Written by Gracie Davis

On September 10th this year, students across the globe in China celebrated their instructors in different ways for Teacher’s Day, a national holiday in China. For this occasion, many bring gifts to the classroom, invite their teachers out to eat, and sometimes even present a song and dance!

Although many people do their best to show love and honor their instructors, it is safe to say that this sort of culture is widely non-existent in America. Dr. I-Ping Fu, an amazing and hardworking professor at Radford University, mentioned this fact in passing last week to her Chinese 101 students.

So, this year to show appreciation for their teacher, the president of the Chinese Club put together a special treat for Dr. Fu, who they call Fu Laoshi (Laoshi means teacher in Chinese).

The surprise was a goodie basket with oranges, preacher cookies, chocolate-covered strawberries, and homemade cupcakes with “谢谢” (which means thank you in Chinese) piped onto them. A card was passed around before class so that everyone could sign and thank Dr. Fu for her good teaching! This was all presented to her at the end of class with a bouquet of flowers and a wave of warm smiles from her dedicated students.

The gift brought tears of joy to her eyes, and Dr. Fu reminisced about Teacher’s Day back in Taiwan. She showed her gratitude back to her class and took a photo to show her friends and family on Facebook.

Seeing the smile that this small kindness brought to their teacher, the Chinese Club Officers felt inspired to remember to show their thankfulness to their teachers for years to come, and they hoped to ignite others to do the same. So, remember to say thank you to your teachers, who do so much for very little thanks.