Lecturing

It is raining more heavily than normal in drizzly Sichuan tonight. I am home, a bit hoarse, from my bi-monthly lecture, part of a series on American culture that I'm doing this term. Last spring I taught a course on American (and British) culture, but I wasn't scheduled for that this term, so I'm using all the slide shows I built for that class in my lecture series.

Tonight's topic was American Subcultures, and it is one of my favorites. Somewhat randomly, I chose punk music, vegetarian/veganism, recreational drug use, New Age spirituality, the GLBT community and graffiti as examples of different subcultural groups. My goal was to highlight some of the smaller eddies in the pool of America's cultural exports. All of the above are virtually unknown and largely absent from Chinese culture, mainstream or otherwise.

As usual, the Q&A was the most interesting part of the evening for me. Aside from the standard assortment of questions that crop up at nearly every teacher/student interaction--"Your pronunciation is very wonderful," (Why, thank you.) "how can I improve my pronunciation?" or of course, "I want to communicate with foreigners, could you give me some of your friends' email addresses?" (No.)--most of the questions tonight had to do with the GLBT community (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender). My students love acronyms, first of all. DIY, DINKS, MSN, BF/GF, USA, NBA, anything English that can be shortened to a handy little word-morsel, they totally are into. So I think that the ease of the term "GLBT" had a certain appeal.

But on a more serious level, I was touched by how earnestly and respectfully they approached a topic that is very taboo in China. Students wanted to know if I thought there was a GLBT subculture in China, whether I had any friends who were homosexual or "B" or "T." When I mentioned having a very close friend who was gay, a very shy quiet freshman wanted to know more about his experience, what is he like, etc. As for the idea of gay marriage or gay partnership, what would happen when a gay couple had children--what would the kids think about having a "father who was a woman?"

One girl shared her experience with a female friend coming out to her. She previously had been "fine" with homosexuality, but after learning the friend was a lesbian, she had trouble treating her the same as before. This student wanted to know whether Americans had the same internal conflict--outwardly stating that they were "fine" with homosexuality, only to be very uncomfortable when confronted with an actual gay person.

One of my freshmen asked whether it was prejudiced to think only wealthy, powerful people could "chose to be homosexual." That question gave me some pause, because it had really interesting implications, especially in China. My best shot at answering was to say that sexuality is a kind of self-expression, and to be totally free in self-expression implies a certain amount of personal power and perhaps also wealth. I suppose that powerful/wealthy people (and that is always a relative concept, especially here) could be more independent and thus better able to express their preference for everything, be it clothing, food, place of residence or choice of partner. I'm not sure that I didn't completely muddle that answer up tonight in the classroom, but I have thought about it since being home.

I am fairly certain that topics like homosexuality and gender roles are not often discussed here in China. My willingness to speak about it openly, combined with my obvious "Otherness" make me a natural target for my students' candid questions. From the beginning, I have tried to make it clear to my students that I don't care about face--losing it or gaining it. I suspect that this frees them to also let go of their face-related fears (an intense social inhibitor/motivator in Chinese culture). I don't think they have people to comfortably ask about things related to sexuality.

Prepared for it or not, I find myself being asked all kinds of soul-searching questions from my students, making me feel simultaneously like a guidance counselor and a big sister to them. I do the best I can with it, aware and careful of the scary power I have over their generally very impressionable minds. The seeming trust they have in me is amazing, and a little weird. I don't feel like much of an expert at anything, unless you count my skill at remaining without gainful employment for years at a stretch...and they definitely aren't interested in those tips.

Alright, another busy day tomorrow. I must stop with the musings, which are becoming steadily less coherent. More soon!