The definition of "pet" and other classroom fun

I have decided that Tibetans on the whole are very kind, very gentle, very good-natured people. My students are starting to open up to me. They talk more in class, they joke around, and more of them are coming to me individually with questions after class.

The other day in class we were doing an exercise entitled “A Typical ________ Family.” They had to fill in their nationality (Tibetan for most of them, a few Thai or Indian, and the rest were Bhutanese) and then finish the prompts below, such as “the mother works _______” and “the father reads _______.” The students tend to all talk at once most of the time, unless I specifically instruct them to take turns. Most of the answers I got for this exercise were things like “the mother cooks” and “the father reads the newspaper.” When we got to “the mother drives _______” we had to learn how to phrase “she doesn't drive” since most Tibetans in Tibet, it seems, don't have cars.

Then, loud enough to be heard but in such a way that it seemed the speaker was immediately embarrassed, I heard the answer “a yak.” I had actually been hoping for an answer like that, but I didn't know if, you know, it was ignorant and racist of me to expect that every Tibetan family had yaks. Apparently I wasn't that far off base, because I asked the student, a young lady named Karma who I can tell wants to talk but is not always sure enough of herself to do it, to repeat herself... she did so with a giggle and the rest of the class burst into laughter and agreed with her. I explained that sure, we could say that she drives a yak. It's rides, technically, but the idea was right.

I also had to explain the word “pet” to them. I decided to go with something to the effect of “an animal that lives at your house, that you take care of.” When they decided that meant yaks and sheep and horses, I had to revise it to say “an animal that lives in your house, that you take care of.” I think they've got it now.

Two to three times a week I've been holding conversation classes for my Elementary students. Attendance varies, but it's usually around half a dozen. Today I had only two students show up, both monks: Jampal and Sonam Wangdue. Jampal is one of my more advanced students. Despite his claims today that he is too shy to speak in class, he usually seems very comfortable answering questions and serving as a translator between myself and the other students when the language barrier proves to be insurmountable. Sonam Wangdue is much more shy and quiet; even with considerable prompting from his friend today he didn't say a whole lot.

For class today I had them tell me about a custom or story from their culture. Jampal taught me about the Tibetan new year's festival, while Sonam Wangdue talked about the animals that are found in Tibet.

They told their stories and afterward we went over the vocabulary words that had come up; they included domestic, representative, and elaborate. Not bad for “Elementary” level students. They were trying to find the words to explain something to me so they went back and forth in Tibetan for a minute; then Jampal told me the Tibetan word for... I don't even remember what it was. I'm not a very good student, I suppose. He asked if I was learning any Tibetan and I told him the truth: a few words here and there.

Quick aside: Kalden had started teaching us the Tibetan alphabet a couple of weeks ago. Julie has since found a monk to give her private lessons; after the first couple times I wasn't really feeling it. I thought about the practicality of learning a new language here in India and decided it would make more sense to learn Hindi, since it's spoken all over the country and Tibetan is spoken by a considerably smaller amount of people, mostly just here in McLeod Ganj. For some reason Hindi seems more accessible, too. I borrowed a couple of “teach yourself Hindi” books from Tibet Charity but haven't done much more than flip through them yet.

That being said, I felt a little guilty about wanting to learn Hindi instead of Tibetan, since the whole reason I'm here, after all, is to work with the Tibetan community. Jampal asked me if there was much of a Tibetan presence in Chicago and if I'd use the language when I went home; I told him no and he said that it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for me to learn it, then. English, he said, is an international language and therefore much more practical for them to learn. I'm not sure why it was such a big deal for me, but it was a huge relief to hear him tell me that, basically, it wouldn't be worth my time to learn more than a handful of basic phrases in Tibetan. I think I'll learn some pleasantries and greetings, functional Tibetan, and then see if I can do at least the same in Hindi.

In other news, I got my pass to go to HH the Dalai Lama's teachings that begin on Sunday:

I get to go to HH's teachings this weekend!