Chinese Peoples’ Pineapple Appliance Factory #8 - TLC 71

Good afternoon students. My name is Mr. ON.

It rhymes with song, gong and long gone.

It is 5:59 p.m. if it was 6:00 p.m. I would say good evening, however it is still afternoon. It is late in our short sweet life.

Class meets twice a week for two hours. Show up on time, stay awake, do your assignments and bribe me. Cash only. No plastic. Nothing more. Nothing less. Less is more. 

We are gathered here today in the glorious Chinese People’s Pineapple Appliance Factory #8 to begin our English lessons. Your supervisor informs me you are here by choice and chance. You don’t have a choice. This is your chance. Life gives you one chance. Am I clear? Do you understand me? Yes no maybe.

Now. I know. You have been slaving in #8 since dawn. It is the end of another long, mind numbing grueling tedious day down on the killing floor. Work is hell for people. It’s also logical to say hell is other people.

English has brought us together. You face unique challenges to acquire English, the language of noble barbarians, running capitalist dogs, curs and canines. Their bark is worse than their bite. You will try or don’t try is perhaps appropriate to say considering our passive cultural indoctrination and conditioning, to use said target language with meaning in context. To maybe baby become fluent minus accuracy. It will require your undivided attention, chemical and electrical energy.

You will practice speaking, reading, listening and writing. These are the four basic language skills.

Output: Writing and speaking are active. You do it. Yeah-yeah.

Input: Reading and listening are passive. However, reading is active if a character’s internal/external emotional conflict engenders your feeling and identification with said character’s actions.

Learning is a never-ending dramatic process. All of you will die before it’s complete. That’s a humble unpleasant fact.

Some of you clever cunning ones may use English skills to escape this dystopian existence. Get out there. Take risks. Embrace uncertainty. Daring is not fatal. Have more sex. Wear a condom in the rain. Make friends. Create art. Play with children. Never grow old or up. Stay 9 forever. Erase your shadow. Write a poem. Draw in a creative notebook.

Take a line for a walk. Play a cello in a cemetery. Dig your grave and see if it fits. Water rose thorns with tears. Drum dirt. Cultivate bamboo. Release wolves into the wild blue yonder. Dream big. Shave your head. Get your ears cleaned. Weave ikat on the loom of time. Expand your comfort zone.

Practice Zazen meditation for three centuries, three years, three months, three days and three breaths. Leaning against nothing.

Make a sandwich with baboons. Discover a sharp utilitarian knife in an Ankara display case. Operate The Dream Sweeper Machine in Hanoi and beyond wild. Explore jungles with Leo the King of Cannibals. Kill your father and marry your mother. Fly free with Winter Hawk.

Travel a lonely planet gifting luck to strangers as an aberration of their psychological insecure projections based on their imaginary expectations of greed garnished with kindness.

There is no security. It is an illusion.

Everything you know is a lie. Everything is permitted.

I am an assassin in drag.

Learning occurs in the context of task-based activities. In other words you learn by doing. You do and you understand as we say, said, do, did, done.

In exhaustive detail we will discuss four important appliances and their English A/C-D/C let’s see connections. They are: washing machines, air conditioners, vacuum cleaners and microwave ovens.

These machines are now essential and fun to operate in one’s life. They are labor saving devices. Don't ask me what that means. Maybe it’s a labor of love, like labor pains or a labor-through-reform Gobi educational experience. You don’t ever want to go there. Trust me.

I don’t know and I don’t care to know. You know heavy deep true love because it is your job to put machines together with meaning. It’s like English. Putting words together makes a sentence or phrase. Pass the syntax please.

For your final exam you will assemble a Freeze & Point Refrigerator and extraterrestrial Moon Rover named Jade Rabbit.

A simple sentence is: I NEED HELP. These are three essential English words. Or I need food or I need a job or I need water or I need sex or I need freedom from need and a need for freedom. Or I need to be a free person in a free country. A Chinese waif named Curious in Turkey, not the bird, teaching Mandarin in Ankara said that with mindfulness.

Some English sentences are brief and precise. Some are gibberish. Many stream of consciousness sentences are composites of useless idiomatic semantic syntax, which is not the same as income tax, however both are expensive.

Life is difficult. Art is easy. Make the reader/observer work hard.

Write this down. English in >English out.

More vocabulary = more speech. Use it or lose it.

Say new words three times and make a sentence to retain restrain refrain vocal volcanoes.

Open your head, heart and mouth. Eat English. Empty your vowel bowel movements.

Please open your creative notebook. Using a simple writing tool like a pen or #2 getting the lead out with a fast pencil answer the following questions using simple English. Be brief.

What is life? _______

How did I get here? ______ 

Why am I here? _____

Am I a machine? _______

Am I a tool of the factory? _______

Am I a tool of nature? ___________

What is a human machine? ________

What is my motivation to learn English? _________

(Secret answer – MONEY with a capital M)

Here’s life's equation. No English = no job. No job = no money. No money = no food.  No food = starvation. I am sorry. Bye-bye. Good luck to you and your family.

Your supervisor has instructed me to motivate you. She loves rules and regulations. She eats rules 3x day. She expects me to demand you arrive on time, complete assigned tasks and pass exams. Her authoritarian management style commanded me to use fear as a form of discipline with you.

We know how phobias motivate Earthlings. If I fail to pass you I will be executed. Survival is my fear-based motivation. It is my DUTY to push you through. You WILL pass because my life depends on it. No quest-ion about it.

Fear is a funny word. How do four little letters enable esoteric ephemeral trembling meaning and sensation? For example:

Fear of starvation.

Fear of poverty.

Fear of losing face.

Fear of failure. Fear of failing better.

Fear of humiliation or shame.

(Greater than Death – the Grime Repair)

Fear of not meeting family expectations.

Fear of speaking in public.

Fear of ancestor ghosts.

Fear of being ordinary.

Fear of success.

Fear of crossing a transcendental border.

Fear of______(free choice). Fill in your Tabula Rasa.

In our next lesson we will discuss parts and functions of a language washing machine. Oh, and one more thing.

Normal is a cycle on a wishing machine.

Doctoral students will construct, operate and defend their dissertation using The Dream Sweeper Machine.

Thank you for your short attention span. See you when I see you.

The Language Company