ABSTRACT
A few slightly disturbing incidents occurred in my classroom one day in early April of my second semester in the PRC. Two of my sophomore boys had demonstrated a certain defiance that I had to deal with, which, unlike that of my philosopher protégé Wei Ling way back in my first semester, was rather troublesome. To a certain degree, these boys were demonstrating their dragon-hood, I suppose. One still-clinging vestige of Old China was the still-very macho image of manhood, which was equated to being as much as possible like a dragon. Dragons were supposed to be fierce, but loyal. Tough, but good. But they also had those long, sharp claws, and breathed fire and had big teeth and glowering red eyes. Hence prior observations that maybe they weren’t all that attractive, to some Chinese females. Still, you weren’t supposed to mess with dragons, because dragons were always right. (In the interest of fairness, I should also note that my wife Tina likes to tease me and say “A woman is always right.”) So I suppose it’s safe to say that in China, everybody is always right. Otherwise they lose face. So here I was, taking on a couple of Chinese boy-dragons, righteous in their rightness. And if they were also speaking for millions of young Chinese much like themselves, it was clear I still had some work to do.
