Last lesson

I've been learning Chinese from SuLing for nine or ten years now.

First of all she taught us at Suffolk College. Until they cancelled the class because "Chinese is a minority language" (I kid you not).

Then we learned in a schoolroom up at Northgate - a whole group of native English speakers and native Cantonese speakers learning Mandarin together.

After we took the GCSE, most people dropped out, but Don, and I and Patrick carried on, joined this last year by Pauline. We now learn in Su Ling's living room.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses but we love the class because Chinese is such an endlessly fascinating language - and the lessons are such a break from the things we do in the rest of our lives.

This Saturday we were learning a construction that makes the equivalent of eg "this job is yours to do" . And because it was the last lesson of term SuLing also taught us how to make noodles. This job was hers to do. A break from grammar all among the lesson books.

Her hands are clearly very practised - they fly over the dough without her looking to see what they are doing..