There’s something very special about smiles. Smiles are happiness, joy, vulnerability all mixed into one simple gesture of the face. Smiles tell others that the day went well, that the family is safe and sound, that everything imperfect is going to be a-okay in the end. I’ve always had a propensity towards smiles, and through the years, I happily realized that I could make others smile with the words I said, the faces I made, and the stories I told. I never considered myself to be a funny person, however. Even when other people told me that I had a good sense of humor, I always deferred to the stand-up comedians and the comedic actors because in my mind, humor was talent, and talent had to be apparent in order for it be real or substantive.
We started teaching English classes this week at No. 9 middle school, and I’d be completely lying if I told you I was not terrified. I had carried my little chalkboard down to the first floor patio with the shade of the trees in the background. I had sat down on the hard concrete with my chalk in my hand and my Chinese name messily written on the board. And then I had opened my mouth. And not a single word came out. I looked across at my students and waited to hear the laughter and the shrieks that I had heard during the lunch breaks and the recesses between classes, but to my surprise, I had heard no such thing. The kids sat with wide eyes, frowns on their trembling faces. Clearly, they were intimidated. Worse, they sat far, far from me as if I were a snake waiting to lash out at them. There was not a single smile in the crowd.
Quick, say something silly, I thought to myself. And before I had decided what I was even going to say, I found myself blurting out “Come closer you guys! I won’t bite you, I promise!” in rapid Chinese. It may have been a phrase that was lost in translation and perhaps the kids might’ve felt sorry for their poor teacher who was sweating profusely in the sweltering Zhuhai heat, but it certainly worked miracles. My kids giggled and made biting motions at each other. The silent humid air was suddenly alive with laughter. But more than anything, their eyes crinkled at the ends, and their frowns became smiles. It wasn’t long before I too had a beaming smile on my own face.
That very first day that was meant to be a daunting ordeal soon turned into an indelible opportunity to make my students smile. It also happened to give me new insight into smiles, humor, and laughter, and a bunch of other things that I thought I had already figured out during my short time on earth. Smiles now meant relationship, intimacy, and connectedness, because on a foundational level, smiles, humor, and laughter were emblematic of a shared humanity. I had always had trepidations about humor being a talent but now I saw that all human beings were blessed with the same capacity to revel in friendship and laughter. My love for smiles was in reality a desire to pursue relationships with the people around me. That was a desire that I wanted to carry with me beyond Zhuhai into my future profession, my relationships with my future patients and the many different types of people that I will meet and form meaningful relationships with in the future.
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