Teaching
In this snapshot with Adrian Ho (November, 1993), we are standing in the Computer Lab of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Interpretation (now, the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies) of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Adrian had recently completed his BA degree at the Hong Kong Baptist University, and had begun working as my research assistant at the Poly. In Hong Kong, graduation lasts a relatively long time, in part because the ceremonies are usually held in the fall rather than at the end of the academic year. This is perhaps a practical measure to avoid holding large public gatherings at the height of the summer's heat. In any case it is common to see groups of young people in academic garb throughout the autumn months, gathered on the steps and in the courtyards of their educational institutions to pose for souvenir snapshots with their classmates. Adrian had just come to work from his graduation ceremony, and in an ironic mood proposed that we pose for a photo to capture the moment and engage the local custom. Two years later, he had emigrated to Canada and had become ... guess what? A librarian!
I began teaching as a way to get through graduate school at Berkeley, starting as an instructor of ESL in a job training program in San Francisco's Chinatown. At that time I was fresh from my first year as an exchange student in Hong Kong and regarded this job as an opportunity to extend my experience with Chinese speakers in the field. Two years later, when I had finished my MA thesis in Oriental Languages, I found my way back to Hong Kong and a job teaching academic English to Hong Kong freshmen. Thereafter I entered the PhD program in Chinese at Berkeley, where on the strength of prior experience I was hired to teach in Berkeley's remedial writing program. I learned to do "language combat" or in other words to effect a change in the writing performance of students whose writing was sometimes described as being writer centered rather than reader centered.
At the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, I enjoyed my first opportunity to teach subjects that were close to my own areas of interest. My main subjects were Modern Chinese Lexicology; Intercultural Communication; Introduction to Linguistics; and BA Translation Project. I also participated in team teaching efforts in certain subjects, notably the new MA program on Chinese linguistics. My students at the Poly were Cantonese-speaking, and thus for the course on Modern Chinese Lexicology, with textbook and some lectures also in Chinese, it seemed wise to grant students the option to write their assignments and exams in their "native language." Most did, and reading their exams was indeed a challenge, but one that I was glad to accept. When I decided to leave the Polytechnic three years later it was not because I disliked teaching, but rather because I saw my research suffering neglect on account of the demands of the teaching and advising schedule. Moreover, the direction in the department was toward "mainstream" research on Chinese, whereas my work was on a Chinese "minority" language, and I was sensitive to the cool draft of indifference.
The subsequent year of sabbatical leave allowed me to present more than one research paper internationally, and also to begin to "weigh in" more fully on my mother's situation, making more frequent visits to her home in Connecticut than otherwise would have been possible. The next time I taught was five years later, at Boston College, where the Chinese language program needed temporary help during a regular staff member's sabbatical leave. What the future may hold for me as an educator is as yet uncertain. I know that as long as I maintain my current level of involvment in my mother's plan of care, teaching is probably not for me.
