So I just took my weekly monolith of a test, seriously each test brings on a whole new era of pain for me. I was expecting to write another post before now but this week I was totally swamped. This week's lesson was about education so the after class activities for the week were a visit to an elementary school, and high school. The high school visit as I found out this week, was also to include a presentation by us on some aspect of American living. Not surprisingly, the various heads of the Chinese program have continued in their on going tradition of telling us (the students) to leap tall buildings in a single bound at the very last minute and seeing as none of us are aliens, were bit by radioactive spiders, or are the dark knight, the pressure was on.
My presentation on American holidays was somewhat under prepared as we were only given a day's notice but the visit was great. In this class full of maturing Chinese girls, serious topics of discussion were taboo. All they wanted to know about was American party culture. Both shocked and awed by my sheer American rebelliousness (prudish by American standards I suppose)I found that Chinese high school girls and American high school girls are not much different, Americans just act on their whims instead of keeping them bottled up. I think that's why college students here are so excited about their freedom to date that they wear matching clothing (and when I say matching I mean the same clothes in a small for the guy and a smaller for the girl) and hold each other o-so-warmly---its PDA town over here.
wow, my week must have been frustrating if I'm taking it out on the lovers. I guess I'm getting to this point where I can get around most everywhere in the city but no matter how long I have studied Chinese, there are always going to be words that I don't know or don't remember. Everytime I need something its always a struggle to try and explain the situation. There is nothing more satisfying, however, than getting someone to understand you somehow, and in a different language at
that.
My presentation on American holidays was somewhat under prepared as we were only given a day's notice but the visit was great. In this class full of maturing Chinese girls, serious topics of discussion were taboo. All they wanted to know about was American party culture. Both shocked and awed by my sheer American rebelliousness (prudish by American standards I suppose)I found that Chinese high school girls and American high school girls are not much different, Americans just act on their whims instead of keeping them bottled up. I think that's why college students here are so excited about their freedom to date that they wear matching clothing (and when I say matching I mean the same clothes in a small for the guy and a smaller for the girl) and hold each other o-so-warmly---its PDA town over here.
wow, my week must have been frustrating if I'm taking it out on the lovers. I guess I'm getting to this point where I can get around most everywhere in the city but no matter how long I have studied Chinese, there are always going to be words that I don't know or don't remember. Everytime I need something its always a struggle to try and explain the situation. There is nothing more satisfying, however, than getting someone to understand you somehow, and in a different language at
that.
