city kids and the kitten

City kids are so funny man!

All my students here are afraid of animals. And I mean just about any kind of animal. I think it's pretty normal for a kid to be afraid of bugs or snakes or spiders. But a puppy? Or a kitten?

I mean, my students physically cringed one day when I showed them the tiny little ball of fur that my boyfriend Rick had found on the street. It was a little orange tabby kitten, about 5 weeks old. Its eyes were still baby blue. It didn't have any coordination yet.

It had a face that melted even the hearts of betelnut-chewing, blue-slipper wearing, internet junkie crowd that upholds the somewhat sordid reputation of the internet cafe next door to our school. They give me heck when I tell them to park their motorcyles elsewhere, but when they saw that little kitten, it was like all my past transgressions had disappeared.

So at about 7pm, after a day of enduring cringing, screaming, and the general revulsion of about 90% of our student body, the kitten was sleeping in a little box behind the secretaries' desk. One of my students, Jason came up to me and said, "Teacher, where is the... lao shu?"

Umm... lao shu is "rat" in Chinese. I said, "Do you mean the cat?"

"No. Lao shu." He starting gesturing it's size and shape with his hands.

I was baffled. My eyes were getting wider. He couldn't be serious. "What color is it?"

"Orange."

"Jason, that's a cat." I pulled it out of his box. "This is a cat."

He seemed just as baffled as I was. "Oh. I don't know," he said sheepishly, which was his way of saying he didn't realize.

Now I realize he must have just never had much contact with cats, but you'd think he might have seen one on TV or something?

I was just thinking... maybe the other students all thought it was a big rat, and that's why they were so afraid. A big... orange ... tabby... rat.