This is your final and most difficult homework assignment. You have two weeks to complete this assignment.
Introduce yourself to a foreign exchange student who is a complete stranger to you.. Engage in an extended conversation or even an activity such as inviting them to join you at English Corner, go to climb a mountain, go shopping, have lunch or just coffee, etc.
Write a 250 word summary of your experience.
At the beginning of your summary put your new foreign friend’s name, home country and telephone number. Post your summary here.
THE NAME, COUNTRY AND PHONE NUMBER WILL NOT APPEAR ON THE PUBLIC WEB PAGE. The name, country and phone number is required because if I think you are making up a story I will call your new friend.
The foreign exchange students have classes in the same building as HEL both on the 3rd and 4th floors.
Most foreign exchange students also speak English as L2 and will appreciate having a new Chinese friend to practice English. Last semester this was the most successful and appreciated homework assignment. Just read “Holistic English, A Revolution, not an Evolution” to confirm this.
I went to the 4rd floor of the 3rd teaching building aim to find a new foreign friend last Monday. When I got there they were just having classes. So I have to wait outside until they had a break. I approached a tall man with Middle East looking and spoke to him with smile, “Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Wayne Wong, a post graduate student of Lingnan College from Chinese. My English teacher gave me an assignment that I have to make friends with a foreign student. Could we make friends with each other? ” That man was shocked at first. But just a second later, he smiled to me and spoke very slowly, “Hello, My name is Abraham and nice to meet you.” Obviously, Abraham is a L2 and he doesn’t speak English very fluently. We then chat very happily just at the platform of the balcony and we knew each other more. Abraham comes from Yemen and he came to China just to learn Chinese. He once studied Chinese at Jinan University which also in Guangzhou. He thought Chinese is much more difficult for him to learn than English. He wanted to have a lot of friends with Chinese students to practice his Chinese and so he was very happy to make friends with me. He said he was going to stay in China for several years so I think we will keep in touch in the future and become very good friends.
Min was introduced to me through a friend, a Korean, who is tall and manhood, he speaks good Chinese and English as well. In fact, there are many Korean restaurants in Guangzhou, but I have never tried for Korean food because I do not understand the etiquette of Korean, so I would not choose Korean restaurants. Now , it’s a good chance for me to learn how to enjoy a meal with a Korean. We just clicked, got together to taste of authentic Korean food. At noon, we arrived at Westin Resort in Tianhe district.
Min also brought his beautiful girlfriend, I also like her because of her beauty, generosity and passion. We ordered a Korean hot pot and a bottle of sake. frankly, It was different from Chinese hot pot ,however, they are both delicious. During the lunch, from beginning to the end, they instructed Korean meal etiquette to me , such as, the right gesture of pouring sake to another’s cup, you should go through your wine in the cup when someone is going to pour drank in your cup, otherwise, it’ s a rude behavior. We also talked about the recent earthquake in Yushu, in China. Recent two or three years , a lot of natural disasters happened in China, which was really terrible. we joked that 2012 will really have a disaster, will it come true? How time flies, as we chatted very high. Two hours later, we taxied back to the school.
This was a happy day, firstly, I had lunch with two foreigners who have been my friends now, secondly, I know the Korean dining etiquette, finally, I also realized that, whatever there will be a disaster or not, we should be alive happily every minutes. Thank you, dear Master Min and charming girlfriend!
I met my friend in front of Lingnan Hall. When I see her for the first sight, her beauty stunned me. I didn’t expect that a girl from Thailand is so tall and pretty. She came across Lingnan Hall with two other her classmates. After introduction, I knew that she is Kijchanuthiphong Wadee, from Thailand and of mixed blood. Wadee now is studying in Lingnan College as International MBA.
And then we went to English Corner and talked in English with other friends. During the conversation, Wadee told me a lot about Thailand. For example, Siam is Thailand’s old name and Chiang Mai is one of the most beautiful cities in Thailand. What’s more, I got to know that she got her bachelor degree in Britain, which makes her English so influent. Of course, what made me surprised is that she could speak Mandarin and Cantonese really well! And the end of our talk, she showed me her language talent. From my point of view,she could pretend to be a local Chinese with her nearly perfect Mandarin or Cantonese.
After our nice Conversation, I know more about Thailand and Thailand people. And it is a very interesting experience in SYSU campus because I wouldn’t accomplish this task without pressure from this oral class.
First of all, I have to thank my roommate, because it is just though his help, I get to know a beautiful Indonesia girl. She’s a friend of my roommate. And after he has given me her telephone number, I just don’t know how to contact her. Won’t she think me strange or even rude?
Last Saturday, my friend and I were planning to go to the Sun Yat-Sen memorial and the Yuexiu Park, and I send a message to her, telling her who I am, my purpose, and then invited her to join us. Lucky enough, she was free at that day, and agreed to go with us.
We spent a whole afternoon together, and all of us feel very happy. During the conversation, I got to know that her family has a Chinese origin in the past, but had settled in Jakarta for several generations. She told me that, for various reasons, she doesn’t know any Chinese at all when she was in Indonesia. So after she came here in 2008, she worked very hard to learn our language. She also told me many local Indonesia food and famous travel resorts, and it made me realize how ignorant I am, since the only things and places I have ever heard about before, is the Bali Island.
I also shared something about China, Guangzhou and my hometown with her, and she seems to be very interested in them. And we agreed to keep in contact.
I think this assignment is difficult but really interesting and inspiring, since it provides us with a golden opportunity to make new friends, share different experience and acquiring more English.
The day we met was last Saturday!
It’s a sunny day, and the sky was so blue and the sunshine was so bright that we couldn’t have ourselves in hard work along with the cold computers and went out to enjoy the fantastic day outside.
My roommate and I planned to go shopping in the other side of Pearl river and we took the waterbus in the pier, where I found three foreigners getting on the boat following us. The idea of finishing my homework here rushed into my mind, but I hesitate for considering it might be impolite to bother them as a stranger, and then my roommate inspired me and advised that maybe I could give them some advice of weekend’s leisure in Guangzhou as return. So I walk over to them, said hello to them, introduced myself, told them the reason to make friends with them, asked their plan for today, talked something about their destination, Shamian ancient buildings, and got each other’s phone number to get further contact.
We knew each other and helped each other, and this also created a good chance for me to make new friends with the foreign students. It’s two birds with one stone. I think next time maybe I can invite her or her friends to go out for a class activity together with my classmates, and it will be a better chance to communicate with each other in a trip or in the game.
I met my new foreign friend by coincidence. I was playing badminton with my roommates, in the gym of SYSU. Zoli came to us and asked whether he could play with us. He’s very handsome and looks very energetic in his sportswear. He said he love doing sport very much, but there seems to be not so many chances for him to do his favorite sports, i.e. parachuting, here in Guangzhou. It’s really a happy thing talking with him, because we never met anyone who love, or even dare to try parachuting. Amazing guy! Before leaving the gym, we changed phone numbers and QQ numbers, and continued our chatting through the internet. He told me that he came from Hungary and his family lived in Budapest, the capital of that country. He sent me a picture of his hometown. It’s such a beautiful city that I can’t imagine what life is like there. He loved China so much that he had already made his mind that he’ll stay and work in China after his Chinese class in SYSU ends. His father worked in Dongguan, so he kept shuttling between these two cities. He wanted me to help him with his Chinese so now I got another job to do. We talked much on QQ and sometimes face to face, too. Teaching him English was not an easy task because I have to think about Chinese words in English, and it’s my first time to do it. Some words seemed so easy for us to understand, but to him, they turned to be a disaster. I finally got the idea that it’s never easy for anybody to learn any language in this world. All studies call for endeavors.
Nicolas was introduced to me by another student from my school. He is a boy from France and is now study in Lingnan College in our university. We had a talk in the English corner in the Friday evening. The interesting thing is that he looks like an Asian which was so different from my imagination. And his girlfriend who is a local Cantonese looks like a person of mix blood. So the couple looks very special. He said he was study in College, at the same time he did some trading from China to other countries to get some income. He talked about some experiences that he attended the China Import and Export Fair, which is also called Canton Fair. This exited my interest for that I have also been an intern there about 2 years ago. He said the fair really amazed him when he first got there for that there were so many attendants and so many unnamed interesting gadgets. We exchanged our ideas of China and France as well. I even practiced my poor France with him. I could feel that he was also very happy to know more Chinese friends.
Actually foreigners are more accessible than I used to think. As long as you treat him or she like an ordinary Chinese friend, she or he will see you as a friend. Despite language and some culture gaps between us, the modernity world and the globalization actually contribute to many similarities between us- we could read common books, watch common movies, and even share the common values towards the world. How amazing this is!
