Houfen Ouyang Obituary (1943

Raising Their Hands Sometimes I dream about my students, the pink of their palms red and raw. One student, seven feet tall, his long back hunched over the desk, his arm out and above him — he could be waving or stopping a train. Another student wears eyeliner for the stage. She bends from the ribs her body forming a tiny "c," her hand up sudden as a whitecap. Some days they frighten me. Put your hands down, I tell them. Shout. Explode. Scream it. Instead they look at me and smile the way they would at foreigners who don't speak the language. That's how they've trained me. Now I wait until I see a scatter of fingers and then I choose — Yes, your palm, your hand, your arched spine, you with your idea, Speak. - Julie Lisella