We heard about a Chinese exchange program and throughout it sounded like a really cool idea, since I taught in China, and for some reason China seems to follow me, and some of the biggest blessings in my life have come through some sort of connection to China, every now and then I have visions of picking up and moving but when we heard about an exchange program we signed up immediately.
IT'S A BOY!
We were finally chosen by a student... Dennis was born in Shinjin and has lived in Hong Kong for 3 years. We set up a Skype chat and we had a lost in translation moment as we thought we knew the date that he would call us but it ended up that he called us a day early which actually ended up being the day of my grandmas funeral, fortunately the chat was a bright spot in a very sad day. Dennis was very nervous and being coached from someone off camera.
THE FIRST MONTH
We worked like mad fools to get our house moved and in order for Dennis and got his room furnished. When our student Dennis moved over it was his first trip to the US, he is 15 so one year older than Victor was when he came the the US. Before we became official "houseparents!" We had an initiation experience where "lost in translation" led to frantic sprinting around the airport looking for "3 Chinese people." We returned to the airport the next day- which was the correct day, this was the first of the many "lost in translation" experiences.
Our student's family (mom and cousin) stayed for two weeks and we tried to show them as much as we could but Victor and I were both working full time so we didn't get to do as much as I would have liked to. Before school began we got him set up with a bank account, phone, took him to get school supplies, Dr. appointments, and updated the vaccine record.
The first week of school came three days after arrival so he hit the ground running. He seemed to like American school but of course didn't really understand the spoken English. The first month we had to speak very slowly and even though we thought he understood later we realized he did not. My Mandarin came in handy the first month it was much faster than looking up things, but google images also came in handy!
So Dennis went to church for the first time ever, unfortunately I am sure he didn't understand anything, I remembered the first time I went to a 3 self- church in China I was exhausted and didn't understand a thing, I was like Dennis...falling asleep. The first month we explained a lot to him since everything is different from East to West. So many new experiences have led to interesting discussions.
MAJOR LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES
Living in China taught me how extremely difficult it is to switch from a phonetic language to a character based linguistic system, then there are tones, ma, ma, ma and ma each said with a different inflection mean 4 different things. I learned that exclamation points and question marks are spoken in Chinese! In English if you want to ask a question, the entire sentence has can change tone, it seems to rise at the end of the sentence, not so in Chinese. Also characters are little pictures that build into concepts, but letters are sounds that make words which have meaning. Chinese is VERY direct which is why it sounds rather harsh when transliterated, so westerners often view this as being rude. A Chinese speaker learning English will sound monotone, because, in Chinese full sentence intonation doesn't exist. If you want to be emphatic in Chinese, you might speak louder but still monotone.
EXPRESSING PEOPLE IN MANDARIN
So the whole gender thing is different too: you are "ta" he is "ta" she is "ta" animals are also "ta." I also found out that when you visit China don't expect people to speak English...they read English, which is very different from speaking English. On the other hand age is noted very definitively, for example, you have older brother, older sister, younger brother, younger sister but never just a sister, or brother. If you talk about grandparents the side of the family is indicated by what grandparents are called!
SAVING FACE
Ok so one cultural mystery is "saving face" a concept which will drive most westerners mad. It's like they are trying to be so nice that they won't tell you something directly so it ends up creating so much confusion and frustration, the phrase "killing someone with kindness" comes to mind. Personal
Real life example: The Chinese may tell the westerner to be ready for an event that starts at 4:00 pm. The foreigners rush to be ready, because there wasn't much leeway given. The westerners drag themselves down half dressed and paste on a smile and the Chinese say "we will leave in 10 minutes" this goes on for 2 hours... Even if the Chinese knew they weren't leaving until later they might still make you sit in an un-airconditioned bus with ugly wet hair because they don't want to trouble you and lose face by telling the actual time of departure...confused? Well, I am also confused, and this is the most difficult thing to contest with when communicating with the Chinese. I constantly have to say "here are the choices please tell me which one you want." Even with that caveat you still have to guess the meaning behind the words.
So anyway we have been having interesting convos and experiences comparing and contrasting cultures across the globe, our dinner table is never boring we always have lots to talk about and great opportunities for meaningful discussion.
I plan to keep better track of blogging as I keep hearing "you need to write this stuff down!" I hope that this will be a way for people to learn about exchange programs and maybe one day want to be a part of a cultural exchange.
IT'S A BOY!
We were finally chosen by a student... Dennis was born in Shinjin and has lived in Hong Kong for 3 years. We set up a Skype chat and we had a lost in translation moment as we thought we knew the date that he would call us but it ended up that he called us a day early which actually ended up being the day of my grandmas funeral, fortunately the chat was a bright spot in a very sad day. Dennis was very nervous and being coached from someone off camera.
THE FIRST MONTH
We worked like mad fools to get our house moved and in order for Dennis and got his room furnished. When our student Dennis moved over it was his first trip to the US, he is 15 so one year older than Victor was when he came the the US. Before we became official "houseparents!" We had an initiation experience where "lost in translation" led to frantic sprinting around the airport looking for "3 Chinese people." We returned to the airport the next day- which was the correct day, this was the first of the many "lost in translation" experiences.
Our student's family (mom and cousin) stayed for two weeks and we tried to show them as much as we could but Victor and I were both working full time so we didn't get to do as much as I would have liked to. Before school began we got him set up with a bank account, phone, took him to get school supplies, Dr. appointments, and updated the vaccine record.
The first week of school came three days after arrival so he hit the ground running. He seemed to like American school but of course didn't really understand the spoken English. The first month we had to speak very slowly and even though we thought he understood later we realized he did not. My Mandarin came in handy the first month it was much faster than looking up things, but google images also came in handy!
So Dennis went to church for the first time ever, unfortunately I am sure he didn't understand anything, I remembered the first time I went to a 3 self- church in China I was exhausted and didn't understand a thing, I was like Dennis...falling asleep. The first month we explained a lot to him since everything is different from East to West. So many new experiences have led to interesting discussions.
MAJOR LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES
Living in China taught me how extremely difficult it is to switch from a phonetic language to a character based linguistic system, then there are tones, ma, ma, ma and ma each said with a different inflection mean 4 different things. I learned that exclamation points and question marks are spoken in Chinese! In English if you want to ask a question, the entire sentence has can change tone, it seems to rise at the end of the sentence, not so in Chinese. Also characters are little pictures that build into concepts, but letters are sounds that make words which have meaning. Chinese is VERY direct which is why it sounds rather harsh when transliterated, so westerners often view this as being rude. A Chinese speaker learning English will sound monotone, because, in Chinese full sentence intonation doesn't exist. If you want to be emphatic in Chinese, you might speak louder but still monotone.
EXPRESSING PEOPLE IN MANDARIN
So the whole gender thing is different too: you are "ta" he is "ta" she is "ta" animals are also "ta." I also found out that when you visit China don't expect people to speak English...they read English, which is very different from speaking English. On the other hand age is noted very definitively, for example, you have older brother, older sister, younger brother, younger sister but never just a sister, or brother. If you talk about grandparents the side of the family is indicated by what grandparents are called!
SAVING FACE
Ok so one cultural mystery is "saving face" a concept which will drive most westerners mad. It's like they are trying to be so nice that they won't tell you something directly so it ends up creating so much confusion and frustration, the phrase "killing someone with kindness" comes to mind. Personal
Real life example: The Chinese may tell the westerner to be ready for an event that starts at 4:00 pm. The foreigners rush to be ready, because there wasn't much leeway given. The westerners drag themselves down half dressed and paste on a smile and the Chinese say "we will leave in 10 minutes" this goes on for 2 hours... Even if the Chinese knew they weren't leaving until later they might still make you sit in an un-airconditioned bus with ugly wet hair because they don't want to trouble you and lose face by telling the actual time of departure...confused? Well, I am also confused, and this is the most difficult thing to contest with when communicating with the Chinese. I constantly have to say "here are the choices please tell me which one you want." Even with that caveat you still have to guess the meaning behind the words.
So anyway we have been having interesting convos and experiences comparing and contrasting cultures across the globe, our dinner table is never boring we always have lots to talk about and great opportunities for meaningful discussion.
I plan to keep better track of blogging as I keep hearing "you need to write this stuff down!" I hope that this will be a way for people to learn about exchange programs and maybe one day want to be a part of a cultural exchange.
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