Crazy English!

These students study “Crazy English” and they are a pretty fun group.

On Sunday I went with Carol, a Korean-American student here at Shi-Da, to give a three hour talk on American culture to about fifty Hohhot university students. Carol is from Los Angeles and she's been here since September, studying Chinese. She was asked by a Chinese friend of hers to find a foreign teacher willing to talk about American culture to university students who are taking classes at the "Beijing Successful English School." I had never heard of the school but agreed to do the gig for Carol, who is not only really nice but also has been generous enough to come to my English classes (my students were absolutely befuddled because they just couldn't believe that Carol was American--until they heard her talk).

Carol came over on Saturday morning for an American pancake breakfast so we could plan our talk. We expected to give the presentation together. We decided to hit all usual topics--holidays, family life, sports, entertainment--while avoiding all the controversial ones--politics and religion. Carol agreed to put together a powerpoint presentation with pictures that would stimulate class discussion.

I have to admit: I wasn't thrilled about taking a large chunk of my Sunday to talk to college students about Halloween and the NBA. I've been feeling a little down lately. Maybe its the winter blues, or perhaps just a little weariness from living in very small quarters with an 8 and 6 year old who happen to be experiencing a lot of interesting neuroses as of late ('Papa, I'm afraid that a robber will scale the building and come in through our window!"), but I also think I've been despairing recently about the possibility (or impossibility?) of breaking through the cultural barrier that keeps me trapped in my own ignorance and prevents me from having more meaningful interactions with students and colleagues. So the idea of more meaningless discussions about the most superficial aspects of "American culture" was not appealing.

On Sunday, Carol's Chinese friend Jerry met me in front of the Education Hotel and took me to Gong Da (Inner Mongolia University of Technology) where the lecture would take place. It was nice to see Gong Da, which I had not yet visited. It is the university where Sharon, the wife of Yongsheng, my CBC colleague, had received her engineering degree.

It ended up that Carol and I were separated into two different classrooms, each with about fifty students. So the powerpoint presentation went with Carol and I walked in to face fifty Chinese university students for a three-hour presentation with nothing more than a piece of chalk and an empty mind (perfect condition for Buddhist enlightenment but not necessarily good for teaching). I expected to be greeted with the usual classroom full of attentive but shy students who would be extremely reticent about asking questions and engaging in classroom discussion. I was surprised. These students, who were drawn from all of Hohhot's universities, including Gong Da, Shi Da, and Nei Da (Inner Mongolia University), were extremely lively. They jumped at the chance to ask me questions, including "What do you think of opportunity"-- ("I'm all for it"); "What is your goal in life?"; "What is more important to you--your career or your family?"; "How do Americans make friends?"; and "What is your academic specialty?"

Sure, they also asked me some really silly questions, like “Can you tell us about the NBA” and “How do you pronounce Shaquille O'Neal." But they were very animated. They laughed at my jokes (which have become evermore animated and buffoonish since I've come to China), they expressed their own opinions, and they answered questions which I posed to them.

Part of my board, including the phonetic pronunciation of Shaquille O’Neal, a method of ascertaining to which Asian populations Native Americans are most closely related, and a popular adversarial teaching approach in America.

I came away really impressed and energized. I was especially taken by their questions for me. My own students at Shi Da are hesitant to ask me any questions during class, often nodding their heads "No" when I ask them if there are "Any questions," and then coming to see me after class to ask questions in private. These students were not at all like that. They were outgoing like my American students, but they were attentive and respectful like my Chinese students--the best of both worlds, really.

This was a different kind of school, I was to learn. These students are studying "Crazy English," invented by Li Yang in the 1990s. Crazy English is more than just a teaching methodology. It is intended to help Chinese students break through what might be their greatest impediment to learning English--their modesty; their self-restraint; their fear of making a mistake; their fear of "losing face." In a style that mimics charismatic American self-help gurus, Li Yang helps Chinese students peel back the layers of their social training, encouraging them to stand up in front of their peers and gesticulate as they shout English catch-phrases as loudly as they can.

