in French--until everyone knows what the word is. However, all the Chinese students (and one of the Arabs) still keep using the translators. (They've at least by now figured out how to hide them behind books on their desks...) So she'd already been yelling at them about those, and their cell phones, and to quit speaking Chinese in class.
When we went to the lab that first day, she explains that the lab is NOT time to do email, check facebook, or google stuff on the internet. It is language learning time, and we should all only be looking at the language lab page. Well, when I got my page set up, I put my headphones on and heard music that wasn't French. I whispered to the guy next to me, "Is yours playing music?" He shook his head no, and came over to help me figure out where the music was coming from.
Apparently a Chinese student had been at the computer before me, and had opened several music pages. As he found those windows and was about to click them closed, she came by...and screamed at us.
"WHY ARE YOU SHOWING HER CHINESE MUSIC?! DIDN'T I JUST SAY THIS IS LAB TIME?"
We both sort of stuttered that it had been there already and we were trying to close the windows, not open them, but the damage was done. We'd both just been shamed in front of the whole class. I gave him a "I'm so sorry" look and buried myself in my exercise.
Fast forward to yesterday, in class with Nice Teacher. I can't remember why, but Tintin came up. Do any of you know who Tintin is? I sure didn't. More than half the Chinese students did, though. Teacher was a little shocked to find out there were people in the world who'd never heard of Tintin, so she asked one of the Chinese students who knew who he was to explain to the rest of us.
He turned towards the class and began explaining IN CHINESE. I won't justify my actions at all, but after two weeks in a French language school and I've heard more Mandarin than French, I was fed up. I stated very loudly from across the room, "I don't understand Chinese!" All the Arabs started laughing (because they too didn't know who Tintin was and needed the explanation in French). I felt terrible. Just like Strict Teacher, I'd just shamed the honor/shame culture. You'd think with that Masters degree of mine, I'd know better.
But apparently, even with a degree, I haven't mastered my intercultural studies just yet.
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