The Language Lesson (Flash Fiction)

Flash Fiction #174

I’ve been watching his lessons on social media for years. He is the best teacher–he speaks clearly, slowly, simply, with very few difficult words beyond the range of English cognates. I guess that his clear voice is partly due to his high quality microphone. Of course I am not suggesting that he doesn’t make a conscious effort to pronounce every syllable distinctly. He does, which is music to foreign ears and beginner ears.

He is skilled with videos and has a good sense of lights, shades, and basic photographical aesthetics. When he visits a place in Spain or Latin America, he makes sure his viewers, or should I say students, can see the beauty through his camera. I have to say a lot of people don’t know how to do this. The reason I say this is because I watched his video about this breathtaking waterfall in Latin America and as a viewer, I really felt the beauty of it. Later on, I watched more videos about this waterfall from other video producers, but none created the same kind of breathtaking visual effect as he had done.

And he can make grammar sound more interesting than it really is. I think the reason he is able to pull this off is because he never aims at giving you a big picture. For example, he would never present an ambitious lesson on “le, lo, la”, although many other teachers love to make such an attempt over and over again. He knows how to laser focus on one aspect of a pronoun and elaborate it to its small-scale perfection.

After learning from him and admiring his videos for years, one day I suddenly felt a little uneasy after watching his lesson. I tried to ignore this uneasiness for a while, but it came back and became a recurring thing. I am almost certain that he is narcissistic and I feel very guilty when saying something like this. As a good Asian, I was brought up to respect teachers to the point of forgiving all their faults. I feel that I disrespect him when I notice his narcissism. What can I do? As a good girl, I should turn a blind eye to this, but as an aspiring writer, I want to turn a seeing eye. For example, he talks regularly about his ridiculous neighbors, his poor relatives, his scolding aunts, his unhelpful friends, his acquaintance who didn’t take care of his pet properly, men who fall in love and lose money, men who borrow money repeatedly, women who make laughable requests and ask idiotic questions, women who use men.

Then I watched one of his videos which is a story about a man who loves a beautiful girl but it later turns out she has acquired the beauty through artificial means. I suddenly realized that women’s looks had been a recurring topic. I had not felt uneasy about this topic before, but after I became aware of his narcissism, I felt that I should say something or give a comment. At the same time, I felt that I was disloyal to him after being a loyal student for so long. Women’s look has been a constant content in his videos–hair, eyes, body, gestures, voices etc. There are also videos on cosmetic surgery, including clinics, surgeons and patients. Whenever women’s looks come up in the video, he would assume the role of a benevolent judge, an expert on stereotypes, a joking commenter.

So what should I do? If I don’t leave a comment, I would be upset with myself and feeling subdued, which can cause serious writer’s block down the road; If I leave a comment, I would feel ungrateful to my teacher.

Eventually I did leave a very mild comment, saying that if his polite logic and gentle condescension are stretched further, it may be harmful to the world. Then I clicked the “comment” button.

I have been feeling guilty about this. Although I am half Mongolian and the descendant of fierce steppe warriors, I will never be a warrior in shining armors to defend my own ideas. I feel so unworthy of my ancestors.

——————————
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay