ATTENTION: Cootie Shot Shortage

The big medical talk around here is about the bird flu and whether or not one should get a flu shot and whether or not one should try to get some Tamiflu pills. I'm not saying that the concern is misplaced, but my question is what happened to all of the cootie shots? Seriously. The fear of possible "cootie" infection is the #1 concern of my students and, from what I have seen, young adults as well. What happened - Government seizure? Stockpiling?

Do you remember in elementary school giving/receiving "cootie shots"? Usually a pinch or punch before and/or after coming into contact with an icky boy or girl? The need for such an immunization usually wore off around Jr. High or Middle School - sometimes a little sooner. Not in China. There is a noticeable lack of proper "cootie" immunization and a very noticeable fear of said "cootie" infection.

In all of my classes it is nearly impossible to get girls and boys to talk to each other. When I make them pair up boy-girl, they HATE it - they just sit there looking surly trying their absolute hardest not to touch or look at each other. When I put them into groups of four the two girls will work together and the two boys will work together. But heaven forbid they interact with each other!

I had my class line up according to birthday - the boys and girls could not even handle standing next to each other - I saw the most disgusted expressions on faces that day. Usually, what winds up happening is a boy will "do" something to a girl and the girl will hit the boy, hard. Boy will then tattle on the girl or start crying. Then, I have to separate them and try to tell the girl not to hit and try to get the boy to stop crying.

At the senior school, Matt was invited to go to an English corner that the student union arranged for the kids in senior 1. He was trying to get the kids to just talk to each other (which can be very difficult), but noticed that the girls would not talk with the boys and vice versa. So he decided to play match maker and began to pair them up. Girls were pulling on friends shouting a desperate "Nooooooooo", boys were running away and hiding - mayhem, but funny.

However, when they do talk to each other it isn't always very successful either. Matt had an English corner for his students in senior 3 and was again having difficulty getting them to talk to each other (they address everything to the teacher, not to their classmates). They asked Matt what his favorite movie was and Teacher Perz said, "you should be asking each other! You, ask her what her favorite movie is..." etc. So, one of the boys asked a girl what her favorite movie is and she replied that it was Braveheart. The boy then said in a very interrogative manner "So, you love Mel Gibson, is he your perfect man?" The girl meekly replied, "No..." boy interrupts with a snide, "Mel Gibson is to rude? So, you prefer gentlemen?" That was when Matt intervened and told the girl to ask what the boy's favorite movie was - his favorite movie was Finding Nemo?! Favorite character? Nemo - nope. Sea Turtle - nope. It was Nemo's father! The girl seemed a little shell shocked at the end of the class.

Last Monday, we were invited to dinner and then to a new bar/night club with our waiban and one of her classmates. The tables were starting to fill up with couples and groups of friends. It took a while for the dance floor to warm up but soon, it was pumping with people all bumping and grinding. But something seemed a little "off". On closer inspection, it was only men on the dance floor dancing. When a woman would go out on the floor she was completely ignored. When the groups/couples went to dance they would enter as a group/couple but then quickly separate so only the men were together and the same with the women. Are they gay, you may ask? As far as we are able to tell, there really is no gay scene in small, po-dunk Guyuan. The man who invited us out did not ask me to dance or his friend (our female waiban) he held out his hand to Matt to came and shake with him on the dance floor. That was kind of funny to watch too. So, to describe the scene in front of us, it was like a MTV production with all of the colored lights and flashing strobe, people crowding the floor - all doing that very intimate, close dance. But only with members of the same sex.

So, from what I have observed here in Guyuan, the fear of possible cootie contamination lasts well into the 20s. Although I abhor the thought of hitting my students, maybe a good cootie shot here and there would do some good :-)