The history of our private parts

In China the expression “That’s yellow!” means the movie, or what you said, was “naughty” or had an off-colour connotation. The thirteen-year-olds I teach know the expression well and I have had some hilarious incidents.

One day in class we did some sentence patterns to teach superlatives and the book required sentence patterns based on the following:

A. I think you’ll like my new rocking chair.

B. But I liked your OLD rocking chair. It was comfortable.

A. That’s right. But my new rocking chair is more comfortable.The children then substitute the bold words with the words given thereafter in the exercise.

So “Roommate / interesting” becomes … I think you’ll like my new roommate.

But I liked your OLD roommate. She was interesting.

That’s right. But my new roommate is more interesting.”

Alas, my Chinese thirteen-year-olds sometimes forget to not read the original sentence pattern example, “It was comfortable”, so we had some classics:

An enthusiastic, volunteering boy stood up and tried out:

“A. I think you’ll like my new girlfriend.

B. But I liked your OLD girlfriend. It was comfortable.

A. That’s right. But my new girlfriend is more comfortable.” The boy looked at me expectantly to see if he had got it right.

“BUT,” I thundered, eyes wide with mock disgust and horror, “That’s yellow!” There were a few seconds silence in the class as they paused to absorb my remark. Then the class packed up laughing, some boys almost rolling in the aisles and girls giggling behind text books. The face of the student reading the answer turned blood red, and he nearly collapsed on his knees as he howled with mirth. And, no doubt, at their audacious “foreigner” teacher.

Then we also had a half-correct answer on the same sentence pattern, using “boss / nice”. (Hoo boy, he mutters, wiping his eyes. Here goes.)

A girl volunteered to stand up and said:

“A. “I think you’ll like my new boss.

B. But I liked your OLD boss. It was nice.

A. But you’ll like my new boss. It was even nicer.”

“So yellllllloooowwwww…” I groaned and sobbed loudly in simulated disgust.

Again the class was just about rolling in the aisles. That was another way cool teaching day. As said in previous blogs, there is something spontaneous, like a sudden merry display of fireworks in Chinese children’s laughter — like the unexpected, genuine fireworks which you often hear in China whenever a new restaurant or other establishment opens and celebrates its first day of business with whistling rockets, sparkling candles and also huge baskets of flowers outside the entrance.

“A way cool day” … except for the slightly uncomfortable feeling I had — as a teacher and therefore a role model — about making “clean” sexual jokes in class among thirteen-year-olds. This feeling was there even though the kids’ errors, blatant double entendres, were begging someone to crack a joke. And with my impulsive character? Much like the Chinese, I just love the quips.

So is this uncomfortable sense justified or not, I ask the reader? Let me try explore it.

My first and very awkward experience of “sexuality” with Chinese children was with a class of girls surely no older than about six. This was several years ago. I had gone during a summer vacation to teach in a neighbouring city, Jiaxing. My Chinese at the time was very elementary. Being a responsible aesthete (ahem) I shave my head more religiously than a monk (Andre Agassi and Bruce Willis, eat your hearts out), and the children loved me graphically teaching them words like bald and no hair. Bald-headed foreigners were and are an unusual sight for them. I referred, wrongly, to the Chinese for hair, taufa, on my arms and chest, which are very hairy by Chinese standards. But taufa only refers to the head hair, I soon discovered. I did not know that Chinese have a different name for hair for different parts of the body, such as beard, armpits and … you can guess where this is going.

After the lesson a very sharp young girl, with eyes as shiny as black buttons, came up to me and decided to teach me briskly and graphically the different names for hair on different parts of the body. With the presentation and “pointing out” skills of a life assurance salesperson she went through head hair, chest hair, arm hair, facial hair, armpit hair and, you guessed it, lightly slapping herself between the legs, she explained you know what without quite exposing herself, thank God and absolutely all the saints and throw in a few angels and sprites. This was all boldly explained at the tender age of six with me suddenly looking around hoping no adult had seen such a detailed and thorough explanation that would leave no room for error in your mind.

