A Pedagogue Crosses the Pacific
EXPERIENCE as a schoolmaster among Chinese boys inclines me to the view that John Chinaman is, on the whole, a very peaceable, industrious person. My own acquaintance with him began at Hong Kong, " the isle of fragrant streams." Where the streams are, by the way, from which that precipitous piece of rock takes its name is a question which has puzzled many visitors ; and as to the fragrance—no doubt things have improved now, but some years ago the odours to be perceived in parts of the City of Victoria were singularly unattractive to European nostrils.
On arriving at the classroom, and taking my scat at the master's desk, I found myself face to face with 72 expectant Celestials, between 15 and 25 years of age, all busy wondering what the new " foreign devil " was going to be like. They knew very little English (" King's English ") and I certainly knew no Chinese, so, as " pidgin English " was taboo, teaching was a complex business. In fact, every lesson had to be a lesson in English, as well as in the particular subject indicated by the time-table.
The English reading book which we used was prepared for Indian, not Chinese, students, and in the course of one lesson occurred a passage describing how someone gave someone else a bowl of milk to drink, a thing which nn Chinaman would think of doing. I asked the class to explain this passage. This was, it must be admitted, hardly fair, as the Chinese do not use milk as we do. The nearest approach to a cow which I ever saw in China was the great water buffalo, with no hair to speak of, and a grey skin, like a pig's. The result of my invitation was a troubled look on 72 Chinese countenances, and a dead silence. It was then my turn to attack the problem. I did my best to make my explanation lucid, but it was hard work, and I do not know whether I was more relieved or surprised when, after a time, one boy said that he now understood. " Well, then," I asked, " what is milk ? • " Cow-oil, Sir," he replied, but to this day I am not sun that he really understood my explanation. I have said that " pidgin " was not allowed in the school, for obvious reasons, but it helped,. now and then, to explain unofficially an awkward phrase. One day I was in great difficulties over the word " worship," until some one suggested " Chin-chin joss," which made everything clear to the whole class at once. Pidgin seems most intricate at first, but a very short acquaintance enables one to master it. Someone has translated part of Minld into pidgin. " To be or not to be " becomes " Can do . No can do ? How fashion ? " The early efforts of a Chinaman when he has just begun to wrestle with real. English are often much less intelligible. On my last day' at the school, one of:the boys had the toothache. Not. trusting his powers of impromptu conversation on so difficult a subject, he merely said that he was ill, and went out, leaving a small note on my desk. This was the note : I wish to go home now for my teeth are pain. I thank von, Sir, for you taught me so long and so kind and I am sorry that you go back to your beautiful Island Home, but I hope you safely from Hong Kong to England. Your faithful schoolboy Tau Wan."
Next to colloquial English, mental arithmetic is probably the Chinese schoolboy's. bete noire. The Chinese are accustomed to do all their business calculations on a wooden frame with coloured balls strung on wires, an " abacus " I believe it is called. A Chinaman's sensations on being asked to divide 1938 by 19 may be compared with those of a European on being set the problem of dividing memxxxviii by xix in his head, without first changing the Roman numerals into Arabic. No wonder that mental arithmetic was not popular.
As for me, my hardest task was not teaching this or that, but—calling • the roll ! Let anyone who is disposed to doubt this take a list of 70 assorted Chinese proper names, and read it aloud, quickly, trying to pro- nounce each name in a manner likely to be intelligible to a Chinese. 111-y efforts, at any rate, provided a source of perpetual harmless amusement for my pupils.
When a Chinaman has once grown up, it is very often difficult to judge his age within thirty years. Some of the pupils at the school were quite elderly, while others, perhaps the majority, were of what is usually considered school age. A master once noticed that one of his boys was absent, and asked if anyone knew why he was not in class. Amid discreetly suppressed amuse- ment, someone said that he was not well. " What is the matter with him ? " enquired the master. In spite of Oriental ideas of decorum, something perilously like a giggle accompanied the reply, " He no can sit down." • " Why can't he ? "
" Because his father flog him."
" What for ? "
" Because he laugh when you cane his father yesterday."
It was eventually explained that father and son were both in the class, and that the latter had rashly allowed his delight at seeing his revered parent meekly submitting to chastisement at the hands of the English master—who had no idea of his age and importance— to overcome his filial piety, with very proper results.
D.
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