'Mr Crazy English' (right) Li Yang, and myself after having been dragged onstage to participate in one of his classes in Beijing, whilst covering him on assignment for the Independent Magazine. 2009
I’ve had some pretty unique experiences so far working as a photographer. Last month however, I had quite a new one. Normally my style is to be as unobtrusive as possible – skirting the edges of an event, carefully shadowing a person, doing my utmost not to affect the situation which I am photographing. Whilst on assignment for the British newspaper, The Independent, I became completely and utterly part of the shoot and it wasn’t of my own accord! Let me explain…
I was on assignment to shoot a man called Li Yang, the founder of ‘Crazy English’, a unique school of English that has drawn national attention in China because its alternative teaching methods by its leader. To begin with, Li Yang’s classes normally have attendance figures in the hundreds. He teaches en masse. On the day I was shooting him, the class contained about 400-500 students, a little small according to members of Li’s entourage who told me he had just come back from teaching in a sports stadium in southern China to 10,000 people! As well as teaching en masse, Li’s style is to drive students into almost a frenzy, having them chant English sentences back to him after he reads them from his books.
So, there I was milling about the audience, trying to capture the fervour and over-excitement of many of the attendees and suddenly I caught the eye of Li Yang during a lull in his performance. Big mistake. “We have a foreign friend here with us today”, I heard Li say in Chinese to his students. “He’s a photographer”, he announced. Suddenly all 400-odd pairs of eyes were on me and my attempts at being inconspicuous were well and truly blown. I didn’t really know what to do at this point, so a polite smile and wave I thought, were the key to me being acknowledged and then ignored. No such luck. Li promptly asked his stewards to escort me onto the stage where he wanted to talk to me in-front of the students. My cover was well and truly blown.
SEE IMAGES OF A ‘CRAZY ENGLISH’ CLASS VIA MY ARCHIVE
“Where are you from?” Li asked. “I’m from England”, I replied. Li said something to the audience in Chinese, which I didn’t pick up, but garnered a laugh from the crowd. I was starting to feel like this was a set up. “What do you think of the students here today?”, Li quizzed. “Excellent”, I replied. “Ex-ce-llent”, Li proceeded to announce to the crowd, followed by a sudden unified shout of the same word back to him. “So, how do you say ‘excellent’ in Chinese?”, Li asked with a mischievous look in his eye. I could tell I had been well and truly set-up by now and this was Li’s chance to poke a little fun at the only foreigner in the room who he was presuming didn’t speak any Chinese.
I had read previously that he had a habit of telling his students they must learn English because foreigners couldn’t speak Chinese. “Tai bang le?”, I replied. Li looked at me shocked an the crowd erupted in applause (that was the right answer, by the way). “You can speak Chinese?”, Li asked, taken aback a little. “I can speak a little”, I replied. Over the following 10 minutes we bantered back and forth in English and Chinese, whilst at the same time I tried to take pictures. As Li let me go to move on with the class, he shook my hand, lent into me and said, “I was trying to make fun of you up there, but you won. Well done.”
So, I was able to get back to the shooting but lost my ability to move around unnoticed as the students had been watching me on stage for the previous part of the class!
On stage with Li Yang
The shoot ultimately went very well though as I spent the day with Li Yang and his team, photographing another teaching session in the afternoon. It really was quite an experience to see Li in action and to see the fervor that he whips up in his students. Li has become a celebrity and multi-millionaire in the process of educating the masses in China and he knows how important a role he has played. “English has really exploded in popularity in recent years, hasn’t it?”, I said to Li over lunch. ” Yes, it has. Mainly due to me”, Li modestly replied.
The second half of my assignment was to head out onto the streets of Beijing, in attempt to find and document English in use. This wasn’t too tricky as the use of English signs, advertisements, slogans etc. aren’t too hard to find in China’s bigger cities. It was a challenge though, as I only had one day to find enough shots. I have uploaded a gallery here onto the blog so you can see a brief selection of my favourites from the day and from shooting Li Yang.
You can see the internet version of the article here on the Independent website.
I hope you enjoyed this short piece. If you did, let me know and I’ll include more “On Assignment” entries!
Haha, what a great story. Nice to see you surprised him.
Great post/story and great pictures.
Glad to see all is going well for you there Sean.
Take care.
Ar
Mr. Li was originally a teacher of English at Beijing Institute of Graphic Communications, Daxing District, Beijing, after having worked for many years to perfect his English and method, which was a bit too daunting for a university campus, but effective, in the classroom. Hence, Crazy English industries. I was a teacher there at that time, and still an ex-pat in Beijing after ten years now.
I was called up on stage, arranged by the way, to work with him in front of our 3,000 students that morning. It was terrifying, to say the least, but I did well. Then, my husband, a Chinese professor from the same school, did the same. He spoke little English at that time, and also did well. He was really frightened, vowing never to speak in front of such a large group of people again; me, however, I enjoyed it.
Mr. Li is a fine teacher and does not always use his shock methods. In fact, we teach in the same way, my not using his screaming or shock methods, instead. He just makes alot more money due to his showmanship. He is a good man basically. Now, I come to this point. He is human.
Mr. Li has been accused by his American-Chinese wife of domestic violence in the extreme. She even went so far as to post the photos on her blog and in the China Daily today, for your reference. I wish that I could say I am shocked, but being a survivor and counselor in domestic abuse back home, I know well that the man with great charisma and presence can also be hiding the insidious disease of wife abuse or worse. What did shock me was the fact that he was so stupid as to abuse her face so brutally. The abuser will normally not mark the face or any area that cannot be easily hidden with extra clothing, so that the marks are not visible easily. I do not know what to think about this; it is very disturbing, bringing back painful memories personally.
I guess it just goes to show that wealth, power, or none of this can bring one man to such insane moments of horrible actions. I cannot see this man doing this only once, from the extent of her injuries, unfortunately. I hope that she leaves this terrible relationship and seeks help to recover and thrive, as I and many have done in the past. I also hope that he seeks treatment for himself and learns how to control his demons here, so that he can recover his life and live again, only as a better man.
I am sure that you will be equally shocked, not knowing what or who to believe here. He says he is innocent. He could be or not. It is not unknown in the US for angry wives to hire people to do such things for whatever purposes. I somehow doubt this here, but is it possible as could be many reasons.
However, at the time I worked with Mr. Li, it was enjoyable and taught me that the horrible pain from the past was now livable and dwindling, the fear of not measuring up to others leaving my mind at last. Even if this account is true, he did do one good thing one time for me. He gave me hope.