As the only undergraduate freshman in my Chinese class, it’s not unusual to feel young. But lately I’ve been feeling younger than usual. Everyone has that one GS classmate who looks a little out of place: tattoos, slightly balding, older than the professor. Everyone knows one of those, but my classmate is a bit stranger. See, he grew up in the Cambrian Era.
At first, I didn’t think anything was unusual. That was, until we were learning to describe where we’re from. Whenever it was my classmate Joey’s turn, he would say “我是Pangea-國人”, which roughly translates to “I am from Pangea.” Professor Hu would remind him for the third time that by the end of the Triassic period, Pangea broke apart, resulting in seven different continents, blah blah blah. Silly Joey, stop living in the past!
Joey has been a little bit slow adjusting to modern society. He couldn’t understand the concept of international students because “in the good old days everyone was from the same place.” And the one time I grabbed lunch with Joey, he was such a picky eater. We went to a seafood restaurant, and when the shrimp came out, he was shocked. “Where are the trilobites?” he asked. Joey, trilobites have been off the menu for the past 251.9 million years. I would say he’s a little outdated, but he’s older than the human concept of time itself.
And worst of all, he’s still doing better in Chinese than I am–impressive for someone who grew up in an era without written language. Maybe I should cut Joey some slack.
