Hebrew Voices #57 – The Chinese Discover Hanukkah

Transcript

Hebrew Voices #57 – The Chinese Discover Hanukkah

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon and Michale Rood. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: I ended up staying for a year in China. Part of it was that I was going through some difficult personal things in my life, and I needed a break from ministry. As you know, Michael, ministry takes everything you have out of you. It takes not just physically, emotionally, spiritually, it takes everything. It’s draining. I decided I needed a break, so I ended up getting this job as a high school teacher in China, teaching English to 658 students. I’ve made the joke when I did prison ministry, that I’ve always wanted a captive audience. The prisoners don’t laugh at that. They don’t think it’s funny. But I think it’s hilarious. They’re actually not a captive audience, because in the prison, they could decide whether they…They have to be in prison, they’re captives. But they’re not captive to the chapel, to the teaching of that. They can go in the yard, and whatever else they do in prison.

But in high school, they were a captive audience. They had no choice but to be in class. So, there I am, teaching 658 high school students in China. They’re 15 and 16 year-old boys and girls. I said, “What do you want me to teach?” They said, “Our students know grammar really well. In fact, they probably know grammar better than you do.” I’ll just give you an example.

I had students who would ask me, they’d say, “Lǎo shī, Teacher, is chair a countable noun or an uncountable noun?” I would say, “There is no such thing in English.” They’d say, “Yes, there is. You can say ‘a chair’ but you can’t say ‘a weather.’ Weather’s not a countable noun, and chair is.” I’m like, “I didn’t know we had that. I just know how to speak the language.”

In Hebrew as well, just like in English, but Chinese has no such thing. They have to learn for each word in the English language, is it a countable noun or an uncountable noun?

Michael: I never thought of it.

Nehemia: I know. They knew grammar better than I knew English grammar. The point was, they said, “We don’t need you to teach our students grammar. They know it better than you do. What we want you to teach them about is your culture.” I said, “My culture? Wǒ shì yóu tài rén, I’m Jewish. You want me to teach my culture?” They were excited when they heard this. They knew before I came that I was Israeli, but they didn’t connect that with Jewish necessarily.

They said, “Oh, you’re Jewish?” Every person I met in China had the same response when I said I was Jewish. I have to say, the Chinese culture, they don’t have political correctness quite yet. They think in stereotypes. When I said I was Jewish they’d say, “Oh, Jewish. Very smart, very rich.” I said, “Well, not exactly. If I was very rich, I wouldn’t be teaching high school to 658 brats in China. I would be sitting on the beach in Hǎi nán sipping lemonade. But I am very smart, I accept that. I agree.” They said, “This is wonderful, if you teach our students about your culture it’ll unlock the secret for them to becoming very smart and very rich.”