How to Say "F— Your Mother" in Chinese
INTRODUCTION
This book started out as a memoir about my students of English as a Second Language. Throughout the twelve years I taught at the school described, American Language Communication Center (ALCC,) which closed suddenly in 2019, I’d kept notes of the stories they told in class about their lives, thinking, “These are extraordinary. Other people must hear them.”
Then, as I was in the middle of writing the book, the coronavirus took hold of the world. Who knew for how long, or where it would lead? The need to put the students’ stories down on paper grew only more pressing. But during the weeks of isolation that we have all endured and for all anyone knows, will still, or again, be enduring by the time you read this, it has also sustained me, the book becoming my own little Decameron.
There are other stories in here too, which went in the opposite direction, from me to the stu- dents, having to do with what Oliver Stone calls the “untold history of the United States.” Under- standing that history may shed some oblique light on how the world has wound up in the peculiar and tragic situation in which it currently finds itself.
For years, I’ve felt life to be a series of good-byes and strength to be the ability to absorb them. Friends move away. One leaves home oneself to go to college, then get married. Parents die.
One’s children leave home to go to college, then get married. Relationships are endemic to a par- ticular time or place. You may touch base with the person sporadically after, say, you leave the job where he or she was your best friend. But really, that person belongs to your past.
The base-touching is important, though! The past matters!
And Facebook knows that.
So we’re still in touch, the students and I, virtually, as is everyone these days, the invisible bond between us spun from the interwoven threads of a shared past and present technology. In as real a sense as is possible now, we’re living through this together.
Jenna Orkin
I am excited as hell. And Jenna, you are a role model of what a teacher should be. There would be a time, maybe you wouldn't be here.. But your name and stories people will read about. And ? And be inspired to be a teacher.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Naim Khan Siam! and you're such a fun student!
DeleteI'm very excited for this book, understanding that it may include stories of my good friends, and reliving that interesting time we spent learning from you and other wonderful teachers in ALCC. We have learnt so much from you and befriended good people from all over the world.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jenna.
thank you, "unknown!" yes, it may have some stories you recognize but many of the students in the book are composites, taking a little from this person, a little from that. you were a fascinating bunch!
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