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EDITOR'S NOTE: Frank is home. After several weeks eating his way through China and studying Mandarin, our fearless blogger has returned to Baton Rouge--safe, sound and jet-lagged. His blog will continue for several more weeks.

Better writers have dwelled upon the hilarity of foreign language education and the scenarios concocted for the purposes of introducing new vocabulary. But, if there is a subtext pursued by the writers of language school primers then it is to show young people of the outside world a little something of that country’s self-image. In high school Spanish, stories of Julio and Maria’s plans to go to the discothèque next Thursday at 8:30 were inflicted upon my young mind in Room 103 of Webster Hall on the campus of Episcopal High School. The writers of our textbook wanted us to learn about days of the week and time but also about the Spanish exuberance for life. Yes, people in Spain made appointments and kept them but they were appointments to party.

At Room 421, Fudan Tower, Shanghai we learned of the agonizing choice faced by our two fictional proxies Sanmu and Mali. These students had to decide between a stimulating trip to a factory to inspect the workers or a bucolic jaunt to the country to visit the peasants in the village. I have never been much of one for discothèques but, given the choices, I could have taken a little of la vida loca.

I believe in active learning, of a sort anyway. And this often leads me to blurt out statements and questions in language classes that pull vocabulary from across exercises, the results of which can be unexpected. While trying to explain that my classmate was not in class because he had brought his wife to the airport that morning, I informed my teacher, in my most chipper Mandarin, “You’re wife is an airplane.” The pronouns in Mandarin are pretty simple but that has not stopped me from demanding that the bartender get himself a bottle of beer and a few more peanuts. This all came to an apparently hilarious head when, drawing on Sanmu and Mali’s trip to the village to visit the peasants and a previous exercise on the virtues of familial respect, I informed the class, “When I get home I am going to inspect my mother.” Our text had translated the reason for Sanmu and Mali’s trip to the village as a “visit.” Apparently, this word more closely translates as “discover,” “inspect” or “explore.” None of which falls within the Chinese (or American for that matter) sense of familial respect. After several minutes, teacher Liu was still red faced and gasping for air.

Foreign language textbooks and possibly action movies are currency we use to express our views about ourselves to the world. As such, Sanmu and Mali asking after the health of the other’s parents and twirling about the factory for a few moments’ amusement tell us things about how the Chinese would like to be viewed. They take the commitments and joys of family seriously. They are rightly proud of the hard, grinding work their countrymen put in to keep China growing at double digits, year after year. And though there is no absence of karaoke bars and loud clubs they would seem to prefer to be known for time spent at home, visiting mom.