Sitting in on Class

In December, my buddy Ayub and I walked into the wrong classroom by accident after our middle-of-class break. (Aside: classes are 90 minutes long, so you get a 5 minute break after 45 minutes) We stood in the doorway for a moment and were confused since we didn't notice any of the kids in the class but were sure that we had walked into the right room. We had actually just stopped short by one room, and were therefore, next door to our classroom. During the confusion, which lasted at most, for 1 minute, the Korean and Japanese students were in total shock; I mean the look on the their faces was priceless. They had all been conversing and as a few noticed our confusion, they all turned silent and turned to us.

Of course they were far too polite/awkward (you choose the word, I'd say the former rather than the latter) to say or do anything but stare with open mouths. It was then we came up with an idea.

The plan: To sit in on a random class that didn't have any westerners and see what happened. We would walk in without saying a word, as if everything was normal, take our seats and attend class. We anticipated that the teacher would start asking us if we were in the wrong class or lost. If asked anything by students or teachers, we planned to politely smile and pretend not to understand or speak Chinese, or to speak it at the lowest level possible. In other words, we planned to be as awkward and as difficult as possible for everyone.