If you haven’t seen my article from last week yet, I recommend doing that first for a little bit of context.
*Names have been changed throughout this article to protect the privacy of individuals.
Earlier this school year, I signed up to be a teacher for a new reading and speech class that my Chinese school was hosting in collaboration with a student leadership association.
In all honesty, I kind of hate public speaking. I’m not as scared of it as I once was, but if I had a choice between presenting on stage and sitting in the audience, I’d choose breaking my neck from trying to see above people’s heads in a heartbeat. Luckily, the kids we were teaching were second to fifth graders, so I figured it couldn't be too hard to give them a couple of pointers, and for the most part, it wasn't.
Emphasis on the words "most part."
On the last day of class, we held a public speaking showcase. The board had rented the sanctuary of a church, bought a fancy golden mic and invited parents to come and see how much their kids had improved throughout the course of the trimester.
One by one, the kids went up to give their presentations on "The Importance of Water." Out of all the topics they could've assigned the speeches to be on, the board just had to choose the most boring ones.
"If you don't drink water," a short little boy with tan cheeks was saying, "you will die."
"If plants don't drink water," he continued, "they will die."
"Amazing job, *Evan!" the teachers would beam during their commentary. "But try to smile a little more."
And one by one, they'd happily bounce off the stage like little bunnies and go sit with their peers, waiting for the other students to finish so they could be awarded with a medal and certificate for completing the course.
I was sick that day and unfortunately started coughing abnormally loudly during the speeches, so after voraciously popping in about half a bag of Ricola’s extra-strength cough drops, I decided that it was probably a better idea to get some water and sit myself out. A lot of parents were filming their kids as they spoke, and I didn’t want my coughing to cover up their performances. Not to mention the fact that I was terrified of passing out from cough drop overdose, if that's even a thing.
I walked out of the sanctuary and past the lobby until I finally found a water fountain near what seemed to be a Sunday school classroom. As I walked back, I noticed a woman with silky black hair sitting with a little boy on a couch in the lobby. It was Sean, one of the younger kids in my class.
And he was crying.
Something was shattering. And suddenly, I was in fourth grade again.
I was sitting down in the media center at a wooden table, surrounded by kids older than me, smarter than me, more popular than me. I was awkward. I was shy. I was ugly. I was everything that I tried so, so, so hard not to be anymore.
The scene was blurring. I was stumbling.
And then I was in front of them. In front of those kids who were older than me, smarter than me, more popular than me...
What was I doing?
“My- my name is Annie, and...and I...I want to be vice president because... because...”
I didn’t. I didn’t want to be vice president.
My dad wanted me to.
I clutched onto that yellow paper, and my eyes blurred as I tried to read what I had wrote. What did it say? I can’t see. I can’t see...
The woman with the dark hair who must have been his mom looked up at me with a small smile.
“Stage fright,” she mouthed.
I crouched down in front of them. “What’s wrong, Sean?”
He buried his face in his mom’s white coat as he rubbed his eyes. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look up.
“Don’t be scared,” I spoke gently. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be up there for two minutes, and then it’ll be over! Everyone’s scared at first; it’s normal.”
He just shook his head as he clutched onto his mom.
“It’ll be okay,” I said again, uncomfortably trying to pat his back. He cried harder.
Cringing at my own attempts to sympathize, I decided that it was probably time to get someone else to help. Maybe it'd be more beneficial for him to hear from more than one perspective. Excusing myself, I ran into the sanctuary to grab Marie-Grace, another one of the public speaking teachers. The last session was just ending.
“Come on,” I muttered to her, not wanting to draw too much attention.
I didn’t really care what the board or the parents would say about us ditching in the middle of the performances, but I didn’t want any of the other kids to see where we were going; the last thing I wanted was for them to be eagerly whispering among themselves about Sean being a scaredy-cat.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I pointed to Sean, and she understood.
...My speech is stupid.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I don’t want to be Vice President. I don’t want to be Vice President. I don’t want to be Vice President.
