Let's Walk Home Together?

Two Plus Two

If the stereotype that all Chinese people are good at math is still relevant, then I guess that I should probably consider identifying as some other ethnic group.

You see, I had a math tutor growing up, which was admittedly quite common among Chinese kids growing up. It didn't matter if you were the Michael Jordan of mathematics, you would still have a math tutor. Unfortunately for me, I was far from being the Michael Jordan of mathematics.

I guess I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide fine, but once you start shoving in those letters then you might as well ask me to speak Mandarin.

Which is, by the way, something that I also can't do. 

Why am I telling you all this?

Because you're about to understand exactly why I'm feeling a bit panicky at the moment.

In my poorly-conceived attempts to get to know Jenny better, I have unwittingly volunteered myself to help math tutor a group of kids at Davidson Elementary.

Which, in an unfortunate turn of events, has been made harder by the fact that none of these kids have any command of the English language. They need help not because their math is poor, but because they all happen to be recent Chinese immigrants, which consequently means that their primary language happens to be as comprehensible to me as algebra.

Which, as you know, is not very comprehensible at all.

I can only think of two reasons why Jenny brought me along to Davidson Elementary.

She may have assumed that I could speak Mandarin because I was Chinese (which I guess makes a lot of sense).

It's either that or the fact that I tried to impress her by saying that I was bilingual (which I wasn't).

It was probably the latter.

And from the looks of it, I impressed her too much. 

Given that I didn't want to look like a liar, I went into the classroom like a champ, acting as if teaching my least favorite subject in a language I could not speak was something that I could do without as much as a second thought. 

"Zhi ge wen ti zhi me da?" asks Jingwen, a beady-eyed sixth-grader. He points at a question in his workbook.

I look at him blankly, desperately trying to parse his words. My parents spoke Mandarin occasionally at home, but never enough for me to pick up anything useful.

Or at least anything I could use at this very moment.

Hoping to at least get started on the question, I try to take a look at the question on his paper. 

Is that written in Chinese?

Wait.

Those are numbers.

Excuse me?

What are those weird symbols next to those numbers?

How is this an elementary school?

Am I stupid?

Maybe Aaren was right all along.

Why is impressing Jenny so hard?