Nobody every promised I was living in the most tolerant society. Last night I presented information on a group called AIESEC to Chongqing college students. The presentation was taken from Northwestern's branch of AIESEC, a group that helps students go abroad. One of the opportunities for NU was to teach English, I was presenting in English, and brilliantly made the following comment, "Well, maybe you couldn't teach English..." I thought about it for a moment, giggled to myself, and then amended, "Well, you could probably teach written English."

It was too late. I was the main subject on the comment forms.

"That crazy man from Northwestern has insulted the entire Chinese people! His sins cannot be forgiven!"

"Get that crazy person from Northwestern out of here!"

And so on, and so on.

On one hand, I know I simply need a thicker skin. People unfortunately bad mouth their teachers all the time. But on the other, the whole situation seemed very unfair to me. I immediately caught myself and corrected myself. During my presentation and after I never even considered that I had offended people. And here were people that were furious, which on a certain level can be understood. They've been learning English for a long time. But good lord, are they crazy?

Really, it just embodies the biggest problem (in my opinion) in Chinese society: they have a nation wide inferiority complex. Which causes little comments to be inflamed and responses to border on the ridiculous. My sins cannot be forgiven? Really?

Mostly I need to remember that non native speakers cannot detect any meaning except the literal spoken one.