"His name is Mr. Jon"

I've been teaching "introducing others" this week. We've been working on "his" and "her" and "he" and "she" specifically, as in Chinese, the female and the male pronouns sound the same: "ta," but look different when written. A lot of Chinese people have a tough time with this then, calling a guy "she" or a girl "he" for example. My kids have done a good job with it (better than I expected) and today they produced this gem of a moment...

Little Jane is a jokester. We were on a field trip a few weeks back and we were passing the mic around the bus to let the kids tell a story or a joke or whatever. Jane got the mic and immediately started into a joke. I could understand the basics of it, a classic joke set-up; there was a Chinese person, a Japanese person and an American person, perhaps in a bar, having a conversation, and at the end the Japanese person said something and then the Chinese person said something that made everyone die laughing.

Anyway, in class today, as we were saying each other's names and we came to a boy who said he didn't have an English name. It ended up he didn't like his English name and wanted a new one. Class was relaxed today so we were all talking about it, and I asked if anyone had an idea for his name. Jane spoke up: "Mr. Jon." Everyone laughed and said, his name is Mr. Jon! They had the sentence we'd been learning down.

I'm laughing (a lot) but I say, "he can't be Mr. Jon, I'm Mr. Jon." And Jane says, "You are Mr. Jon, and he is Mr. Jon." I tell them that he can be Jon, but he can't be Mr. Jon. She recognizes the comedic value in this (as did I) and she picks it up later. We continue with class and eventually we come to some point where Jane has the oppurtunity to say his name: so she does. "Mr. Jon." I laugh... no, he's not Mr. Jon. He's talking later... "Mr. Jon, be quiet," Jane says. She keeps looking for a chance to say it, and everytime the class loves it. I give in and call him "Mr. Jon" once. They go nuts.

I weighed the benefits and the costs of really giving this kid the English name "Mr. Jon" and decide it has to go. After class I talk to them all and we decide on plain-and-simple Jon. The now-named Jon's cool with it, Jane's cool with it, and so's the real Mr. Jon (me). Then I say to Jane, you're one funny girl. "Thanks, Mr. Jon."