He tells Chinese audiences to "Enjoy losing face." He admonishes them not to be afraid of failure, saying that "Embarrassment is a motivation to become better." He inspires audiences with a full repertoire of self-help slogans, like "If you are strong enough, you are your own God," and "Get up every morning believing it's going to be a nice day," and "The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today."

It is not surprising that when Li Yang began his evangelical lectures about ten years ago, traditionalists were shocked. An article in China Today explains how Li Yang's methods "ran counter to all traditional modes and concepts of teaching....Crazy English was initially despised and detested by the many traditional Chinese people who have long cherished the oriental virtues of restraint, modesty and moderation."

And yet, Li's popularity has soared. He gives talks to millions of people. He fills auditoriums around the country. And he inspires students, like the ones who were sitting in front of me at Gong Da, to spout out myriad slogans and reach for their dreams.

The man himself. Li Yang is charismatic and controversial.

After learning more about Li Yang, I cannot help feeling ambivalent about Crazy English, not only because Li Yang seems a bit corny and cultish, but also because he is not just teaching English but trying to transform Chinese culture, pushing students to embrace a more extroverted and individualistic approach to life (is this really what China needs?).

There is also a strongly nationalistic element to Li Yang's program. This is ironic: how can Li Yang be both an apostle of English teaching in China and a proponent of spreading Chinese language and culture throughout the world? He apparently does not see any contradiction in these goals, telling Chinese people that "We have to grasp English before we can spread Chinese to more countries and regions of the world."

Oddly, Li Yang claims that his English program will "teach Chinese children to be proud of their country, proud of their mother tongue and proud of themselves." I am all for China's self-strengthening, but it seems a little disingenuous to promote English as a form of Chinese cultural nationalism. One blogger argues that Li Yang has to cloak his methodology in nationalism in order to have the freedom to travel throughout China, and the world, teaching English. This may be true. If so, his cultural nationalism is nothing more than extremely cynical. If not, his cultural nationalism, and his advocacy of Chinese cultural imperialism, is extremely troubling. As someone who has always been critical of American cultural imperialism, I cannot help but have misgivings about Li Yang's zeal to export Chinese culture to the rest of the world, however quixotic that goal may be.

And yet, I could not help but be touched by the enthusiasm of these students at Gong Da. They had an amazing energy. Maybe, I thought to myself, these students were a rare hybrid, anchored in their Chinese worlds of family and tradition but fueled by a little dose of American-style go-get-em-ness.

Talking with them brought out all the self-helpy inspirational sappiness in me. I talked about "Choosing a job that you love so that you'll never work another day in your life"--a paraphrase of a Confucius quotation that I gave in response to a student who asked me "What is an important saying that you think is vital to your life?" I talked about how life is "What you make with what you are given" and other equally hackneyed inspirational sound bites. I was transformed into what they wanted: an American self-help speaker hired to inspire and dispense life-advice to aspiring Chinese students. The weirdest part about it: It was really enjoyable.

Inspirational self-help guru David Arnold delivers his message to students in Hohhot, China. (Note: Although inspirational, Arnold apparently cannot spell. The word on the lower left is, embarrassingly, “Confucius,” spelled Confuscious.)

After my talk I spent a good forty-five minutes signing autographs (no kidding!) and taking pictures with students.

Afterwards, Carol and I were taken to dinner by some teachers at the school who treated us to an excellent Mongolian meal which was not much diminished by the fact that we both had to endure a full-court press to get us to become teachers at their school. I was offered 1000 RMB per month more than they pay me at Shi Da (which, I didn't tell them, is absolutely zero--my salary comes solely from CBC).

So I should at least ask: does anyone out there need a job? (No kidding!)

I've been reading this book from the 1950s which compares Chinese and Americans. You can guess the thesis: Americans are individualistic and the Chinese are "situation-centered." The author drives me crazy--in fact, I almost hate the book, mostly because he argues that the web of culture in which we reside is almost inescapable. And yet, on this night I felt like the cultural divide was not so great after all. Whether that is good or bad, I'm not sure.

Thanks for reading.

Dave