First Week of School

The nerves we initially felt with starting a foreign language in a foreign land are starting to leave.  After only a few days, we started to connect with our teachers and our student volunteers.  Our weekday schedule has us starting class at 8:30 and finishing between 11:30 and noon.  Sometime after lunch, one or more volunteers meet us to work with us on our Chinese and to take us to places on campus and in JC.

Emily, Mrs. Liang, Megan, and
teacher's assistant Sun in class.

Our lessons this week were quite basic.  We learned words for family and food.  (These concepts are so important worldwide and seem especially so here in China, that it made sense to start with family and food.)  Every one of our teachers and volunteers gets so excited when they're talking about food and they really want us to try some of their favorites.  Noodles (miàntiáo, 面条) and dumplings (jiǎozi, 饺子) are very popular in Henan Province and JC.  Unfortunately, AJ and Megan both suffer from gluten intolerance.  It's unheard of here in China, so our teachers, volunteers, and even Kam have a hard time understanding why someone would not eat a steamed bun (bāozi,包子).  So Emily put the burden on herself to eat AJ's and Megan's shares of the steamed buns.  And noodles.  And dumplings.  And other fried doughy goodness.

In addition to learning new words and sentence structure (which is simple when compared to the structure of English sentences), we also learned a Chinese song.  One of our teachers, Mrs. Liang, played a song for us called "Tian Mi Mi."  Hearing AJ sing "My Sweet Honey" was delightfully funny!  It was fun to learn a new song!  But this was also a very effective teaching tool that made us concentrate more on word tones.  Mrs. Liang wants us to know the song by heart next Friday.

AJ and Zephyria look at the globe.

iPhone showing Megan a book
about China's geography.

Our volunteers have been wonderful!  We already know we will miss them when we leave.  This week, we experienced so many new things with Zephyria, Sun, iPhone, and Kelly.  Zephyria, Kelly, and iPhone took us to the school library, which has a huge globe.  We all stood around the globe talking about our hometowns and important places in China and in America.  We pointed out Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.  They pointed out the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.  Our countries are worlds apart, but standing at the globe, we felt so close to these kids!

JC street vendors grilling up
some tofu kebabs.

Later in the week, Kelly and iPhone escorted us to downtown JC, which they call the city center.  We rode a city bus (16 cents!) to a bookstore, where we spent 30 minutes looking for pinyin/English dictionaries.  AJ's diligent search found us exactly what we wanted!  We then went downtown, which is a big shopping mall and alleys full of vendors selling delicious food. 

Volunteer Sun and AJ surrounded
by post-it notes in the apartment.

 On Thursday, Sun came to our apartment with sticky notes.  She labeled just about everything in the apartment with its name in pinyin.  Who needs wall art when you can have post-its!  Even our toilet/shower is labeled.  It was so helpful to hear and see words for everyday items, like teapot, bed, washing machine, etc.  Sun also prepared a video for us.  We watched a traditional Chinese wedding.  So beautiful!  So ornate!  But it was also quite touching to know that Sun really put a lot of thought into helping us.  Her culture is so important to her that she wanted to share it with us.

Our first week of school was thought-provoking, fun, and occasionally frustrating.  We are learning the language.  Slowly, to be sure, but our teachers are wonderful.  And we are learning the culture.  And as much fun as this part of our journey has been, we are ready to see nature!  Tomorrow, we will have stories and photos from our first visit to Grand Canyon's sister park, Yuntaishan.