An ex-pat friend recently asked me if I would do him a favor. 

Red flag number 1. 

He said that he needed an English-speaker to help with a certain language-related task at the minorities college I attend here in Xining. 

Red flag number 2. 

Don’t ask my how I get involved in these types of things (I think I am just slower than the average in creating good excuses.) Plus, when you’re willing to give a two-hour lecture on your home culture at the local library, that throws the door wide open to a world of strange possibilities.  The thinking goes, That guy will do anything!  Just ask…

The job my friend asked me to help with was to assist in giving interviews to Chinese students who are in the process of learning English (many of which are English majors at the college.)  The purpose of the interview was to determine which students might be good candidates to participate in a cross-cultural exchange program.  In a month or two a few dozen students from Canada will come to Xining and interact with these Chinese students for a few weeks.  Besides a language and cultural exchange the students will also visit a few (and there are only a few!) of the famous/scenic spots in Qinghai.  The ironic part about all of this is that I am the supposedly qualified one who is interviewing, assessing, and selecting the appropriate students for this program (of which I have no real part in; other than this initial grilling.)  Me.  Yeti-friend and fellow language learner.

Yeah, I didn’t really know what to expect.

After agreeing to fill this role for my friend, my first question to him was,  "Will I get some help from the foreign affairs office or am I going to be doing all of this on my own?"  In other words, is this a collaborative effort or am I flying solo?

He assured me that it was supposed to be collaborative.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  That meant that I would be interviewing the students with the help and cooperative participation of my somewhat bi-lingual cohorts in the foreign affairs office.  (These are the same people who schedule my Chinese classes and cajole me to come in and pay my tuition.)

But then I did some research…

Red flag number 3.

I thought it would be wise to talk to the person who did these same interviews last year to get some pointers.  She informed me that she had to do the interviews on her own and then give the foreign affairs office the assessment for all the students she had interviewed.  Not only that, but she informed me that the scores she had given to the students were then put into rankings by the foreign affairs office and given back to the students.  Not a bad thing if you were one of the students selected, but not too uplifting if you were on the bottom of the rung.  Potentially not a good self-esteem booster, especially if you are majoring in English and your own teacher just rejected you!

So I prepped ahead of time and came up with a different strategy.  I prepared my three questions (the interviews were only supposed to be 5 minutes long) and a very simple metrics to assess the students.  I decided to just score the students and then tell the foreign affairs office who was above and/or below the Mendoza line without giving the individual scores.

That was the plan, anyway.  Welcome to China folks, please check your plans at the door!

This afternoon, I arrived at the college for the interviews to a roomful of enthusiastic Chinese students.  From there I quickly found my friend from the foreign affairs office, we’ll call him Mr. White.  He ushered me into a small office away from the students who were milling about.  As soon as I sat down, he handed me the metrics he had come up with.  (Uh-oh.)   

Red flag number 4.

On the sheet he handed me, in the left-hand column, was a list of the students to be interviewed…all written in Chinese characters.  Now after a year and a half of study I can read many Chinese characters; little by little I am becoming literate.  But when these same Chinese characters are handwritten (not printed) they look like a family practice doctor’s erratic signature…while he is mid-seizure.  It’s not pretty.  I thought, "If I’m doing these interviews by myself, how will I know how and what to call the next student I want to interview?"  I quickly dismissed this fear, however.  I figured I could always point and ask the student to tell me the name of the next candidate to call in.

Then I looked over the metrics he had developed.  I was supposed to score the students (from 1-5) on Spoken English, Listening, and Quality (still not sure what that last one means?)  and Mr. White expressed to me that he thought it was important to capture what the student thought their "Strong Points" were.  (In case, you were wondering, and this was news to me, the Chinese translate the English term "strong points" into Hobbies.  And "making friends" is a very popular hobby here it seems.)

So there we were.  I had the metrics I was supposed to use.  I had the roomful of students eager to astound me with their English prowess.  I had Mr. White’s recommendations and precursory pep talk.  I had close to 35 students to interview of which I would select 8 male students and 17 female students for the program. 

And I had no idea how to read a single name off of the sheet.

Just then when my nervousness was at its height, Mr. White lead me to the auditorium where the interviews were to be held.  I sat down and then, to my utter relief, he sat down right beside me.  He was going to take part in this interview process after all!  He was even going to give his score to the students as well.

As the first interviewee opened the door from the hallway and entered the room, I couldn’t help but feel like I was the Paula Abdul to Mr. White’s Simon.

With Mr. White’s participation I was suddenly relieved of the pressure of being the bad cop.  I could now be the good and friendly cop and let him ask the hard questions.  There was the typical interview-nervousness from this first student (and nearly every other student that followed.)  Some giggled, some tried to stand until we asked them to sit, the more confident came up to our table to shake our hand or said things like, "Good afternoon, sir."  The games had begun.

For most of the students I only asked these three questions:

1. Please introduce yourself and tell us why you are interested in this program?
2. If you met someone from Canada that asked you about Chinese culture or Qinghai culture what you would tell them?
3. What are your strong points (or hobby–note: this is always said in the singular form here)?

These are the questions I had to ask.  The questions I really wanted to ask were these types of questions:

1. Why is it that you like the color purple so much?  (Especially if there was no hint of that color on his/her personage.)
2. If there is a higher power, do you think He can make a rock so large that even He can’t pick it up?
3. What is your most embarrassing moment?

