Dear Mr Len! by Len Wilson

Author:Len Wilson [Wilson, Len]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, General, Travel
ISBN: 9781543496543
Google: vfwBEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Published: 2020-11-15T23:45:15.894915+00:00

WHAT DID MAO SAY?

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to China and had lots to tell my classes when I returned to New Zealand. I prepared a PowerPoint presentation and walked into class, ready to go. Almost half the class was present so I decided to go ahead. It was a good day, attendance-wise.

One of my students had a question. ‘What’s that building, mister?’ ‘That’s the mausoleum of Chairman Mao. Mao ruled China from 1949 until his death in 1976. After he died, his body was embalmed and placed in a glass coffin. His body is covered by a Chinese flag and surrounded by red flowers. An honour guard stand to attention on all four corners of the coffin. People may enter the mausoleum to pay their respects to Chairman Mao. No photos are allowed and you must remain quiet and respectful at all times.’

‘Did you go to see him, did you go to see that joker?’ ‘Yes, I did. I had to stand in line for over an hour to enter the mausoleum.’ ‘Wow, what did he say to you?’ ‘Did you just ask, what did he say to me?’ ‘Yes, what did he say?’

‘Well, he woke up from the dead, opened his eyes, sat up, and opened the coffin lid. He looked right at me and said, ‘Oh, Len Wilson – nihao and welcome to China’ – then he lay back down dead again, being careful to close the coffin lid behind himself.’ ‘Oh, that must have been so cool!’ ‘Yes, I will never forget waking the Great Helmsman of China from the dead.’

I walked on. Another student looked at me and said, ‘That was mean!’ Maybe, but how can an 18-year-old be so stupid?

Earlier in the year, another student chose for her research essay the topic: ‘The Introduction of Electricity to New Zealand’. She opened an encyclopaedia on electricity and began to copy. Somehow the page changed to a description of elections, but she didn’t notice. Later a gust of wind changed the page to the American Electoral College. She wrote on without thinking. Mr Wilson will like this!

The end result was a fifteen-page essay where she tried to bring it all together. It concluded: ‘Electricity was first dug up in Reefton in the 1880s, since then people have been having elections for electricity every four years.’ She then copied out the Electoral College result for 1932 and concluded, ‘As you can see, President Roosevelt won the elections for electricity in 1932, and since then it’s been going up all over the place!’

A few years later, my partner went for a trip to Spain. She experienced problems with her camera, so she took it to a repair shop. An old guy worked on it for hours and guaranteed that it was fully functional. It would appear that he took a few selfies to make sure the camera was operational and then rewound the film. After she returned to New Zealand, I borrowed the camera and loaned it to a student to take photos of a school event of sport and cultural activities.

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