What You Think is Not What Is

Or rather, what you think a situation is sometimes, may not be what is really happening in reality.
Like when you go for a tuition lesson with a kid, and you do your best to explain the words in the comprehension passage to him, and try to explain what the whole passage means. And you go through all the questions with him.
And you explain half in Chinese and half in English, because the kid is from China, and his English is not all that good. In fact scratch that. You explain practically the entire passage to him in Chinese, and correct his understanding of the words.
And then you go home, thinking everything's ok and how you're gonna conduct the next lesson.
And then the tuition agency calls you up and tells you that they thought you couldn't speak Chinese and they decided not to have you back again.

Cannot speak Chinese????? I went through an entire 1.5 hours conducting an English lesson in Chinese and I can't speak Chinese????

Ok, apparently there was some really weird breakdown between the grandmother and me. I went for my first lesson with this family at lives at AMK, ( 5 mins bus from my house. What a waste! ) and they're all from China, so naturally their Chinese is power. ( The guy has a copy of Shakespeare and World History in Chinese. Good god! ) The grandmother first talked about her son, and how he was doing at school, and how his English and Science was, and then left me alone with the kid. Note, she's speaking all in Chinese, so I answer her in Chinese. I go through the abovementioned process with the kid, and then I say bye and leave.

And after that, they called the tuition agency and told them I couldn't speak Chinese, and they'd rather not have me back, because it's not good for the kid in the long run.

2 rantings about this picture: Firstly, I was speaking Chinese all the way in their freakin' house!!! I explained the entire passage in Chinese, ( ok, maybe not the entire passage, but sizeable portions of it ) I spoke to the boy in chinese, I spoke to his grandmother in Chinese. HOw the freak did they come to the conclusion that I couldn't speak Chinese????? This one didn't just fly over my head, it went by so fast I only saw a blurry streak.

Secondly, why the heck would my Chinese matter in the first place??? I'm there to teach ENGLISH, not Chinese. If you want your child to learn English, then why on earth are you looking for a tutor with a high Chinese level???? What is it exactly you want me to teach your kid? Shouldn't my English matter over my Chinese? And why is it it matters that the grandmother thinks I can't understand Chinese? Shouldn't they have asked the kid whether he got it??? And of course he's not used to my teaching! It's the first bloody lesson!!!!!

Dammit. On a more reasonable side, I suppose they wanted a tutor with some Chinese ability so that it would be easier to explain English words to him. Bloody hell. I suppose I'm a little pissed at the fact that they thought I couldn't speak Chinese, ( I passed with B ok?? ) and a little confused that they came to that conclusion when I was speaking to them in Chinese. Plus, there's the part about lost potential income again. *Bang bang bang BANG*

Fired on the first lesson. I don't believe it. Someone just run me over with a car.