On the board I wrote the first sentence of a story. The students sat in pairs across the room and about six rows deep. The first pair in each row wrote my sentence on a piece of paper. In turn they handed this paper to the pair behind them who added another sentence. I collected the finished stories from the pair sitting at the back of the row.
The beginning of this story that I wrote on the board was, ‘There was a loud bang in the airplane’. I thought this would give them scope to take a story in several directions, which it did.
Most of the groups wrote predictable stories where there was going to be a crash, but someone saved them at the last minute. I didn’t read each story through first, which turned out to be a mistake. I read three of the stories to the class, and started on the fourth one.
I read the first line, which was written on the board, and then I started reading the students’ sentences. I just cracked up. I was standing there, crying with laughter, unable to continue. By this time the whole class was giggling. Of course they didn’t know what was on the paper, but I must have been quite a sight, bent over my desk, completely helpless with laughter.
Eventually I asked one of the girls to finish reading it for me. (I hope this doesn’t turn out to be one of those situations where you have to be there for it to be funny). I think it was the unexpectedness of it that took me by surprise and once I started laughing, well that was that. Here is the story, it’s only very short. I hope you get a laugh. I will number the different parts written by each pair.
1. There was a loud bang in the airplane. All the passengers were frightened. They all shouted, except an old man.
2. He stood up and said, ‘Calm down, please. It was just a fart.’
3. Someone shouted, ‘Don’t try to fool us at this critical situation!’ Another roared angrily, ‘How can a fart be so loud?’ The old man said, ‘Because there is a speaker under my buttocks!’
4. But nobody believed him, there were still a lot of people rushing to the exit.
5. The old man said ‘Please, please calm down, it’s really a fart.’
6. The passengers shouted to the old man, ‘Why don’t you control it?’
I dare you to stand in front of 40 students, read that and keep a straight face.
You can read more of my experiences during my first year in China in my book, China or Bust, available through Amazon.com.
Or at this Kindle link:
