I was frustrated
with a low-English-level Korean student who never asked questions in class. My
goal was to equalize classroom participation, and one aspect of it was to have
students ask questions when they didn’t understand something during class. I
taught techniques of how to ask a question, which the students from Mexico
readily adopted, but not the Korean student. Why?

Litz met a Chinese doctor in the
United States,
and fell in love with him and they got married. Litz’s husband had long wished
to bring his mother to live with them for a while. So, they invited her over. They
are very happy about their mother’s visit. Litz knows being filial to parents
is a great value Chinese people cherish. As wife of a Chinese, she tries to be
as filial as her husband. Two days after the mother’s arrival, Litz talked to
her husband, Dick, while his mother was sitting in the garden enjoying the
sunshine.


Litz: Dick, how
long is your mum going to stay?


Dick: I don’t
know. I haven’t asked her.


Litz: Why not ask
her?


Dick: What do you
mean by asking her?


Litz: I mean what
I said. Just ask her how long she’ going to stay.


What was going to
happen the next day made Litz very confused. The mother overheard their
conversation and decided to leave for China the very afternoon. Litz had
never expected that her visit should be so shot.


Why did the
Chinese mother-in-law decide to leave the very afternoon? What went wrong?