I am a Chinese

　　A big part of school in America is not only to fill our minds with mathematic formulas, literary works, and facts about the history of the world, but also to learn valuable lessons and skills that can be applied later in life. These lessons are learned through projects andsgroupswork and socialization while other lessons you sort of bumpsintosunexpectedly. Lessons don't have to be taught or heard, but still learned.

　　One of the most famous sayings in American culture is "Life's not fair" and I got that sentence slapped in my face, courtesy of a teacher named Ms. S (Sorry but I felt I should hide her name).

　　Ms. S (I feel pity for a certain famous university which has the same name as her) now, to a sophomore Kuangyan, is nothing more than a stint of inglorious character and also a wonderful joke that I will look back on and laugh at throughout my entire life.

　　The year I spent in her class was incredibly rewarding to me, but not academically. No, no, no. Rewarding in that I got a little taste of what the grim future of a world full of backstabbing and virulence. However, this might not have been Ms. S's original intention.

　　I guess you can see that I have very little respect for her from the way I talk about her, but this isn't without reason.

　　The year before Ms. S, I had a wonderful science teacher named Mrs. Packard. Under her wing, my research on whether or not hamsters have decision-making capabilities won first place in the "Animal Science" department of my school's science fair. This year, I expected that our teacher would only be better. I had heard great and wonderful stories about an energetic teacher named Mrs. Kutch who was going to teach this year. Among other things I head how she was the funniest teacher you'd ever meet and how she loved her students. I felt for sure that there was no way the science class this year could be bad in anyway. I mean it only gets better as you grow older, right?

　　Wrong, I couldn't have been any farther off!

　　The first day I walkedsintosclass, I noticed immediately something was wrong.swhereswas Mrs. Kutch? There was a huge "Ms. S" written on the board. I glanced around and spotted a tiny woman standing in front of the class and was immediately confused as to what was going on. She was the "Ms. S" that was written so huge on the blackboard. I did not feel that they matched up, a lady so tiny and a name so huge. I found out a little later that Mrs. Kutch had retired without any notice and that the school had to replace her fast. Signs of trouble.

　　After the class got settled and situated, Ms. S said with a tone someone would use when talking to second graders, "Ok! I want the WHOLE class to do this, ok? Now, stand up and say your name nice and loud so everyone can hear you! Then say one thing that is unique about you! Go ahead."

　　No one moved. No one could believe what he or she was seeing; it was like watching a train wreck happen in front of you. No one knew what to say. What grade were we in? We weren't eight years old. Who did she expect would do this? She stood there for a second and waited for someone to volunteer.

　　When she saw no one would respond, she took the initiative and said, "Ooook…. I'll start. Umm. My name is Ms. S. One thing that is unique about me? Welll…. I'm really hyper and I love to have fun. I love to teach science and especially chemistry. Chemistry is my forte."After Ms. S gave her little speech, the classroom got even quieter. As silence ensued, Ms. S decided to force the 24 silent students, one by one, to give a self-introduction. After the eighteenth student sat down, it was my turn. I stood up and very slowly and precisely I gave my name.

　　Using perfect pronunciation I spoke the Chinese words "Huang Kuangyan". Most Chinese children who are in America change their name or adopt an English one, but not me. I don't have an English name and I don't want one. I've always been "Huang Kuangyan" and I'll always be "Huang Kuangyan". To the common American, the subtle differences and changes in tone are indistinguishable, which leads many to think Kuangyan Huang is "Kuang Kuang Kuang". Since I don't want to give my friends too much trouble, I ask them to call me "Kuang". Even this single syllable proves too taxing for some, so it has turnedsintos"Kuan".

　　Almost immediately after I finished my name, the entire class eruptedsintosa melee of laughter. I don't think anyone of them have ever heard me say my entire Chinese name before, and hence the weird sounding syllables brought a lot of laughter. I bet many of them thought I was kidding or making a joke of some kind. To tell the truth, I'm against these little self-introductions, especially at our age. So seeing as how she wanted something "unique", I decided what's more unique than being the only Chinese kid in the class? I gave her what she wanted, uniqueness.

　　Ms. S stopped me in the middle of my introduction and says blatantly, "Huh? What was that?"

　　I replied very frankly, "You wanted my name, didn't you? That's my name."

　　I saw the disbelief spread over her face and sarcasm creep in her eyes, like she expected everyone in the world to have an English name.

　　I looked at her and asked, "What?"

　　She let loose her soon to be trademark sarcasm and said with disdain, "That's your name?…"

　　Immediately I took some sort of offense and asked her, "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"

　　I'm sure that she thought I was making some sort of joke. After I picked up the attitude I felt I needed a little retribution, I followed up with my one uniqueness. I said with a very grim tone and in a very clear voice, "I'm Chinese!"

　　In that situation, my intention wasn't to make any jokes. All I wanted to do was to make sure that this teacher, who didn't even believe my name was real, to know: If you don't show me the respect I deserve, I won't show you the respect that you deserve.

　　The little scene I created, caused quite a commotion in the previous silent class. I think many of them believe that I was trying to aggravate Ms. S on purpose. After a couple moments of laughter, the class finally settled down and the introductions continued.

　　Around the end of the line of students, there was a kid named Steve Lankester. Steve was famous for being one of the more popular kids in school. He never takes his studies carefully and never does any homework. In American school society, these kinds of kids are the cool ones. A large gang of suck ups and kiss ups always follow Steve wherever he goes. Every respectable and knowledgeable teacher knows that the last thing you want to do is let one of these kids turn your classroom upside down. The best way to prevent this is to never allow them any slack, to stop them before they start, to knock them out in the first round.

　　Obviously, Ms. S had no knowledge of what she was doing. When it was Steve's turn to go, he stood up quite slowly and awkwardly and I could see immediately that he was about to do something. Then Steve slowly as he let the words drool out of his mouth, "I'm Steve Lankester…and my uniqueness is…I'm American."

　　Once again, the room burstsintoslaughter.

　　The class looked very much like a boiled over kettle as there was complete disarray everywhere. This left Ms. S quite bereft of any idea what just happened. She didn't know or she didn't see that her entire activity and class had been turnedsintosa joke by one line from Steve.