Taiwan vs China

A good ho-type friend who taught English in China told us that at her school there were three T's that you could not discuss: Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan. China/Taiwan relations have been icy for decades... like, for example: China keeps at least 1,300 missiles pointed at Taiwan as a constant threat in case it ever seeks formal independence. But the hostility is not something you really notice on an everyday basis, unlike the North/South Korean relationship.

So today I started my 7th grade class with a fun warm-up activity: a find-a-person worksheet. You know- the worksheet looks like a bingo card and each square says something like "a person who is wearing green socks" or "someone who loves Hello Kitty" and you have to find someone in the class to sign each square. WELL. One of the squares on this sheet said "someone who wants to travel to China". I'm all about being culturally sensitive, but I didn't really think this would be a big deal. This is what happened to just about every students' sheet:


The square is crossed out with a big X and one girl told me that China is "poo poo". But that's not all.


In outrage that it might have been suggested that China is worth visiting, an "I like Taiwan" petition was started and every person in the class was asked to sign it! Fearing an uprising, I signed...


So, with the signatures and allegiances sorted, class continued. We were doing a lesson on writing stories and the kids had some pictures of a cartoon dog that were supposed to be the inspiration for a page-long story. They worked in groups to write their stories and then presented their dog dramas to the class. Out of the three groups, two of the stories were about nasty Chinese dogs who sneaked into Taiwan to steal bones! But don't worry, in both of the stories the dog ends up dying and, as you can see in the picture above- Taiwan wins. The-end!

Who knew my grade sevens were such nationalists?! Can't we all just get along?