“You are very robust!"

Before coming to China, I had never heard the word robust used as often as I do here. My first week back in Wuhan, I remember it first being used by my coordinator Rainy, who called me at the Shanghai airport and her first words were, “Hi Meggie, yes, how are you? Your Phelps is a very robust man!”

Within the first week I was told that my most athletic student this year was Allen, named after the professional basketball player Allen Iverson. He was said to be very robust. Recently, I started to notice the use of the word as I saw more of my students out running on the track in preparation for the big sports meet. I have gotten quite used to people starring at me as I run around the track, mostly grandparents who are out with their grandchildren, but this week I felt a little bit more attention as my students were quite curious about their teacher’s athleticism.

A few students that I ran into said, “ah you are very robust!” In a typical Chinese fashion, once a word is thought to be the appropriate word for the context, they will stick to it. I didn’t care to ask why “robust” seemed to be the chosen adjective for anyone wearing athletic apparel, and it made me smile to think that I fell into the same category as Michael Phelps and Allen Iverson.

The second week of the sports unit was spent talking about marathons. The students were very interested in the fact that some of the NYC marathon runners chose to show their U.S. presidential preference by wearing “Obama” or “McCain” decals but most agreed that such an event should be for the athletes and not a forum for politics. I asked the students if the three-time gold medal winner Radcliffe was robust, and they all shouted “yes!”

I briefly mentioned to my students that I noticed “robust” being used often in speech, but the class fell silent and I moved on. It was not until break that Summer, a student of mine, said as I was taking a sip of water, “Meggie, we first discovered this word from the water bottle’s name that you are drinking now!” I looked down and she was right, the company’s name was “Robust” or 乐百氏! I took off the sticker and wore it as a wristband in excitement over the newfound knowledge of its origin. As Don Winter gave me an in-depth explanation of the PH levels of the different types of water bottle companies, I caught a glimpse of Harrison taking off his “robust” sticker and joining me in wearing the “robust” wrist band.

Later that day, I went running on the track and was called over by Casey, another student of mine. She had her hands full of books and was listening to BBC English. We talked briefly about the BBC English episode and just as I was heading away, she yelled out, “you are very robust!” I was still wearing the sticker from the morning class, and so I lifted up my sleeve and gave her a thumbs up, and once she recognized the label, she jumped up and yelled, “YES!”