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Hello. Is it me you're looking for?

One day back when I was a teaching assistant in France, one of my students called me over to him in class. The students were supposed to be working individually on some assignment, so I assumed he was trying to get my attention to ask me a question about English for the work he was doing. I walked over to him and he quietly asked me (in English, if I remember correctly), "Do you like Lionel Richie?"

Of all the things he could have asked me, I think that may be the last one I would have guessed. Lionel Richie had not come up in class that day or any other day. Lionel Richie was not in town. Lionel Richie, as far as I knew, was not in the news. I gave some non-committal answer about how I thought Lionel Richie was not bad, and this seemed to be enough for him. I was never sure whether this was some sort of cultural misunderstanding where this poor young lad thought that Lionel Richie was the height of American Cool or whether it was some kind of atrocious pickup line.

Now, thanks to one of the most moving and bizarre NPR stories I've ever heard, I realize that this young Algerian-French person may not have been testing the waters of American pop culture or putting the moves on his teaching assistant. It may, in fact, have been an attempt to bridge our Arab-French-American cultural divides through the immense power of the music of Lionel Richie. Apparently Lionel Richie transcends all cultural boundaries and has the power to bring peace unto all the earth. I'm sorry I didn't understand it at the time, kid!

[via The Most Important Blog... Ever]

srah - Tuesday, 5 December 2006 - 8:52 PM
Tags: assistantship, lionel richie, middle east, music, teaching

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