M A C V A Y S I A

So how did I celebrate Canada Day?

By standing in front of a room full of Chinese people and proudly telling them that I am in fact Canadian, and not a world-famous American professor of education.

OK, let’s backtrack to Wednesday afternoon. After a very bumpy backroads bus ride that made Leen worry only half-jokingly that she might give birth right then and there, we arrived at a small resort for a farewell lunch with the college’s department of foreign languages and a couple of the deans. We all settled down at two big tables in a big room and had a nice big feast. In the next room a bunch of people who appeared to be really old—and when I say really old I mean “keep the ambulance engine running” old—were doing karaoke, totally mangling songs while cigarettes dangled from their toothless mouths. One old woman was wearing a bathing suit and drying herself off with a towel, which really disturbed me (it was raining outside, by the way). Anyway, we had a nice lunch despite the awful background music, which became even more awful when the really old people moved to a room upstairs and started singing Beijing opera. Thankfully the laughter and the many toasts we made almost completely drowned out what sounded like a cat getting its claws plucked out. When Dean Liang made her toast, thanking us for our work at the college, she mentioned something I didn’t really catch (I didn’t catch most of it, actually, it was all in Chinese) and everyone clapped. When I asked Ice what she’d said, he told me that she’d announced I’d be giving a very important speech at the institute on Saturday. Let the fun begin.

‘The institute’ is what we call our college’s adult training centre—or whatever it is—in downtown Guangzhou. Apparently I’d been selected to give a speech during the institute’s open day, when prospective students and their parents would be coming by to see what the place has to offer. The topic of my speech: the differences between teaching children in America and teaching children in China, with a short introduction to a programme called Bo Le Fu. When I told Judy, who was tasked with preparing me for my speech, that I didn’t really know much about general children’s education in America, she told me I had to. Because the president of the college had already placed ads in the city’s major newspapers inviting everyone to come and see the world-famous American professor of education, Jordan MacVay, give a speech on the differences between teaching children in America and teaching children in China. Oh, and the professor would also be giving an introduction to Bo Le Fu.

At first I thought it was funny. Then I began to think about it and realised it wasn’t funny at all, except for in a peculiar kind of way. It’s not that I wasn’t up to the challenge of passing myself off as a world-famous American professor of education. I have a reputation here for winging it when I have to give important talks and still sounding like I wrote the book on whatever I’m talking about. We MacVay boys are known for our ability to talk our way into and out of things. No, the problem was that it was all just so…unethical. My resentment at being used to mislead people was only heightened when I was told that the staff at the institute had actually pointed out to the president that he’d made a mistake, and that his response was, “It doesn’t matter,” complete with a dismissive wave of the hand. No mistake had been made. I was a bigger draw as a world-famous American professor than as a relatively anonymous Canadian lecturer.

On Thursday Judy reminded me about the speech and when I again expressed my concern over the newspaper ads she advised me not to reveal my nationality, since that would likely cause problems. I told her that was crazy. The next day she reminded me again and presented me with an outline of my speech. I was to talk about various methods used to teach children in America, methods used in China, and oh I didn’t have to worry about the introduction to Bo Le Fu because someone else would do it. And, of course, I shouldn’t reveal my nationality. I told her that was unacceptable and that I wasn’t going to give the speech unless I could be up front with the audience and tell them who and what I am. Not just because of the ethical factor, but because Saturday would be Canada Day. They expected me to hide my Canadian identity because being an American might be more credible, or at least more profitable? On Canada Day? Not going to happen. I asked Judy to go see the boss and ask him how he’d feel if I invited him to give a speech in my country and told everyone he was Japanese. She relayed my concerns to the boss (well, to his secretary) and soon came back to tell me I could tell those people the truth.

Score one for Canada, I thought.

This morning Leen and I got up bright and early and boarded the college’s big green bus to go to the institute. The bus was full of students, all members of the Communist Youth league, who were being taken on an outing to one of the city’s parks to celebrate the birthday of the Chinese Communist Party. The bus dropped some of us off near the institute and before long we were sitting in the manager’s office waiting for the festivities to begin. Soon we were ushered into a meeting room where a few dozen people were patiently waiting, some with children in tow. Brief introductions were made, and then it was time for my speech.

The first thing I did was tell everyone that while the ad said I was a world-famous American professor, in actual fact I am a Canadian, plus I’m not a professor and I’m not world-famous. Since everyone in the audience was Chinese, and few of them understood any English, Judy translated for me. I’m no expert in Chinese, but I know I didn’t hear her say anything about Jia Na Da (Canada) or Mei Guo (America). All she said was something like how happy I was to be there, blah blah blah. Well, I gave my speech, discussing what I knew about childhood education in the West and in China, the differences and similarities between them, the challenges facing educators using western methods in China, the need for compromise, etc. Before I finished, Judy wrapped up the speech for me, and before I knew it people were clapping and I was being ushered–or maybe dragged–back to my seat.

Then it was Dragon’s turn to speak. He’s a professor who teaches at the college and has inflicted more than a few headaches upon me since I began my job as head of the department of foreign languages. He teaches what he calls ‘Passion English’ and certainly does it with passion. His English is actually a bit dodgy—he wrote the phrase clothes make man on the whiteboard and had everyone follow along with his pronunciation: “Closes make man!”—but in terms of pacing, energy, and control of an audience, I think there are few who could match Dragon. Because of this he’s quite popular at our college, and because of that he’s got perhaps too much confidence in his teaching, a confidence that borders on blatant arrogance. Still, since I yanked him from my English programme and had him assigned to other English classes (mostly local exam preparation courses), I’ve had practically no headaches at all. In fact, he and I now get along quite well. I watched him bending and snapping and coming very close to frothing at the mouth as he sailed from one side of the room to the other, passionately drilling his personal brand of English into the heads of the parents and children, and I thought I might actually miss him when I leave, despite—or maybe even because of—his quirks.

Then I watched him answer questions from a mother who was wondering if it was better to have a foreign teacher or a Chinese one. He said both are good: a foreign teacher because a native speaker has excellent pronunciation, and a Chinese teacher because sometimes that’s necessary to make the students feel comfortable and understand what they’re being taught. And when the mother asked him if our institute had any foreign teachers, Dragon motioned in my direction. Yes, I thought, I’ll be here for a whole two weeks, long enough for these people to enroll their kids in our institute’s summer programme thinking I’ll be their teacher. Sigh.

After the little seminar ended I was a bit miffed that my plan to identify myself as a Canadian had been thwarted in the interest of saving face and making money. On Canada Day. Someone must have told the president, because he sped off in his red sports car and Leen and I were left to have lunch at a nearby Mongolian restaurant called The Little Sheep with the president’s secretary, his brother, Dean Liang, Judy, and Dragon. Being Canadian, I tried to be polite about it all, and I didn’t make a scene. But I made sure I made my feelings known, albeit with a smile. I told them how just plain wrong it was for them to have used me like that. I brought up the Japanese example again. I thought that would lead to some deep reflection on what they’d done but instead they all laughed. Dean Liang, a wide grin still on her face, said something about how that was a silly example, because Canada and America are so alike, not like China and Japan. I turned to Dragon and said, “We’re not exactly alike you know. We even had a war once.”

They were all talking about something else now, maybe about how good the mutton tasted. “And we won,” I said. No one heard me. I just sighed. Oh well, at least the food was good. And at least I was able to stand up in front of a room full of Chinese people—who didn’t understand a word I said—and proudly tell them on Canada Day that I am Canadian.