"China is a country... Chinese is the language"

Being a male teacher in an elementary school provides you with a certain specialness in the eyes of kids, mainly because there are so few male elementary teachers.  As an Asian male elementary school, I'm practically a celebrity.  My first couple weeks in the school I would walk down the hall and, I kid you not, every kid's head would turn and follow my steps.  It was pretty creepy until I got used to it.  This is probably what Ryan Reynolds has to deal with all the time.  =P

Anyways, As an icebreaker with my students, I offered to teach my class Chinese as an incentive to learn my procedures.  It was really surprising how enthusiastic they were to learn.  I started with the basic number system.  They learned how to write the numbers 1-10 and how to say it aloud too.  All those studies that show how young children can pick up languages quickly are dead on true.  After 3 days, almost 80% of the kids knew how to read any Chinese number from 1-100!!! I was so blown away.  For fun we would do simple math problems in Chinese and they would compete to see which team could solve it the fastest.  haha

I guess news had spread to their siblings cuz in the hallway one day, this 2nd grade boy came up to me as I was passing by and we had this approximate conversation.

boy: Mr. Lee!  Can you teach me how to talk China?
me: Hey buddy, sure I can teach you how to speak Chinese.  China is a country.
boy:  Cool!  How do you say "hello" in China?
me: Well, first, let's get it straightened out that China is the country that speaks the language Chinese.  Right?
boy: Yeah!  So how do you say "hello"?
me: Alright, it's very easy.  It's knee like your knee *points to knee*, and how like how are you doing?  Put them together and it is knee how.
boy:  Cooooool!  Knee how Mr. Lee!  I can speak China!
me: *mentally slaps forehead but nods and smiles*