Notably Loud

I’ve taught high school.  I’ve taught middle school.  I’ve taught MBAs and Executive MBAs.  But teaching six year olds is rather distinct from all these. I have a little English class with local kids who are smart and well-engaged.  It feels a bit like grandparent training, coming so quick after I was parenting the same age.  Dusting off Dr. Zeus, dusting off Virginia Lee Burton for the third time.   I was read these authors as a child and I read them to my children.    They are remarkably evocative and difficult to pass through lightly as I dig in once again.

“The Little House” is an old favorite.  The happy country home’s ingestion by the city could only have meant the expansion of New York City as a child.  Living in what is, for a little while longer at least, the suburbs of Beijing, it feels a  notably apt metaphor to revisit.  The students had no difficulty empathizing with the little house and how her world changes before her eyes.    

Appropriately enough, I am now back in traffic.  The city encroach-eth.  The back- up here at the beginning of my journey is suggests an especially slow progression is ahead of me.  The pollution is a bit better than yesterday.  I can see clouds and sky, just like ‘The Little House.’  Like her, there will be no stars for me this evening. 

Just called a friend.  “I can tell by how backed up it is here on this bridge that this is going to be glacial.”  How many times a day is some excuse like that offered in this city.  Even if punctuality were your thing, you’d be hard pressed to properly anticipate just how bad it might get, every time you set out.  It is Sunday afternoon.  Everyone it seems has plans in town. 

We’ve got lao Beijing xiangsheng comedy on the radio.  My man has just turned it up.  It is notably loud.  If it were English I would insist he turn it down.  If it were music I would insist he turned it off.  But even though this is very noisy I let it continue.  There is always the chance that I might catch a new word.  And if I want to ignore the flow of the a-contextual dialogue it isn’t hard to do. 

Now I should use the daylight to take some photos.  People might want to see yet more pictures of Beijing, from inside a cab, stuck in traffic.  Someone should write a Chinese version of “The Little House.”  “The Little Courtyard” that gets the character chai sprayed on it.