I think you can appreciate my discomfort and slight alarm in that situation. But needed I be? It is surely just a question of ensuring proper boundaries. I felt the embarrassment, not that little girl who decided I needed a brisk lesson in certain parts of the anatomy. And embarrassment is a close relative to a repugnant enemy of human self-worth, creativity and spontaneity: shame. A four-year-old child thinks nothing of wandering about naked, unabashed, unashamed, unless she suddenly gets her bottom spanked and sharply told to dress. The body is then perceived as something dirty, and self-exploration and acts of masturbation are seen as disgusting and shameful. We all know these memories haunt the adult at a subconscious and unconscious level, determining various behaviour outcomes, including the vicarious, a shuddery sense of discomfort, and … what I felt when I “rejoiced” with young teenagers the fact that we are sexual people, boys and girls, whether we like it or not. And “clean” jokes that acknowledge who we unavoidably are, are OK.

I don’t need to bore the reader with the psychoanalysis of personal growth. Personal growth and personality theories and the development of the ego are almost a kind of “street talk” nowadays; well, at least surely to (mature) readers of the Mail & Guardian and Thought Leader.

The fact of the matter is that teenagers, and kids even younger, are profoundly aware of their burgeoning sexuality and being attracted to other youngsters. You cannot just sweep that under the carpet. I remember us all, from the age of twelve to fourteen, staring on many occasions at our virile sports coach’s Speedo at swimming lessons, especially at the hidden mound of figs that seemed to be crammed under the front of his scanty costume. Never mind female teachers’ delicious, taboo bottoms. But our preoccupations and experience of sexuality were all furtive, giggly, not brought out into the open and given clear, healthy boundaries.

My Chinese students — always only the boys — will ask me at times what a chipa is. Chipa is the slang word for a penis and my dictionaries prudently do not include the word (so I am not sure of the exact spelling), only the far more clinical word for penis, yinjing. The boys stare at me after asking the question, trying to hide the smirks, a challenging, almost feral look on their faces. There is an electric charge in the air. I immediately and matter-of-factly just point between my legs, fingers a prudent foot away from my crotch, and say “this is a chipa, and in English we call it a penis. Yes, penis. P-e-n-i-s.” I then simply carry on with the lesson or continue chatting with them during the break time … whatever it is we were doing. That “electric charge” almost immediately leaves the atmosphere and all is normal again after the initial few seconds of astonishment. The surprised look on the students’ faces — they were not expecting a forthright but respectful reply — is replaced by respect and a clear(er) set of boundaries, not to mention a healthy (perhaps healthier) regard for our common sexuality. Our sexual make-up, masculine or feminine, heterosexual or gay, is profoundly woven into every aspect of what we are and, as an educator, I refuse to just sweep it away.

So that slight discomfort I mentioned in that anecdote at the beginning of this blog is just a hangover of the shame I was taught to feel from an early age. You know how parrots and little children suddenly somehow come up with swear words in adult company and haven’t the faintest clue what the word means (well obviously not the parrots)? Hmmm … Think the adults … so that’s what young Daniel’s Mom and Dad say when we are not around. The parrot or the child picked up the words like shit and fuck because they were said by family members with a certain emotional intensity which the listening bird or child immediately internalised and remembered.

I had this experience with the word arse when I was surely no older than four or perhaps five. We little people were watching a movie at our crèche and someone fell off his horse. “On his arse!” I hollered, imitating my dad as best as I could. A teacher (or minder) stalked up to me and asked what I said. I sensed the danger. “What did you say?” she hissed again. “On his arse,” I said in a trembling voice and to this day I remember pointing to my chest, not having the faintest clue as to what an arse was. I received a stinging slap across the face and that was probably my first bitter taste of shame. The taste was pure poison. I happened to like the little girl sitting next to me and — though I could not express the words at the time — I know I felt enormous humiliation and belittlement as I sat trembling next to her, now completely uninterested in the movie. I rubbed my chest, wondering what could be wrong with that part of my body that I “needed” to be punished. Soon after I learned what arse meant and inevitably associated that part of the body with shame, that false meaning literally beaten into said backside often in my school career. Educators and educational systems have a lot to answer for.

In closing, and to risk stating the obvious: teachers should not and cannot just teach in the vacuum of their particular subject. There are morals, values, and showing respect for that powerful force that shapes us all: our sexuality. We need to be sensitive to the growing youngsters around us who are desperate for boundaries that allow them to flourish, and not be stifled by unexplained issues that result in confused emotions, guilt, a sense of feeling dirty, and that absolute swine, shame.