gifts from the wild goose
by cheryl dietrich

Today I am wearing jade. From a necklace of braided silk, dangles a sage-colored lioness, crouching in the stillness of the hunt. On my wrist, woven into a bracelet of beads and seagreen strands, sits a stone chrysanthemum the color of a winter cabbage encased in the first frost, a jaunty carnelian ball rising from its center. I wear a ring with a white jade heart that looks like it’s been carved from a glacier.
Yan gave me the jewelry this morning. When I opened my English book and said, “Let’s start with...,” she interrupted me.

“No, please. May I start?” She blushed at her presumption, then set the jewelry on the table in front of me. “This is for you. From China. To say ‘thank you.’” Her pale cheeks glowed pink as I exclaimed at the delicacy of the jade carvings and the spectrum of green beads tied into the cords. Her pride in my pleasure was obvious and seemed to fuel her confidence. She excelled in her English lesson today.

Jade jewelry is not the only thing Yan has given me. For my birthday she gave me a bakery cake decorated with thick sugary frosting of a kind she personally thinks too sweet to eat. She’s also given me chocolate chip cookies and Fig Newtons—she has great faith in the American sweet tooth. She’s given me Chinese delicacies, to include a nut neither of us can name in English and cakes made of bitter green paste. During lessons she gives me pale hot tea in a round handleless cup that fits in the palm of my hand.

She’s given me the use of her personal name, the name selected especially for her at her birth. Yan. At first, she didn’t know what it meant in English, just that it was the name of a big bird that flies. I looked it up in my Chinese-English lexicon. Yan means wild goose. I gave her these words for her name.

English words are what I mostly give Yan. I give her lists of new vocabulary to learn. I give her the present progressive tense, the possessive case, comparative and superlative adjectives. I give her expressions: play it by ear; a childproof bottle. I give her American customs and holidays, Halloween candy too sweet for her, a Christmas stocking with pencils and notebook, birthday and Valentine’s Day cards. I give her lessons I draw up, tailored to her level and needs. I give her time. She says I give her English.

In return Yan gives me respect, gratitude, and hard work. She repeats after me. She answers questions. She reads assignments. She hands in homework. She writes essays about her family in China, about the dog she had there, about the friend she worked with in Shanghai, about her dreams and her longings. She gives me a window into her world.

Yan is not my only student. Since I began volunteering as an English -as-a-Second-Language tutor with the Literacy Council of Buncombe County, I have had ten students (some have come and gone in a small class I teach). The gifts they’ve given me include longevity soup with noodles and a boiled egg for good health. A wreath of herbs. A miniature Colombian house for storing keys. Doughnuts straight from the oven at one of my students’ jobs (they all spot that sweet tooth). Baskets of perfumed lotions, exotic foods, gift certificates. The Chinese word for phoenix. The Spanish words for good luck.

They give me smiles that grow in length as we get to know one another. They give me awkward handshakes and graceful bows and impulsive hugs. They give me the laughter that comes the first time they hear a joke in English and get it and think it’s funny. They give me their tears of frustration and exhaustion, when they feel like they’re not making progress. They tell me their stories, welcome me into their homes, show me pictures of their families, tuck their babies into my arms.

I give them cursive signatures, spelling games, field trips to the library, to the drugstore, to waterfalls. I give them the sounds for “th” and for “r” and “l” and teach them to hear the difference between “very” and “berry.” I give them understanding when a child is ill or their work schedule has changed, and they can’t do their homework or come to a lesson.

I give them patience, and they respond with perseverance. I give them hope, and they respond with achievement. I give them encouragement, “Keep working. You can do it.” They come back to me with tales of their successes: the boss who moved them to the customer service counter; the prospective employer who called to schedule a second interview; the meeting with their child’s teacher. They tell me about going to new places, shopping at new stores, meeting new people.

For them, learning English means they have options, independence, and power. I believe the words I provide are like the bricks needed to build a sturdy home. I picture myself one ladder’s rung beneath the mason, handing the bricks up to her one by one. As the edifice rises, I’m thrilled that I get to play a small part in its construction. This is the gift that keeps me in my students’ debt.

Yan gave me a new experience recently. She asked if we could stop by the flea market up the street. I’d never been there before. I scampered to keep up with her as she led me through tables laden with vegetables and old record albums and other peoples’ pasts. She headed directly for the fruit vendor she wanted. I watched impressed, as she inspected papayas with an expert’s eye, her fingers thumping along the skin. After purchasing her papaya and a cluster of grapes, Yan led me to a seafood booth. There she helped a blond boy pluck live blue crabs out of a cooler and fling them into a plastic bag I held open at arm’s length. They were active and hostile, fighting with claws that were free, unpegged and unbanded. One of the crabs flying out of the cooler missed the bag and landed at my sandaled feet. I squealed and jumped backward. Yan rescued my toes by grabbing the menacing monster and pitching it back into the cooler.

Shopping completed, we walked back to the car. I thanked Yan for showing me the market. I praised her fearlessness in plunging her hand right into the mass of snapping pincers to pull out the crabs she wanted.

“I do this in China,” she said. “Is easy but when they--.” She stopped for a moment, frowning in concentration, then shrugged. “When they touch me, I hurt.”

I gave her the verb “pinch.” She gave me the bunch of sweet, round grapes.

Cheryl Dietrich lives in South Asheville with her husband and dog. She’s written several articles that have been published locally, including in WNC Woman. Stories of hers will soon appear in MudRock: Stories and Tales and the Gettysburg Review. [ cleedietrich@cs.com ]