On April 16, 2010, I went to the English corner. Acctually, the English corner was always held on wensday. And the Friday one was organiazed by Pro. Martin. So when I attended there, I surprisly found that most students were my classmates. Luckly, there was a foriegner, who was invited to take part in the English corner by one of my classmates.
To accomplish my task, I approached him directly. He was chatting with a few students and I joined there convesation. He was very nice and by chatting we learn more about each other.
He was a students studying in Lingnan School, the same school with me, and he was from France. The interesting part was that he looked like an Asian, while his girl friend, who was a Chinese, looked like an foriegner.
Nicolas was very smart and good at bussiness. Through he was in China for a few mounths, he got femilliar with China inmmediatly and begain his own bussiness, importing textiles to his country. Resently he was bussying with attending to the Canton Fair. And I told him I used to work in the Canton Fair as an internship job. So we talked something about Canton Fair. Resently he was very bussy with his bussiness. And as time went late, we change our Tel. numbers. For he is bussying with visit the Contan Fair these days, we have not have any extended activity yet. But later maybe we will contact with each other more frenquectly.
It is a most impressive experience to me. I try to make friend with a foreign student by purpose. However to my surprise I failed. That is the most frustrated thing I have ever met because I always think that I am a girl who is easy to get along with. That happened a week ago. I went to our school’s English Corner Wednesday night, and fortunately I found an Indian boy talking with others. I felt very happy and thought it was a chance for me to finish my assignment. He was talking to a girl happily. From the content, I knew she was also his new friend. I said hello to him and ask for his name. To my surprise, he was so cool to me and show indifference. I felt a little embarrassed but I still tried to talk to him with the words “Could you be a friend of mine?” Even made me amazed, he said, “You are a stranger to me. You are not my friend.” So sad to me! How could he be so determined to refuse a Chinese friend.
I determined to go back after this frustration. I was raining and I felt a little helpless. At this moment, a boy passed by and knocked down my umbrella. “Sorry!” He said to me. And I found that he is a foreign student. I began to talk to him and invite him to a coffee. But he said he has an urgent thing to do, so we just walked along the road and I saw him off at the north gate. He is a Turkish called Filiz ,a freshman in SYSU. We had a nice talk and departed happily. It is another strange but surprising experience.
I took part in an English corner on April 23, 2010 which was organized by one of my classmates.There was a Thailand exchange student who was grown up in Thailand and got her college education in an English university.As a result,her spoken English was quite fluent and the accent was very good.She also brought her two friends who were Chinese and pusuing IMBA to the English corner.They were also good at English and preparing an program of Business Plan.To some extend ther gave us confidence to learn the English ,our second language ,better .
First of all,we introduced ourselves.I think I liked the young lady as soon as she talked.She was so friendly and humorous that I became relaxed graduatlly.She is beautiful and has a good temperament.
Then we talked about the culture of Thailand,such as lady boy and fortune-telling.It seemed that we were all interested in these topics.When talking about the lady boy I recalled the performance by them.They can sing and dance with high quality,which attracts so many foreigners to travel in Thailand that the government can get a lot of traveling income each year.However ,I was sorry to hear that some lady boyes were forced to be involved in this field because of the poor.Maybe they are beautiful in appearance but some of them don’t enjoy it at all.And we can distinguish them by the voice,their bigger hands and feet.All in all,it is just a kind of culture.
Concerning the fortune-telling,one of us said a lot of stars in HongKong and Singapore felt like doing it by flight.Most of us thought that it was crazy.And it was mysterious.We all doubted that there was any person who can predict future.But in fact a lot of people are persuing it.And then we were puzzled.
I think this experience will be a good memory.
My new friend is not a foreign exchange student but a tourist I met on the coach from Kunming to Dali in Yunnan province. Because it took four and half a hours to ride, we had a break and ate something in a small service station . When I wandered the booths, I noticed Yvonne had quite a problem——she knew so little Chinese that she can’t tell the hawker what she wanted .Then I became her interpreter and helped to order a lunch. After that we become friends and exchanged our email address. During the time we spent in Dali ancient city, we climbed the Cangshan mountains together and sang on pleasure-boat passing through the Erhai Lake .We really had a good time then. When the route was over, Yvonne said goodbye to me sadly and promised that she would write regularly. Now we are still concerned with each other.
