Chinese parade and English exam

Date: 4/24/2020

I was in a parade in China. I think it was for the environment? I was carrying a sign, but all the text was in Chinese, and I was standing on the very back of the float. People smiled and yelled in Chinese as I passed, which I couldn’t understand. I thought, “if I just smile and wave, maybe they’ll think I’m actually Chinese” before realizing that I’m white and could never pass for Chinese. Suddenly, instead of on a parade float going down the street, I was part of a crowd of teenagers walking into one of the buildings on the street. I know it was the same street, but now there was no parade going on. I gathered that the building was a school, that I was an exchange student who had been studying here for a year, and that today was the final English exam. My classmates were telling me (in English) I was so lucky I was a native English speaker and I would easily pass the test. I was less sure because I knew that some Chinese would also be required, and I didn’t know Chinese at all. I thought, “I’ve been studying here for a year— I must know SOME Chinese. Maybe I’ll suddenly remember it all when the exam starts.” We all walked into the testing room. It was a large room, completely empty except for a bunch of chair desks all facing the walls. For some reason I was in a different area, partially walled-off by a rough wooden partition, right next to the door. As it turned out, the first part of the exam required no Chinese knowledge at all— it was on American Sign Language. You were given a word in English, and you had to draw the sign in the square above it. I called the teacher over, and she said, “Don’t you remember the unit on sign language at the beginning of the year? I believe in you. You can do this.” She patted my back and went away. I looked back at the exam. I didn’t know any of the words in sign language, so instead of drawing the signs, I just drew little pictures of the words. For “run”, I drew a little stick figure running. When I next looked at that page, there was a little check mark in blue pen next to the drawing. One of the words was “viejo” (which is Spanish, but that didn’t concern me at the time) and I put a bunch of effort into drawing an adorable little old man and coloring him in with colored pencils I suddenly had. My yellow pencil broke, but instead of sharpening it I reached inside the pencil and pulled out the lead.