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tried to make me look lazy and
unprofessional, in an attempt to demonstrate to the higher-ups that there
shouldn’t be foreign writers in the business section and at the paper in
general.
    â€œSo,” I said, smoking one of Ram’s cigarettes, “I
was . . . set up?”
    â€œYes. But don’t worry. The editor in chief knows
about it and he’s very upset. He’s let them know there are going to be foreign
writers here and there’s nothing they can do about it.”
    By the following week, things had changed. Ms.
Feng, the business editor, asked if I wanted to write an opinion column and told
me, “We need to do a better job of communicating with our foreign experts.” She
cleared her throat. “I mean foreign friends .”
    W ith
so much time on my hands during the tumultuous few weeks, I tried to tackle
Chinese. Because I was planning to stay only until the Olympics, I didn’t see
the need to fully immerse myself in the language. “Just the basics,” I told Ms.
Song during our first infamous lesson. “Enough to get around, order food, you
know.”
    I started by taking one two-hour lesson a week but
soon realized that would get me nowhere. Chinese, a tonal language with some ten
thousand characters, is a massive mountain to climb. I knew it wouldn’t be easy,
but it didn’t take long before it simply felt futile. For a few weeks I arranged
to meet Ms. Song for $7.50-per-hour lessons every day, but laziness soon
overpowered what little determination I had. Ms. Song loved to gossip, and I
latched on to her as an excuse to avoid studying. Ten minutes into our lessons,
she would be gossiping about my colleagues at China
Daily , in English, and I never tried to set her back on course.
Before long, I was regularly canceling lessons, using myriad excuses, and I
eventually scaled back to three times a week, then two, then one—right back
where I started.
    Our lessons would begin with a review of the
previous class. Ms. Song would allow me to look over a chapter in our textbook,
and then she would take it away from me, hiding it against her chest so I
couldn’t see.
    â€œWhat’s huanjing ?”
    â€œHmm. No idea.”
    â€œBut you just looked at the book.”
    â€œBut I don’t remember.”
    â€œBut we study this word every week for last three
weeks.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œSometimes I think you only speak Chinese with
me.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    And then on to the next word I didn’t remember.
Soon I would bring up the latest China Daily gossip,
knowing Ms. Song would take the bait, or I might complain about whatever recent
injustice I perceived I had suffered at the hands of China
Daily . Two hours later, I was one hundred yuan (fifteen dollars)
poorer and no closer to knowing any Chinese.
    China Daily began
offering group classes twice a week with Ms. Song. About eight foreign experts
initially attended the classes. Seven of us were beginners, while one colleague,
an American in his mid-twenties named Jon, who worked in the Web division, was
upper-intermediate. Classes were a mix of Jon and Ms. Song speaking in Chinese,
and the rest of us chatting in English.
    I decided that regular testing was the only way I
would scratch the surface of Chinese, so I paid Ms. Song extra to prepare weekly
tests based on what we had studied in our private classes. A few days after the
first test I was waiting for the China Daily group
class to begin when Ms. Song arrived carrying a stack of papers.
    â€œWe are having a test today,” she said.
    She handed out a sheet of paper to everybody in the
class, and when she got to me, I noticed it was the same test I had paid her to
make for my private classes. I should have let it slide, since I was paying her
a total of eight dollars a week to make the tests.
    Let it slide I did not.
    â€œMs. Song, I have a bone to pick with you,” I said
as my classmates scribbled on the