I always wanted to have a foreign friend eversince I was taught English. And with the help of MSN, I made some foreign friends on the net. However, they seemed not so pleased to talk to me, maybe, because of my poor English. I have been feelling upset about this before I met her, Kate.
It was a simple story. We first met at Sun Yat-Sen University when I was lost on my first day of my postgraduate. She was so kind that she not only helped me out but also showed me around the campus. It was a wonderful day and we exchanged our phone numbers and , so easily, I had my first foreign friend, real.
It was her second year in China and she already knew some Chinese then. But she felt so willing to have a partner to pratise her oral Chinese that she asked me for help. And I agreed, of course. Our first day of pratising was so funny that anything seemed to be so cute that day. Laughing, as I can remeber, was the only thing we did that day because of our misunderstandings on words, English and Chinese.
And now, I have made a few more foreign friends with the help of Kate. No matter how broken my oral English is, they always can get my meaning. So I do not insist any more that I can improve my spoken English by talking with them. I would like to say that English pratising is the last thing I get when I am together with them, while happiness is what I really treasure.
I have a new foreign friend now! Her name is Cao Ngoc Nuong, she comes from Vietnam. When one of my close friends knew that I want to have a foreign friend, she introduced Cao Ngoc Nuong to me. Last Sunday, Cao Ngoc Nuong and I spent a whole afternoon together, and all of us feel very happy. She is a friendly approachable person and very beautiful. During the conversation, I got to know that she came here in 2009, and she worked very hard to learn our language. Form my point of view, her Chinese is excellent because she can communicate with me without any difficulties. How I wish my English could be as good as her Chinese! And she told me about many famous travel resorts in Vietnam and invited me to visit her hometown. I was astounded by her travelling experience, she has been to many places in China, even some one I have never been to. Besides, we find that we have lots of common interests, such as watching movies, shopping, listening to classical music, playing badminton, swimming and so on. At last of our conversation, we both believe that we can be good friends.
Frankly, previous to meet Cao Ngoc Nuong, I always think to communicate with a foreigner is so difficult, not to mention to make friends with he/her. However, now I think to have some foreign friends is a good idea, it will let me know more about different things and can bring me different ways to view the common things.
When Nicole, Bill and I were having coffee at South Lawn Cafe, worrying about how to make friends with foreigners, two pretty foreign girls comes to us saying “Hello” and ask if we could make friends with them. We were so surprising that how they knew what we were thinking. And surely, we agreed with their asking. The two girls names are Nicole and Maria, they comes from Hawaii. They used to teach English in primary school in Hunan. And recently, their friends invite them to visit Guangzhou. They lived quite near and they found our university when hanging out occasionally. They said they like China and they want to make friends with Chinese. They are so happy that here is a university here because it is much easier and interesting to make friends with university students. In that case, they went in here and luckily met us. It was so great.
We soon got on well with each other. We planed to show them around our campus after lunch but the weather suddenly turned dark and rained heavily. So we can only stay in the cafe and chat. They are curious in leaning Chinese, especially how to say “how much money does it cost” and “I don’t want it” in Chinese. Maria said they like shopping, if they know how to ask money in Chinese it must be cool. And they sometimes meet peddlers who walked after them and wanted to sell them things that they do not like. They want to learn how to reject them. They said they like Chinese food very much. I told them that there are many nice foods in Guangzhou, like morning tea food, soup, dessert, etc. Since I am more familiar with Guangzhou, they asked if I could go with them to have a try these delicious foods. I agreed pleasantly. And we are going to make it on next Sunday.
They told us about Hawaii. Hawaii is a very warm place and the rain season in Hawaii is on December, most of time there is sunny except for December. At home, they always wear T-shirts, slippers and go to play on the beach. What they said makes me forward.
By chatting, I find we are so close with the two young girls from America. We both like sports, traveling, watching ‘ Lost ‘ and ‘ Prison ‘, shopping etc. Maria said her favor job is being a clothing assistance, because that kind of job will give her chances to try all kinds of clothes and match them perfectly.
We stayed and kept on talking until Maria’s friends call they to go back home. Bill helped them to buy two umbrellas from Duo Pin Mei Market and we left our cell-phone number to each other. I hope next Sunday come quickly so that I can hang out with my new foreign friends.
On a Sunday night, I received a call from Diana. She asked me whether I had made a foreign friend. I said no. Then she told me she had known a new friend from Africa, and she asked me to join them. I am very glad to hear that and I went to the coast of Pearl River to find them.
