Stranger No More

I mentioned to my sister, family et al that I would dig a frisbee to show to the students as I hadn’t seen one. I was pretty pleased when I received a box from my sister that had a Dunkin Donuts promotional frisbee included with the other cool stuff that she is always sure to include. Postage stamps, a map of her hometown, assorted spice packets including Fish Taco and Salsa. Yum.

I immediately began carrying the frisbee to my classes and began to show them how to correctly throw it, (wrist not arm), with limited success. The following day after my classes had ended and I was headed across the commons on my way to my pad when I saw some students coming in from the playground. Now, for a second, think back to your high school experience. If a teacher was crossing paths with you, even if from afar, and waved a disc at you before tossing it your way you’d have been happy to catch it, right? Meh. Not so much in China. In a culture that is devoid of contact sports anything that is unknown is looked at as a possibility for inflicting pain. The sight of grown men ducking and running when a frisbee is headed their way was both comical and aggravating. I should have known better than to toss it to students that I had no chance of instructing how to throw it. Less than 24 hours after receiving the frisbee from my sister it was destroyed by a student who, in all fairness, had no idea how to throw it and hurled it with his arm in a manner that caused it to land on its edge and shatter. Ouch.

I was pissed. Nearly livid. Despondent. The five stages of grief began. Well, almost. What I had requested some 3 months prior was wiped out in less than 24 hours. I whined online at pretty much anyone who would listen. As she has in the past Cheryl came through for me big time. I was delighted when a Wham-O 200gram Ultimate arrived. Hooray! I was so thrilled that I spent the first afternoon trying to play catch with students for about 3 hours. I was sore the next day. A 200g Ultimate Wham-O is heavy.

Getting them to actually catch a frisbee has been an exercise in futility that is just starting to pay off. Having never seen an actual frisbee they are both comical as they chase it as it flies through the air and frustrating as they refuse to catch it but instead bat it out of the air. The comedy of watching them like puppies as I toss the frisbee with a draw on it move in the initial direction only to frantically run back in the other direction to try to bat it out of the air. The Chinese male is many things and even though they may be macho in a Chinese sense of the word, (I’m making that up, I have no idea what that means),  they just do it in a manner that never involves even the slightest pain. They play sports that involve contact in only the most incidental ways and generally shy away from any form of contact but at the same time it is not uncommon to see boys hanging on each other in the classroom or hallways and girls are often seen holding hands or with locked arms. I’m not saying that is a bad thing, it is just a different thing. On the other hand, life expectancy is far greater than in the states. So they have that going for them. Which is nice.

The beauty of the 200g Wham-O Ultimate, (yeah, I have a man-crush on this frisbee), is not affected by the wind or the flailing mis-throws of the boys as they overthrow. I say boys specifically since it is really only the boys that do it. All arm. The girls generally do a better job of listening and understanding my mimed instructions and try to correctly throw with the wrist and not the arm. It is magnified in China but I’m more convinced then ever that girls are better students than boys.  They aren’t so afraid to listen. Modern China also has an unfortunate side-effect of the single child family - Little Emperors. It is most prevelant among young boys. The meek shall inherit the Earth.

The 200g Wham-O Ultimate has made it nearly three full weeks and I feel confident that despite their steep climb up the frisbee-throwing learning-curve they may not be able to break this one. Hooray.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Life in China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.