Common Courtesy Lost in Translation

Last year, as the weather got colder, I received a number of emails from my students. Each one went along the lines of, “Dear teacher, it is getting cold these days. Make sure to wear many warm clothes now.” And then at least once a day in class, someone would say to me, “Teacher, you need to add more layers.” Never mind that my arms are sticking out like a puffed up penguin. Never mind that I am a grown up. And never mind that I am the teacher, I still got the “you need to” treatment. In English, as soon as you hear “need to”, you want to groan, you want to protest, you immediately start searching for excuses for why you don’t need to, no matter what it is. This, of course, is lost on many who’s’ first language is not English and so “you need to” rolls off their tongues left and right.

One student asked me how my Chinese was coming along, and when I answered a modest, “Oh, not that great, but I am working on it” he nodded sympathetically and said, “Hmmm, you need to study more”. Of course you have to agree, its much easier than trying to explain that telling someone they need to do something is usually a job reserved for that person’s parents.
Another funny, if not mildly irritating, gesture is when you are pulled out of the road abruptly if a car or bicycle is slowly approaching. This too, I know, is done out of love, but the situations in which you are yanked back by the strap of your backpack are not life threatening. They don’t involve vehicles traveling at high speeds, or even real roads. This takes place on campus roads where the students walking to class outnumber the cars 30:1, where you would have noticed the car only a moment later and taken a step to the left or right so it could pass.

Today I must swallow this ungrateful attitude because at the intersection of two real roads, a ‘grab and yank’ from a complete stranger saved my life, or at least saved me from minor injury. It went like this: I was crossing at the designated crossing time on a journey led by the green man. Almost to the other side of the intersection, I was distracted by the brave actions of an elderly crossing guard. She was a small lady in a long blue coat armed with a yellow flag. In America, we don’t defy the crossing guard. We all know that when the flag, or the sign, or even just the flat palm of a crossing guard is in action, you are going to pay attention. It’s for the safety of the people.
But the crossing guards and yellow flags are not given the respect that they deserve around here, particularly not from big and shiny black cars with tinted windows who seem to think they own the roads. So, two big and shiny black cars begin to turn the corner side by side despite the fact that our crossing guard has both arms extended to her sides, is prominently displaying the yellow flag and is gesturing for the cars to stop. I watched as she gallantly jumped side-to-side using her body as a blockade, but they weren’t stopping. The moved slowly forward, forcing the crossing guard to choose her life and turn sideways, as the two cars continued on parting the herd of pedestrians. I had been watching the situation unfold as I crossed unaware that now my eyes were facing the in the opposite direction that my feet were traveling. I felt someone grab the collar of my jacket and quickly jerk me backwards, squealing something frantically in Chinese. Alarmed I looked at the woman who restrained me, and then my head spun around to find a taxi one inch in front of me. The driver sped on by and gave me a look that said it all.