Who Needs English?

One day I walked in the white-washed classroom to find two boys in an all-out scuffle, rolling on the tile floor while the rest of the class stood in a polite semi-circle nearby. I separated the two, grasping them by the collars of their jackets and, holding one per hand, instinctively asked, "What happened?"

I ought to have considered that I was talking to two angry five-year-old boys who had had fewer than about 100 hours of instruction in the English language, but when you walk in on two of your students pummeling each other, that consideration isn't the first thing to come to mind. Besides, I had only had one hour of Chinese language instruction, so mathematically they were one hundred times more qualified to attempt communication than I was.

English is not what they defaulted to, however. Each in defense of his own position, both boys began a half-shouted Chinese explanation punctuated with accusatory pointing and demonstrative air-punches. However, the explanation being in Chinese, I did not understand. "Wait, what?" I asked apparently believing that a second inquiry would procure different results. I was destined to be disappointed.

Further defensive shouting ensued in rising little Chinese voices. They were both desperate that I understand the situation. I couldn't blame them for wanting me to know what was going on. If they couldn't satisfactorily explain it to me, they'd likely be handed over to their Chinese teacher, who dealt with them much more harshly than any of us foreigners did. I held up my hands and asked a third time.

This time some of the classmates tried pitching in, one or two of them even realizing that English needed to be employed if any progress were to be made. "Teacher," one girl stepped forward and began by pointing at first the larger boy then the smaller and then punching her fist into her cupped palm. This outraged the larger boy who shouted that she was wrong. She shrugged and retreated, clasping her hands behind her back and waiting for someone else to try a better explanation. Mentally I noted that verbs such as "hit," "punch," and "fight" were shockingly absent in a program of basic foreign language vocabulary instruction. But that couldn't be addressed just now.

I couldn't see any other option than to call for their Chinese teacher, hesitant as I was to do so. I reached for the door when the larger boy shouted out, "TEACHER!" He was standing forward now, a look of desperation on his face. He had a little bit of a reputation for scrapping, and this incident likely would not go well for him if reported. "Teacher! Teacher!" His chest heaved with pent-up desire to tell me what was going on.

"Teacher!" he said a little quieter this time but with fierce intensity. "Teacher! He my mm!" He pointed swiftly at the smaller boy, then at himself, and then punched his fist into his other palm. "My he mm!" He jabbed his finger into his own chest, flung it in a quick point at the smaller boy, then swung his leg wildly in an imitative kick. "He my mm" he punched his hand again, "one!" He held up a single finger.

Ah. I spoke slowly. "He punched you." The boy nodded, punching his hand a third time. "You kicked him." He swung his leg again, nodding along. "But, he hit you first." He nodded savagely, holding up a single finger again. The class nodded along, and the smaller boy looked angrily around at the lack of support.

Three consecutive fragment sentences consisting of a three-word vernacular and no verbs. There was even an order of events. No wonder my major is obsolete. The people with the most spoken language on Earth have no need of my skill set.

Mouse

I'm not particularly skittish about mice. They exist, and I'm okay with that, unlike spiders which creep the bejeezees out of me whether I can see them or not. And when I saw this mouse, I wasn't skittish about it either. Just annoyed. Annoyed that it was running around my kitchen floor. Annoyed that it was two in the morning. Annoyed that I hadn't slept in thirty-five hours. 

I stomped my foot. 

I'm not a screamer. I'm Asian. If that justification doesn't make sense to you, just ask the next Asian you know to scream. So instead of yelping or jumping or making any other surprised effeminate response, I stomped my foot. This was not a well-thought out action. Upon discovering a mouse in one's kitchen, the primary goal would be to trap, contain, or otherwise eradicate the mouse's presence. Stomping accomplishes none of these goals. Stomping literally just startles the mouse more than turning on the kitchen light at two in the morning when it probably thought it had the kitchen all to itself. I stomped. The mouse squeaked. And the mouse disappeared. 

This was not ideal.