I had to refrain myself from asking such absurd things, but I am pretty sure these questions would have reduced 50% of the interviewees to tears or nervous breakdowns.  I’m so cruel.

But Mr. White’s real questions were scarier than my fantasy questions.  The first 15 girls we interviewed were asked:

1. Do you have a boyfriend?

I am not joking about that.  Honest to God that was the first question out of his mouth.  I was a little bit afraid that Mr. White had an ulterior motive for "helping me" with this interview process.  It wasn’t until one of the sharper ladies said, "I think that’s a little personal to ask, isn’t it," that he finally gave his rationale behind it.  He claimed that he wanted to find out if the female students had boyfriends because he thought if they did they might be distracted from spending time with the foreign students during the program.  That was his story anyway, and he stuck to it.  To his credit he did also ask if the male students had girlfriends.

His other questions were brutal (I thought) involving various populations, obscure facts, and random trivia about the Qinghai province.  How many Tibetans are in Qinghai?  How many minority people groups are represented at the college?  What percentage of Qinghai students prefer rice to noodles?  What were the hygienic practices of the first aboriginal  people in Qinghai like?  What’s your phone number and can I call you?  (OK, quite a few of those were fictitious, but he did ask some hard factual questions. He made those students sweat.)

I was thankful for Mr. White being in the room with me though.  Having never given an assessment like this before I wasn’t really sure how to "grade" the students. This is a culture where "face" is important.  I wanted to give people a fair grade, but I didn’t want to make anyone’s grade "too" low especially since it didn’t really impact their academic career at all. So, I surreptitiously found myself peeking over at Mr. White’s score sheet quite often.

I can’t adequately express what it was like to interview all 30 students.  These students impressed and baffled me in many ways.  Another reminder that we really are living in a different country.  Moments like that are just too surreal unless you’ve experienced something like it before (and there’s not a lot that are like it.)  But I can give you a few of my (closing) highlights, thoughts, and impressions about the interviews:

• If you were male, you were in, regardless of your English level.  I think less than 8 guys were interviewed. Thank goodness for quotas.
• If you couldn’t speak any speak English, you were out.  The last interview of the day showed up at the last minute.  She was not an English major.  I think she was confused about what we were doing.  She wanted to conduct the interview in "simple" Chinese because she knew I could understand a little.  Mr. White explained that she needed to try to do it in English.  I have to give these folks credit.  They were ALL willing to give it the "college try" no matter how desperate it seemed.  I asked this girl to introduce herself.  In English, she told me she liked basketball.  OK, that’s a start I thought.  She said it clearly enough.  So I asked her why she wanted to be in the program.  She told me she liked basketball.  Uh, yeah…we’ve covered that.  She then proceeded to give me a very long diatribe in Chinese most of which was about how she liked to watch the NBA.  Needless to say, neither Mr. White nor I gave her a score.
• Very few students who study at my school are actually from Qinghai.  (I know it can’t be statistically true, but it felt true.)  Maybe that’s why Mr. White’s questions were so hard to answer.  I’d say 75% of the students we interviewed were from other provinces.  This is really weird I think.  Much of the eastern region of this country either isn’t willing to claim, or doesn’t even know the existence of, the Qinghai province.  Our province is the red-headed stepchild of the PRC, so what brought all these students here from more civilized places?  It’s a mystery.
• Chinese people have nervous ticks / speech fillers like we English speakers do, with our "ummms" and "likes".  This one girl, whenever she paused, would say the Chinese word "nei ge" (Translated this word means "that" in English.  It is a word I would definitely steer clear from using in an American context because it is pronounced "nay-guh".  You can probably see where this would cause some misunderstanding in race relations.)
• Some phrases, when over-used, really stand out as strange because in English we use them sparingly.  For example, starting every sentence with, "In my opinion", or using "I am of the view that…" Or, the one I found a bit funny, "If I can be frank…"  Sure, go ahead, be Frank.  I’ll be Bruce Lee.
• As funny as their English sounds to me, I was humbly reminded at every turn…this is exactly what I sound like to them when I’m speaking Chinese.  Only probably a LOT worse.  Oh, boy, the horror.  That brings you back down to earth.  Gives you more grace as well.
• English names that my interviewees had chosen or been given:  Andy, Tony, Lee (very clever), The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (just kidding).
• Thankfully, only one person was on the verge of tears due to her nervousness.  And only one person left her interview early because a.) she was too nervous to continue or b.) my onion-breath was too potent for her to bear–even from across the room.  I still hope it was the former.
• The interviews are proof that this is a very group-oriented culture.  Although there were 30+ distinct individuals speaking their minds, the message was almost always the same.  It seemed scripted.  "I am very interested in improving my English.  It is very important.  I think Chinese culture is very interesting.  I want to share my culture and learn from foreigners."  Etc., Etc., Etc.
• There was one girl who could speak some fluent English.  Not only could she keep up with my fast-paced questioning, she also used the term "new blood" in relationship to having foreigners visit the province.  New blood?  Where did she hear that?  NYPD Blue… I think Mr. White was intimidated by her.  He didn’t even ask her if she had a boyfriend.

So the moral of this story is: Watching American Idol can have some feasible, practical application in your daily life.  It can be a training exercise for how to conduct good exit interviews.  Especially if you live in Xining.  You just never know…