I'll play if you'll sing

I was recently told that I was a very interesting person.  I thanked them for saying that and just sort of passed it off without asking for an explanation. 
 
A few hours later, upon some reflection I thought about what was said to me. I repeated that statement in my mind and thought., “No, I’m not that interesting.”  I’m kind of boring, even though I’ve experienced some very interesting events in my life.  I thought, there are smarter people than me, more accomplished, more creative, and better at almost anything I do.
 

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I’m not necessarily beating up on myself, I have excelled at almost nothing!  I mean I’ve done a lot of things personally and professionally, but never am I put in the top tier of talent when gathered with like-minded or others with similar career paths. 
 
In the summer of 2016 after I had arrived in China for some travel over the summer with my students from Harding, I got a phone call from one of the Harding employees, a Chinese man named West Ling who was recruiting for future Harding students that summer. He knew I was in China, and he asked where I was at the time? I told him I was in the Hunan province, but I was still traveling about the country, “Why what's up?
 
“I was hoping you might come to Guangzhou. I have a group of students that perhaps we'll be coming to Harding University next year and I'd love for you to speak to them, do you think you'd be able to do that? I didn't need much of an invitation to do something like that and I jumped on it. He then said, I can't pay you anything moneywise, but I have budget money to put you up in a nice hotel for a couple of days and buy all your meals.
 
That’s all I needed to hear, “Yes, I can do that for you. I then arranged to show up in Guangzhou a few days later and to speak at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.
 
After meeting up with West Ling the day before and checking into my hotel he said he would come by and get me in the morning and take me over to the campus.  
 
As I walked into the classroom, I saw a whole room full of faces that had their eyes directed right at me. They watched every move I made and listened to every word I spoke.
 
I wanted to help them break the ice, and the tension, so I turned to them said in Chinese, “Ni Hao, Ni Hao Ma” very loudly as I walked into the center of the room and started shaking hands and meeting as many of them as I could before class was supposed to start.
 
As I made my way down the center aisle shaking hands, making eye contact, and chatting with as many students as I could I stopped and came to one young lady who seemed very anxious to meet me. She stuck her hand out first to shake mine. She said hi my name is Nikki, my Chinese name is Chen Ying Ying, what's your name?
 
I told her my American name and then I told her my Chinese nickname was Xie Yeye, (which translates in Chinese to Thankful Grandfather)! The classroom roared with laughter and clapped with approval. The students in China all had an American nickname that they chose or were assigned when they started learning English back in grade school. 
 
Turning back to Nikki, I asked her what she was majoring in, which was a question that I often asked the student to start a conversation. When she responded I could tell that her English was better than most of the students in the room.  Nikki smiled and told me; “I am majoring in musical performance.” I thought, wow, she must be a good singer, so I asked her, in a very joking manner, “Why don't you come up and sing us a song?” I knew that was something very often requested by teachers and students in Chinese classrooms.
 
Nikki quickly waved me off shaking her head and her hand, “Oh no, no, no, I'm not a singer. I play the piano.” I looked around the room and low and behold, there was a piano in that classroom. I pointed at it and said, “Great, there's a piano, why don't you come up and play for me? She smiled as if she was winking at me and said, “I'll play the piano if you’ll sing?”
 
Wow! Nikki was quick, clever, and had me put on the spot right now. Did I say how much I love bantering with my students? Well, I love doing that!
 
“OK, I’ll do that, come on up here.” She got up out of her seat came up to the front of the room sat down at the piano. She said, “What do you want me to play? I said, what do you know?”  Nikki then said, “If you can sing it, I can play it! You just start and I’ll follow along. I wasn't sure exactly what she meant by that but boy truer words had never spoken. I rattled off two or three normal kind of songs that might be something in a moment like that and she started playing as I started singing. I realized right away that she could play the piano by ear. Something I have always been amazed at. We did that back-and-forth for two or three songs; the classroom applauded at the end of each song. Needing to move on as I got up, I motioned for her to take my hand and then indicated that I wanted her to take a bow with me.  The other students roared again with laughter and applause as we did so and then she took her seat!
 
I then went into the class content that I had prepared.  All things went well. There was lots of chatter and bantering among the students, which is the way I like to teach class particularly in a country that is so rigid and stoic in their approach to lecturing and education.
 
When I concluded class, as I always did, I left time for them to ask me any questions they might have, even if it did not pertain to my class material.  When I did that, I almost NEVER had a question about my content.  The questions were always about me, my family, my travel, my likes and dislikes, and even my love stories of how I met my wife!
 
After class Nikki came up to me and she had a few questions. The first question was how do you spell the name Nikki and then she wrote it on the chalkboard NICKY, and she said, I've been told that that's wrong? What is the proper way of spelling my American nickname. I explained to her that the name she had chosen was a girl's name, but it was also a boy's name, and the way that she was writing it was the boys version NICKY. I then went on to explain most of the girls who have a nickname of Nikki spell it N-I-K-K-I.
 
“Then, that’s what I’ll do from now on, she said.
 
And do you have another question?
 
Yes, she said, “Tell me again what university you teach at in America, and how do you spell that. “I teach Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. She was entering it into her iPhone on Google.  As we continued speaking, she found it, flashed her phone at me and said, “Is this the one?” Yep, that’s it, “In fact,” I told her, “If you go to www.harding.edu/china you’ll find some information written in Chinese.” She said, I'm gonna read up on Harding, as she turned to walk out of the classroom she stopped turned back to me and said, “Thank you for being so much fun today!”
 
A few days later, I received an email from Nikki asking about transferring to Harding University where I was a professor. I was teaching a class at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, which allowed students to attend for two years, taking foreign language and core classes, before transferring to another university worldwide with a contractual agreement.
 
Harding was a university where students could transfer. I was invited to speak not to recruit but to give them a glimpse of an American professor and teach basic communication principles they could apply anywhere, even in another language.
 
I went home at the end of my itinerary and settled into my summer activities and halfway preparing for my classes that were to start in the fall of 2016 when I got another email from Nikki. She told me that she was planning on transferring the Harding University in August! I thought that was cool.
 
As the fall semester approached, I got another email from Nikki. I was surprised when I read, “I'm sorry, I won't be able to come to Harding anymore, at least not until later.”
 
“Why?” I wondered?  She answered my question in the next sentence by saying, “I just don't think my English is good enough.”
 
I told her otherwise! There were lots of students that had come to Harding whose English wasn't nearly as good as hers. And I wrote, she shouldn't let that stop her.  We would help her with her English when she got here. But she refused, saying that her parents wanted her to have a better grip on English before she left the country for America.
 
A few months later I got another email from Nikki saying that she would be at Harding in January. A few weeks later it was January, and on the first day of classes for spring semester of 2017, she walked into my communication principles class as a new student at Harding. I thought to myself what a wonderful unique way of meeting and mentoring somebody. There she stood, a student that I had in class in China, and now she was in my class in America! How many people can really say that?
 
While I may not consider myself particularly interesting, I have been blessed to encounter unique opportunities that result in noteworthy experiences. This particular incident certainly was a turning point in Nikki’s life.

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