School of Rock

Every Saturday for over ten years, George and I filed off to Rancho Bernardo for Chinese school. On the surface, going to Chinese school totally sucked. Who wants to forcibly spend three hours every Saturday morning going to more school? But the thing was, I don't think we complained that much because Chinese school wasn't so much a punishment as it was a chance to socialize with an ever growing group of friends.

As I was talking to Evan (a fellow Chinese school alum) the other day, we remarked on how important Chinese school was for our sense of self-esteem and sociability. In retrospect, it played a huge role in allowing me to be who I am/was.

First off, going to Chinese school provided an alternate venue for self valuation. This is pretty huge if you think about it. Most kids' middle and high school experiences are fraught with issues of where they fit in and who their friends were, that kind of thing. But when we were in school in the early 80's, there were hardly any niches to be filled by Asian kids except the nerd/dork/geek one. Especially if you were from overseas.

But in Chinese school, everyone was a complete dork so there was hardly much social status to be gained or lost. I was probably uniquely obliviously to social status in either school but at Chinese school, it really didn't matter. There wasn't room for cliques, cool kids, or jocks. Everyone just mingled together in a big bowl of Chineseness. I mean, most of us had similar upbringings and similar parental issues, as evidenced by the fact that we were sitting in those chairs at 9am on a weekend. We didn't mind it though because the academic portion of Chinese school was mostly a joke -- I mainly learned how to cheat and got enough writing down to do well in my first semester or two of college Mandarin -- and the rest of the time was spent socializing.

By the end of middle school, I think my social life was more centered around that one day of Chinese school than the weekdays spent at normal school. For years and years, our parents gathered after Chinese school and all went to lunch together, which allowed the kids to play and hang out together for the rest of the day. This was where the majority of my childhood friendships were formed.

With Chinese school as an important social center, it made normal life fade into the background. I didn't have too many friends at my normal school but I don't think I cared too much. Sure, maybe playing D&D during lunch had something to do with not having a lot of friends but it was also the sense of security in knowing that I had a whole bunch of friends waiting for me on Saturdays.

Heck, even in something like the world of athletics, going to Chinese school was empowering. I was hardly a good athlete at regular school but at Chinese school, many of the boys played basketball and football during the breaks and there was less disparity between our physical prowess and skills. It was sort of like a lowering tide sunk all boats kinda thing. We could be our normal dorky Chinese selves and be happy about it.

So, thanks Chinese school.