I don’t want to give my speech. It’s dumb. It’s fake. Everyone else’s speeches were better than mine. They were better. They were better. They were better.
Mine is stupid. It's stupid, it's stupid.
My tiny little fists crinkled the sheet and stuffed that stupid pale yellow paper into my pocket.
There were so many eyes...
We both took a seat on the floor in front of Sean and his mom, sitting criss-cross applesauce.
“Any better?” I asked her.
She shook her head no.
“Sean,” I asked, speaking slowly, “Did I ever tell you about that time in fourth grade when I—”
“— you made up your speech on the spot, and your face turned red," he finished for me through soft tears.
Okay, so maybe that example was starting to be overused.
“My first time public speaking,” said his mom as she hugged him, “was at a school assembly. I was so scared when I saw everyone watching me that I couldn’t even speak for the first few minutes.”
“So what did you do?” I asked.
She ruffled Sean's hair.“Nothing." she said. I just started talking, and slowly, it started coming more naturally.”
Marie-Grace shared her own insight.
“I always get really nervous and stutter a lot when I speak,” she said. “But it’s never as bad as you think it is. It’s over before you even know it!”
She offered Sean a cookie. He didn’t take it.
“Come on, Sean.” His mom said. “You can do it.”
Then, holding his small head in her arms, she whispered to him, “I know you can. 你很棒的.” (“You're amazing.")
...I said two sentences.
Two sentences.
The yellow paper that I had worked on for half an hour was in the trash. I had piano lessons that afternoon, but my piano teacher sat there sternly on the bench, refusing to see me until I stopped crying. My half-hour piano lesson hardly lasted five minutes that day.
And then, my dad was home.
I watched him take off his shoes at by the front door. He took them off so slowly, so slowly, so slow —
“I didn’t win.” I blurt out. “I didn’t win, but— but I don’t care. I don’t. I don’t need that iPad you said you would buy me if I got elected. I— I have money. I can— I can buy one myself! I could! I have money in China! It’s in my bank account and I—”
I was holding back tears. Hold tighter, hold tighter, hold ti—
When he walked past, he couldn’t even looked at me.
I love my dad. I love him a lot, and it's very likely that if he hadn't pushed me out there to sink or swim, I wouldn't have even crawled towards the water.
But on that day, I sank like a boulder. And he only turned his head in shame.
"You're amazing."
I can’t put into words the relief I felt when I heard Sean’s mom say that.
The session ended, and another began.
"Do you want to make a different speech?" I asked. "It can be on anything you want! You can talk about, like, how much you hate public speaking class. I won't be offended. If I were you, I'd probably hate public speaking class too."
He didn't want to. Then that session ended too. The other kids left to go home. The lobby and sanctuary were nearly empty.
“Look!” I said, “There’s no one there now. Do you want to go up to the stage and just play around with the mic?”
He shook his tiny head no. Marie-Grace grabbed the mic from the stage along with a medal and a certificate. She brought them into the lobby.
“Come on, Sean.” she said. “Just read it out loud off the paper, like you do in class.”
He was a little goofy, but still a whole lot shy. It took several minutes of joking around, running away and hiding behind a column, and even so, in the end, he still only muttered a couple phrases of his original speech.
Except it wasn't "the end." It was a start.
A total of four of us clapped: Sean’s mom, Marie-Grace, Marie-Grace’s mom (who was the social media coordinator for the event) and myself. We were so proud. It was a little shaky, a little rocky, but it was a start.
Marie-Grace crowned Sean with his very own medallion and handed him his certificate. He wasn’t crying anymore. He was giggling softly now as he held onto his mom, who began to lead him away.
“Man,” said Marie-Grace after they had left. “This would make such a great college essay.”
“Why would I write about Sean for my college essay?” I asked, confused.
“No, I meant for him,” she said. “I can’t wait to see where he ends up.”
Are you out there, Sean? We're rooting for you.
