The Great Wall of Lucy Wu by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Author:Wendy Wan-Long Shang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2011-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

My interview with Professor Pao went better than I thought it would. I managed to carry on a very brief conversation in Chinese regarding the color of my shoes and the weather. My problem was that I couldn’t always think of the word I wanted to use when I wanted to use it. I did recognize the characters for the numbers one, two, and three. Well, okay, to be fair, the characters for one, two, and three are one horizontal line, two horizontal lines, and three horizontal lines.

Professor Pao handed me a slip of paper with a room number on it. “Your accent isn’t bad — you should work on vocabulary and idioms,” she said sternly. “Practice!”

I nodded and took the slip of paper. Room 303. I needed to find a stairwell and go up two flights. The clock in the cafeteria said it was 10:45. Another hour and fifteen minutes of Chinese school — how was I going to survive? My steps slowed to a crawl.

Eventually I couldn’t delay any longer and found Room 303. I opened the door without knocking. The desks had been rearranged in a circle and everyone was laughing and talking. A woman dressed in a gold jacket and burgundy skirt stood up and walked over.

“Hello! What is your name? Wo shi Jing Lao Shi,” she said cheerfully. Her English was slowed by her accent and her effort to pronounce the words properly. I also noticed that instead of calling herself Miss or Mrs. Jing, she used the title of teacher, lao shi.

“Wo jiao Wu Mengxue.” I mumbled, surprised by how friendly she was.

“Welcome, Mengxue. I am so glad you are my student. Come sit. We are acting out the stories to Chinese idioms.” She led me over to one group, two girls and one boy. They all turned and stared at me.

“Hey,” I said.

“This is Wu Mengxue,” said the teacher, putting one arm around me, squeezing. “Please include her in your group.” She grinned. “Be nice! She’s the newest student in the class.” She giggled like crazy at her own joke.

“Here,” said the boy, handing me a sheet of paper. “We’re acting out the story of dong shi xi su.”

In my mind, I had planned to use the Amelia Helprin strategy in a large group, while the teacher was calling on me. Now the plan seemed less certain.

“I don’t know this phrase,” I said in my best wooden Amelia voice.

“Then hurry up and read the sheet,” said the taller of the two girls impatiently. “C’mon, she’s going to call on us in twenty minutes.”

I glanced down at the sheet. We were supposed to act out our version of dong shi xi su, a Chinese phrase that means eating in the east and sleeping in the west. The original story was about a girl who had a choice between marrying two men. The guy who lived in the west was poor but handsome, and the guy who lived in the east was rich but ugly.

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