LOW SEE

I am nervous. Of course I’m nervous. I am a 30 year old school principal presiding at my school’s first monthly faculty meeting. There are 45 of us. I am the youngest. I am the only American there. My colleagues are all Chinese. Of course they are Chinese. The school is in Hong Kong, our students are all Chinese, the medium of instruction is Chinese. My colleagues include venerable scholars who have risked their lives to escape Mao Tze Tung’s Communism. They know life and death, Confucian analects, Chinese school systems, exam systems, the names of centuries of dynasties, filial piety, and respect for the elderly. And I stand in front of them with the weakest of all credentials: I was appointed principal by the American missionary board which controls the school.

So I give it my best shot. Of course, I need an English to Chinese interpreter to get through the agenda. But at least, I think, I can greet them appropriately, respectfully, in Cantonese, their dialect. I had practiced my greeting and so I began, “Low See”, etc. The rest of the meeting was eventually concluded to the credit of their patience and my interpreter’s due diligence. At the close of the meeting one or two even complimented me on my effort to learn to speak their language.

Many years later after many lessons learned and many occasions for me to learn humility, that first faculty meeting comes up in a discussion with a Chinese colleague.

He startles me. “Remember that first faculty meeting where you wanted to respectfully greet your new Chinese colleagues?” You called them “Low See”, but what you really meant was “Low See.”

In the Cantonese dialect each syllable can be pronounced on any of 10 different pitches (tones). The meaning of the word changes depending upon the tone. When I said “Low See” I thought I was using the tones to respectfully address my colleagues as “Low See” meaning “honorable scholars”. In fact, because of the tones I used I had begun my career as principal there by calling each member of my staff “Low See” - “Old Rats.”

To be forgiven by colleagues (and by God) is the greatest of blessings.