a little coffee

This morning, on our second to last day of vacation, Chris and I pulled ourselves out of bed early to go do… something. We weren’t exactly sure what. Since the phone call last night, Chris and I had been dreading this and we didn’t even know what exactly “this” was.

A couple days ago, Sir Jimbo of the university’s Foreign Affairs Office, our sometimes helper-friend, sometimes nemesis, invited us to dinner. Immediately we were suspicious. He never asks us to do anything unless he wants something. Or his boss wants something. He explained that he had a couple friends that wanted to meet us. So, being nice pushovers, we agreed and met Sir Jimbo, his quiet wife and his two friends, Carol and Cindy, who were studying at a university in Australia.

We went to a hotpot restaurant, had a great meal and a really good time. Cindy, curious and inquisitive chattered away. Halfway through the meal, the cat finally leaped out of the bag. Cindy and Carol have some students and they thought it “would be good for them” to meet us. They looked at Chris and me with friendly, expectant faces from across the table, while we wondered how many students? How old are they? Where are we going? A school? What should we do with them?

We still don’t know exactly what happened, but we found ourselves agreeing to do this thing we knew nothing about. Some Doodles, and Cindy is one of them, have this knack for talking a whole bunch and saying nothing– even after I asked those questions. Chris and I hesitated. They were nice, fun people and they were paying for this lovely meal. We’d be giant assholes for saying no to something outwardly innocuous like “meeting some students.” We’ve heard that before. Oh, crap. A reprise of the Lin Zhou experience! Tedious classes of 40+ ten year-olds that required a translator just to convey “My name is Christina.” Triple eek.

Finally, in the car this morning en route to somewhere on the North side of the city, an area we hadn’t explored yet, we got some tangible info out of Cindy. She and Carol had been tutoring a small group of late-teen, early twenty somethings in spoken English. They had prepared a game and a few discussion questions for the morning and Chris and I would just be there, participating.

Well, hell. If we’d known that, we wouldn’t have dreaded this! This was nothing like Lin zhou. It was actually quite enjoyable. Sitting in the former offices of some company, on cushy leather couches and chairs, we chatted with their five students. Five! With the exception of two boys, one who was just a friend of another student, their English was good and, though at first reluctant to speak, they laughed and got involved in the activities. Even the ones who couldn’t speak as well tried. We ended up having a good discussion (Would you rather be a boy or a girl? What’s your dream job?) and Chris and I got a couple activity ideas for our own classes.

Why couldn’t Cindy and Carol have just told us that to begin with? “We’re tutoring a few young adults in spoken English. We already have a game and discussion activities planned so we’d just like you to join us” instead of suspect “meet some students.” Both of us wouldn’t have been at all reluctant to come. Would have even said “sure, why not” instead of (failing to) think of polite ways to say “no way.”

I suppose it’s a frustrating cultural difference: the Doodles generally give you no details up front but say, “Can you do this, can you do this” and slowly information, sometimes misleading and inaccurate information trickles out– after you agree. Or is it not and I’ve just never noticed that happening in the ‘ol USA. Back at SS, I remember being emailed weeks in advance about meetings– and the email included an agenda of sorts. Here, you get notice of meetings a day before (if you’re lucky) and you have to ask- repeatedly- before you’re told what’s going on. Sometimes, even in the meeting room, you’re scratching your head going “what the hell?” while someone serves you tea. I want to blame this on the authoritarian “do as I say,” memorization-as-learning system, which sounds good but may or may not be true. I at least like knowing what’s happening beforehand.