Outsider: The Fifth Young Master of the Kang Family

“Hahahaha, hahaha, hahahaha”

After dinner, everyone was watching TV in the living room when they heard Tianxiu's laughter. A few children heard Tianxiu's laughter and ran in, and then they heard a bunch of children laughing. "Hey, didn't you give your son medicine today?" The second brother yelled at the second sister-in-law.

"You mean the boy is stupid, right?" The second sister-in-law was unhappy when she heard what the second brother said, and shouted back: "If he is stupid, it's because you beat him stupid when he was a child. Go and see what happened to them."

The second brother was pushed up by his second sister-in-law, and he walked in reluctantly. After a while, the second brother's laughter was heard, and everyone became completely curious. The second brother Tianxiu came out with Uncle Qiu, and a group of children surrounded Uncle Qiu because Uncle Qiu was wearing Tianxiu's school uniform.

The 60-year-old man was wearing a primary school uniform that obviously didn't fit him, which made him look particularly funny. Everyone laughed when they saw him. The old man said with a smile: "Xiaqiu, are you going crazy with the kid just because he's crazy?"

"Tianxiu, Tianxiu, you are so annoying, teasing uncle like this." The nanny was also laughing so hard that her teeth were not visible. Tianxiu smiled and said, "What? It's none of my business. It was uncle who said it himself. He said that he wanted to avoid people thinking he was a teacher."

It turned out that when Qiu Shu went to Diana's class before, those who were in their teens and twenties all thought he was a teacher. Now he and Tianxiu go to the interest class together, and all the students are children of Tianxiu's age. He is afraid that others will think he is a teacher again, so he takes the initiative to find Tianxiu and borrow his school uniform.

Uncle Qiu waved his hand to signal everyone to stop laughing, and when everyone quieted down, he said, "It's like this, I thought about the students in Tianxiu's class, and I could just be their grandfather. I was afraid that once I went in, they would be afraid that I was a teacher or a parent, and that would be so embarrassing. So I dressed like this."

"Uncle Qiu, don't think that people will treat you as a teacher. If you go out dressed like this, people will just think you are a fool." A Zu laughed.

Uncle Qiu scratched his head and asked, "Should I still wear this school uniform?"

"Of course not!" everyone said in unison.

The next day was Saturday, so Uncle Qiu followed Tianxiu to the English interest class at the Children's Palace. They didn't return home until the sun went down. "Uncle Qiu, you're back? Come sit down and have some tea." Kang Qirui quickly greeted him and poured him some tea, then asked, "How was it, Uncle Qiu? Did you learn something from Tianxiu's basic class?"

Uncle Qiu slumped on the sofa, shook his head and said nothing. "Uncle Qiu, don't sigh. Everything is difficult at the beginning. Learning phonetic symbols is a bit difficult at the beginning, but learning words will be easy after learning phonetic symbols." Kang Qirui comforted him and looked at Tianxiu, "Xiuzi, uncle is old, you have to help him more, okay?"

"Okay, leave it to me, uncle." Tianxiu patted his chest and promised, "There is no training class tomorrow, Sunday, but I have to go to the English corner to study. Uncle, why don't you come with me?"

"But I can't speak it." Uncle Qiu said in embarrassment, obviously he didn't want to go. Kang Qirui counseled: "Even if you can't speak it, you have to practice. The most important thing to learn English is to be thick-skinned and dare to speak. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Besides, no one knows each other in the English corner. If you make a mistake, others won't know who you are."

Uncle Qiu was persuaded by Kang Qirui, and he went to the English Corner with Tianxiu after lunch on Sunday. As soon as they entered the English Corner, Tianxiu started chatting with others like a wild horse. Uncle Qiu turned around and couldn't find him, so he had to wander around by himself.

As he was walking, he came to the area for college students. "Hello, can I chat with you?" A tall white man greeted him, and he replied blankly, "Sure, sure."

"My name is Jim, I come from England, what is your name?" Jim introduced himself and asked. Uncle Qiu was stunned for a long time before he understood and said, "I understand, you are asking me what my name is, right? My name is Michael, which means shrimp ball in Chinese."

Jim nodded and asked, "Are you here to learn English?"

"Yes, yes, I want to come here to learn English." Uncle Qiu smiled, and then asked in confusion: "You are a foreigner, why do you come here to learn English?"

"I want to learn Chinese." Jim said, he thought that people who came to the English Corner knew a little English and could understand him, so it would be convenient for him to learn Chinese from them. Uncle Qiu and him hit it off immediately, and both of them suggested learning and communicating with each other.

The two walked and talked, and soon they walked out of the English corner and came to the Pearl River. Uncle Qiu said, "Since we have come this far, how about I take you to cruise the Pearl River today?"

"Cruise the Pearl River?" Jim shook his head and refused, "No, the water is not clean."

"We're not asking you to jump into the Pearl River to swim. We're here to tour the Pearl River. That means to tour the Pearl River." Uncle Qiu explained quickly.

"Oh, I see, travel, not swimming." Jim nodded and said, "travel? What does travel mean?"

"Travel means to travel. We can use the word travel to refer to a tour of the Pearl River." Jim explained, and then asked, "Michael, I want to learn about the history of the Pearl River."

Uncle Qiu was very happy when he learned a word. So he introduced: "The history of the Pearl River? I know this because I learned it when I was a child. The history of our Pearl River is very long. Humans have lived and multiplied here more than 100,000 years ago. There are 56 ethnic groups in our country, and more than 30 of them live in the Pearl River Basin, such as the Yuanmou people in southern Yunnan, the Shuicheng people in Qianzhou, the Liujiang people in western Guangxi, and the Qilin people. They all lived in our Pearl River area."