"Mouse," I said. "Mouse. Mouse in the kitchen. Mouse in the kitchen. Mouse ran away. Mouse is somewhere. Mouse." (I'm not particularly articulate after thirty-five going on thirty-six hours of sleep deprivation.) Thankfully Brian, bless his practical head, understands sleep-deprived Mailespeak and immediately stepped into the kitchen with a one-word response.

"Where?"

I pointed. I wanted to have the energy to be more upset. I wanted to throw all the furniture out of the house, hunt this vermin down, trap its ass, and carefully explain to it that it is unacceptable to get me this upset after I have had very little sleep, and could it please for the love of all humanity choose a better time to cause such turmoil in my life! But I just pointed. 

"What did it look like?" Brian asked.

Really? It's a mouse. Would you like a sketch done up? Let's put out an ATL: All units prepare to copy attempt to locate mouse running at large. Teenage-sized brown mouse with long tail, large, flattened ears, and frightened expression. Last seen headed northbound between the garbage can and the kitchen floor vent. Time lapse approximately one minute. Mouse is wanted for disturbing the peace and will not be cooperative. If located, stop and remove from kitchen. End of broadcast zero-two-ten hours.

"It was smallish and brown," I said.

My sister joined us at the kitchen door. She sleeps on our couch when she's working an ambulance shift and between the light, my stomping, and the declaration of the presence of mice, she was now awake. Now there were three of us standing silently by, staring at the floor where I said a mouse had been a moment earlier. Maybe if we stared long enough, the mouse would magically reappear and we could ask it to leave and then all go to bed. This may have been delusional optimism on my part. I think the others were just wishing I would let it go and go to bed. In fact, I don't just think that, I know that. I know that because Brian said it.

"How about we just not worry about it right now and you go to bed?"

"I can't just go to bed. The mouse is running around!"

"So?"

"So it's running around!"

"So?"

"I can't go sleep while it's running around."

"Why not?"

"It's going to get all over stuff and eat our food and contaminate everything and run across my face in the night!"

Brian rolled his eyes.

"Mice carry hantavirus! I'm going to have to sterilize everything!"

Brian scoff laughed. He does this when he thinks I'm being unreasonable. "Oh no!" he said. "The mouse is going to run around the floor! And eat all the food we don't have sitting out! And then leap onto your face in your bed in the middle of the night because that's what mice do! And then you'll catch hantavirus!" He tends to exaggerate when he thinks I'm being unreasonable.

"It WILL!" I held firm. I am not being unreasonable about this. It's two-thirty in the morning and this is REAL. There was no doubt in my mind that if we did not take action immediately, this mouse would wreck havoc, spread disease, and basically bring about the downfall of America. I tried to tell Brian as much, but he's taller and stronger than I am. This is only problematic when he decides that instead of listening to my practical and logical concerns at two-thirty in the morning he's going to strongarm me into bed, throw a pillow at my head, and tell me to go to sleep and not worry about a stupid mouse. For the record, I expressed my reasonable fears of contracting hantavirus right up until the moment I passed out from exhaustion.

Then the mouse ran across my head.

I kid you not. I was awakened by the tickling sensation of paws landing on the side of my head, just above my ear, followed by the skittering motion of a mouse running across my head in the middle of the night. I would have screamed if I weren't Asian. I leapt up in bed and had a very controlled freak-out. I was kneeling on the bed having cast off the blanket and woken Brian up simply by jerking awake and nearly shouting "IT RAN ACROSS MY HEAD." 

"Seriously?" was Brian's succinct response. 

"It ran across my head!" I reiterated. Brian turned on the light, and there it was. One small, brown mouse running maniacally around our bedroom floor. It was only three in the morning. We watched it run from one end of the room to the other, climb over the freshly cleaned laundry, nose its way behind the boxes and suitcases in our closet, then frantically retrace its steps in reverse only to repeat the cycle again.

"I'm going to have to wash all that laundry," I said.

"What the hell is wrong with this mouse?" Brian said.

"I told you it would run across my head," I said.

"What the hell," Brian managed again.

I did tell you it would run across my head. I did. Now I have to go look up incubation periods and symptoms for hantavirus.