Chinese School

First day of Mandarin class today. The last time I took a block course, it was Paul's Letters in Loo, with Peter Frick. I've forgotten how packed block courses are!!

[Note: block course = classes twice a week, three hours each night, but for half the number of weeks of a normal term]

Today's discovery: I'm neither white nor Chinese.

My teacher asked how I would respond to the statement "Nide zhongwen hen hao" [Your Chinese is very good]

I said "Xie xie" [Thank you]

He shook his head at me and said "Meiguo ren!" [American!] and told me that I had just given my boss a high-five in response to him extending a handshake.

Then it dawned on me. A REAL Chinese person would have replied "Bu hao!" [Not good!] because a proper Chinese cannot accept the compliment, it must be refused!

After class (on the way back to the office, sadly), I realised not only am I not a Chinese person to the Chinese, I'm not a white person to the white either! Reason being that when someone compliments me in English, I don't know how to respond, and instead of saying "Thank you", I usually try to squirm out of the situation by looking down and changing the topic, cause I'm embarassed!

So why is it that in Chinese, I speak like an "American", but in English, I act like I'm Chinese?! Maybe that is the full meaning of "jok sing" [literally = bamboo star, refers to CBCs]