"There are also the famous Sun Yat-sen, Hong Xiuquan, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Deng Ming'en, Wang Ruofei, as well as Xian Xinghai and Nie Er, who all rushed to the whole country from the Pearl River."

Jim was so confused that he interrupted, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I don't understand a lot of what you just said." Uncle Qiu suddenly felt like a poor student who met a poor student too late. He smiled and comforted him, "Don't worry, take your time, I will explain everything to you as we walk." The two chatted until the evening, and Uncle Qiu took Jim back to the Kang family to visit the Xiguan Mansion. "Jim, this is the Xiguan Mansion you said you wanted to see. Isn't it beautiful?"

Jim nodded and was about to say a few words of praise when he saw Kang Qirui walking out of the living room. He hurried over to greet him, "Professor, I didn't expect you to be here too."

"Jim? Why are you here?" Kang Qirui looked at Uncle Qiu next to him, and suddenly realized, "Do you know each other?"

Uncle Qiu nodded and said, "A new friend I met at the English corner today, do you know him too, A Rui?"

"He is a foreign student in our school." Kang Qirui said to Uncle Qiu, then turned to Jim and emphasized: "You are not my student, you should still call me Professor Kang."

Calling someone professor directly seems more intimate and familiar, and is generally only used by students. Calling someone Professor Kang seems more formal and distant. The same principle applies to teachers, masters, etc. For example, calling someone a master means that you are a teacher and a student; calling someone Master Chen or Master Li is a respectful title, and you cannot say that you are a teacher and a student.

"Professor Kang, don't worry, I will definitely be able to pass the entrance exam to your graduate program this year." Jim is very interested in ancient Chinese literature and history. He has always wanted to take Kang Qirui's master's program, but unfortunately he failed after two years of taking the exam because his Chinese is so poor.

How could he be admitted to the graduate school of ancient literature if he didn't even know Chinese well? Kang Qirui didn't know what to say, so he could only say "Come on!" and sent him out the door.

"Uncle Qiu, how did you feel about going to the English corner today?" Kang Qirui returned to the living room and sat next to Uncle Qiu, asking while pouring him tea.

"That's great. I taught Jim a lot of Chinese." Uncle Qiu said happily.

The second sister-in-law also came to the living room at this time and said, "It doesn't matter how much you have taught others, the key is how much English you have learned."

"Yes. I also learned a lot of words." Uncle Qiu took a sip of tea and said, "That Jim is very interested in our Chinese culture. He asked questions while walking and I kept talking. After I finished, he translated it into English and taught it back to me. You know what, learning this way is really fast."

Uncle Qiu and Jim studied together in Cantonese for a whole week, and then on the Qingming Festival, he went back to the countryside with his mother and father to worship their ancestors. After worshiping their ancestors, he had learned English well enough, and he could be considered to have a basic understanding of it. So on April 4, he said goodbye to everyone and flew back to the United States.

With his current level of English, he can barely understand what the teachers at the training institution say after returning to the United States. Coupled with the language environment there, I believe it won't take long for Uncle Qiu to speak fluent English.

The next day after Uncle Qiu left was the weekend, so Er Lao suggested that the family go out for two days. Many members of the Kang family had never gone out for fun together, so they all agreed. On Saturday, everyone drove to a farmhouse to eat free-range chicken. After eating and drinking, everyone didn't want to move for a while, but it was boring to sit all the time, so Xingzi suggested playing games to relieve boredom.

She took a wine bottle and put it on the table, saying, "The name of this game is to spin the bottle and tell the truth. Just spin the bottle like this." She was about to demonstrate, but found that the bottle could not be turned at all, so she changed to a spoon and spun it, "Whoever the handle is facing must answer the question asked by the person facing this head, and the person who answers the question must tell the truth."

Everyone was smart and understood the game immediately. But A Yao was worried and asked, "It's easy to offend people if you tell the truth about everything, right?"

"Why are you afraid of telling the truth? No one will take it to heart if we say it here or leave it here." Grandpa smiled and said indifferently. The second brother also said in agreement: "We are one family, how can we be so stingy? If you are stingy, don't play with me."

"Okay, okay, stop talking, let's get started." Sachiko was the first to turn the spoon, and this time it was A-Zu who asked the old man. A-Zu smiled and said, "Old man, according to the rules, I'm asking you, do you have any other women besides your mother?"

The first question A-Zu asked was very exciting, and everyone became curious. Dad was obviously not happy, "You are so old and already a father, and you still ask these inappropriate questions."

"Okay, okay, let's be serious. Dad, do you think I am filial or not?" A-Zu changed the question.

"It's numb." said the old man.

A Zu was not happy with what his father said. He retorted: "What do you mean by mother? I have established a family and a career just as you said, and even had a son. Isn't that the twenty-four filial piety?"

The old man snorted and he also had something to say, "You bad boy, you always talk back to me no matter what I say. I told you to go east but you insisted on going west, I told you to marry a Cantonese girl but you married a foreigner. I don't know how worried I am." Seeing that he was getting more and more outrageous, the nanny quickly touched him with her hand to signal him to stop talking.

Diana's face became obviously unnatural after hearing what Dad said. A Zu defended Diana and said, "Dad, what's wrong with marrying a foreigner?"

Dad was a little drunk and didn't notice Diana's expression or Madam's hint. He retorted to A-Zu, "You still say it's okay? You've created a Sino-foreign joint venture for me that's neither Western nor Chinese. If I bring a grandson out, people will think I cheated someone else's son. How embarrassing it would be for me."

"But..." When A-Zu was about to retort, Sachiko interrupted him and said, "Okay, okay, you guys have been asking questions for so long that we don't have time to play anymore. Let's start the next round." She was afraid that A-Zu and Lao Dou would continue to argue and get really angry, so she quickly stopped them. (End of this chapter)