Dude actually wrote a proper, coherent letter in Chinese… if I am the teacher he is getting full marks for sure
I live poorly here.
Working conditions are not good, welfare is lacking.
But do not worry, there are only 10 serious incidents at work everyday, and I am very careful.
We opened a small stall, business is not bad.
Although I do not know English well, I can roughly understand what the white men are saying.
Hope to make a living and succeed! I will work hard here and take care of my body.
How are you guys doing?
I miss you guys a lot and hope to meet again.
I immigrated to Vietnam in 2012. Even though government and society was much more welcoming than this case, the overall experience was… not that different!
Maybe immigration is just a pretty awful experience overall.
Surprised that the message was accurate instead of being gibberish or even asemic.
History teacher here. If this was turned in to me, rhe first thing I’d do is laugh, then have a conversation with the student. If s/he says they’d be ok with me emailing a copy of this to their parents (I’m assuming the parents speak Chinese), then I’d just give them an A for pure gall. If the kid isn’t from a Chinese-speaking family, I’d probably still give him/her kudos and then make them turn in whatever they put into Google translate to begin with. But really, this is the kind of malicious compliance I wish my students had the creativity to pull off.
It takes effort to rebel this hard. That effort should be rewarded not squashed. Eventually they’ll find something that interests them and their effort will be naturally put into improving that. Basically, don’t kill a child’s spirit.
If they don’t actually read/write Chinese, then it took more effort to do this than it would have to just write the letter in English as intended. It’s impressive.
Exactly this. I’m successful a cybersecurity compliance analyst today because whenever I got around my IT father he laughed and was impressed with me. If he yelled and made a stink about me circumvented firewalls or gained admin privileges, it would have turned me off of this path real quick.
If no one is getting hurt, foster that shit! Make ‘em think and make ‘em work! They’re always smart enough to know when you let them win versus when they impress the pants off you!
Haha that’s cool. Why would you want to send a copy to their parents, to make sure it says what it’s supposed to say?
Exactly. I probably wouldn’t actually email it home, just look for the reaction. If they look worried, then yeah, I’d definitely send it home. I’ve had kids cuss me out in Spanish on papers before, not believing I’d actually translate it and bust them.
I can recognize about a dozen Chinese characters, so I can confidently say that this probably isn’t about soup.
I’m pretty sure that question mark on the second to last line is anachronistic. I don’t know exactly when western punctuation was incorporated into traditional Chinese script, but I’m almost certain it was well after 1870. The character at the end of that line, before the question mark, is “ma”, which, by itself, turns a statement into a question.
I don’t think it’s 嗎, looks more like 吧 to me, which also has question like properties. But you’re definitely right about the question mark not being included until much later. The character alone says it’s a question.
I’ll happily take your word for it; it’s been close to 20 years since my Mandarin classes in college. XD
The handwriting and grammar was perfect. I assume it was an English homework for the student in Hong Kong or Taiwan? (The character was in traditional style which is mainly used by Hong Konger and Taiwanese.)
Or he’s just getting really into the persona of an 1870s immigrant, who would have been using traditional characters anyway! Such attention to detail :D
I think it’s more likely to be history homework for a North American school completed by an immigrant from HK/Taiwan.
Using Lens and Google translate gave me this:
I live beautifully here.
The working environment can’t live, and the welfare is gone.
But don’t worry, only about ten people are seriously injured every day,
And I am also very careful. We opened a small shop, and the business is doing well.
Although I don’t know English very well, I can speak a little
Right. Understand what those white people are saying.
I hope I can get ahead! I will work hard here, and
Be careful with your body.
How are you? I miss you very much and hope we can meet again.非常好
This is actually quite impressive
That’s a weird, and kinda creepy question anyway. Fuck em.
Ehh it’s testing the kids to see how much they learned of the racism Chinese people faced on the West Coast (North America) back then. It’s also a good way to have students
emphasizeempathize with those experiences too by making them write from that perspective.At the risk of sounding like a dick, I think the word you’re looking for is “empathize.”
Without the context of the class it’s hard to know if “talk about your contributions” is meant as “large parts of America were built on the backs of abused Chinese immigrants,” or if it’s meant to whitewash the experience. E.g., “the immigrants loved the opportunity to contribute to a free western society!”
The wording is sort of forceful, but I assume the goal of the question is to have the students empathize with how things were for a Chinese immigrant at that time.
