Day Two of Comparative Constitutional Law

Today was Day Two of my class at Peking University School of Transnational Law. Fifty-four students are in their second year, all of them in my comparative constitutional law class. We meet for two hours at a time on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. Six students didn’t show up either Monday or today. When they were missing on Monday, I figured they were just exhausted from taking the Chinese bar exam over the weekend. Today, I began to wonder. The other students in the class said the missing ones were “on their way.” Who knows what that means.

I butcher my students’ Chinese names. Many of them have also chosen English names, but some understandably have a strong preference for their Chinese names. Today, I tried and tried to get one woman’s Chinese name right. Finally, she grimaced and said “Professor, you may call me Yvonne.” Sometime between signing up for law school and my class, one woman changed her English name from Ingrid to Sophia. When I called on her, she was absolutely superb: well prepared, well spoken in English, able to argue.