Basketball, veggies, and Nickelodeon

So, this is a rare blog post.

The school is currently having a basketball tourney pitting classes in the same grade against one another. Here in China the kids stay in the same classroom all day and the teachers move around... they eat sleep and play as a class, so they see quite a bit of each other. Thus, the rivalries have been building for weeks.

The jocks take the court in matching NBA or Chinese national team jerseys, the teachers scream for them to take their warm up drills seriously, and the nonathletic kids and girls sit in the stands with anticipation. This is not fun, it is war. Very awkward and poorly coordinated war... remember these kids are 12. The amazing part is that a few of the guys are actually pretty good. The super jocks, as I call them, spend all the time they are not in class working out or playing basketball. Of course, they are the ones that all the girls have crushes on, behind me, mind you. Surprisingly though, there does not seem to be the same animosity amongst the non-jocks as there is in the states. They cheer right along with the girls and after the game they rush the court to congratulate their heroes.

This is further evidence to support an observation that I have been thinking about for a while. Simply put, NICKELODEON makes kids hate vegetables. When I was young I hated vegetables, now I love them. It wasn't about the taste, or the way they looked. No, I had a phobia of greens because Doug Funnie told me I should. I didn't like to clean my room because Kel from ALL THAT didn't. I hated doing my homework because all the characters I watched on a daily basis also complained about it. Nerds expect to be punched by jocks because that's what happened on the TGIF programming, and even worse, jocks felt pressured into that role by the same television. Now, I'm not trying to shirk any responsibility here, I'm just saying that the television I watched as a youth greatly affected the way that I approached specific situations.

I have further evidence... In class, I recently showed a RUGRATS cartoon in which Angelica refused to eat her vegetables. My students were confused as to why someone would chose not to eat their vegetables. Yes, sometimes they preferred one food over another but their mouths were agape at the possibility that someone might complain about an entire food group. Of course there are variables to consider. Poorer Chinese parents would not tolerate a wasteful child, vegetables are sweeter here in China, and they are also a staple of the Chinese diet (meaning they could potentially be a main course, not just a side dish).

But I'm gonna blame it on Nickelodeon.

Anyway... I'm off to referee another skirmish!
C. Johnson