The new friend is Kalong who is from Seychelles. He has been china for several months and will study for a doctor degree in South China Agriculture University. Before his research life in SCAU, he needs to learn Chinese language in SYSU for about one year. He told us some interesting thing about his hometown and his major. Both of us enjoyed the time very much. We stay together for almost 3 hours and then we sent him back to his dormitory. What a good night!
Yesterday, my roommate and me want to eat barbecue. My roommate is an Islamism believer,
so we must eat food that is cooked specially. We found a Sinkiang man who was sold barbecue,
we asked he if he is an Islamism believer, he said definitely yes. So we chose to eat barbecue.
During eating, we found there are a lot of foreigners who are from Islamic countries, they can speak a little English and a little Chinese, so if they want to communicate with the boss of the barbecue inn, they
Feel very difficult. I met a very cute guy, he want to eat mutton, and he did not know how to say it in Chinese, I want to help he, I ask him if he could say English, he said yes, so we use English communicate with each other, which is second language to both of us, but it is world language. Then we introduced ourselves to each other, and invited he to eat barbecue together.
I have found that, our English are poor, but, in some situation, English is very important. So we should make friends more and more, and use English more and more.
Mr. Martin gave us a very important work, everyone referred to make a foreign friend, The beginning I do not know how to find a foreign friend, As the roommate’s help, I met a German boy, he called Simon, He majored in geography scientific. Last week Wednesday, I with my roommate livor, meet with simon in the South Lawn to, and this is my first time contact with foreign friends, at first, I feel so tense. On one hand, because my English is not good, on the other hand I don’t know what topic suits us to talk, because I worried about different countries and cultural differences will affect us. In fact, Simon is a very smart boy, very lively. He talked with us many things about herself, for example, members of his family, and his life and study in China, and so on.
In the course of Conversation, we are talk talked about topics of philosophy, for example Socratism, Cicero. In fact, the atmosphere of our talk is not yet so strained. To contact with foreign friend , the most important things is to communication. Here, I wish my friend simon have a good time in China, learning progress and happy life.
Last week, I went to the first teach building on the Friday with my classmates. And we all tried to find a foreigner to make friend with him or her. I encountered luckily a foreign student on the third floor .When he and his classmates had a break for the Chinese class. For the first time, I could make a conversation with an unrecognized foreign person. So I felt a little nervous and didn’t know what I should to do. His name is BAHA and come form French live in China for about two years .At the beginning, I made a mistake for I thought BAHA may come form Africa because of his appearance similar to that people. Then we talked about personal things about each other hobbies, Chinese culture and his country culture and study in the china. I knew that his job is about business and he just do a lot of business jobs and study hardly Chinese everyday. He can learn a lot of things about culture thought his Chinese friends and he interested in Chinese culture. So we talked about the Confucius philosophic thoughts. We just thought that the philosophy provide a different way to view and observe the world. And we also talked about his country’s culture and life. But because I am not prepared for that, I just listened to his explanation and descriptions. When it comes to the hobbies, we all like playing the basketball and watch the NBA .So we talked about sports events especially related to the NBA playoff and stars which happened recently. Of course, we all love Lakers and Yao .And he told me that he would like to listen to the pop music home and abroad, to have a cup of tea every week ,to watch the Chinese movie in his spare time.
How time flies! It is six o’clock. It is time for us to eat the supper. So I said BAHA that I want to invite you for the dinner. But my friend had an appointment with his clients today .It doesn’t matter. We all remembered each other phone number at last before we say goodbye to each other.
I met Nicola last week Our meet sounds accidental. I am not a person who likes sports. But at a certain time last Tuesday I wanted to see my good friend Fang, who was an enthusiast of Chinese shadow boxing. When I arrived at the boxing field, I found Fang and various people were all exercising Chinese shadowing boxing. Among them there was a skillful guy who seemed not Chinese. So I asked Fang to introduce him to me after they had finished their training. Fang began to speak Chinese, for apparently this fellow’s Chinese was not bad. However, when this fellow’s mood became very “high” his Chinese speech would be too incoherent to be understood by me. Therefore I persuaded that we would speak English.
I got to know his name was Nicola, and he loved Indian and Chinese culture pretty much. I told him that one of my roommates met him in the Sanskrit seminar in our department of philosophy. He smiled and said that he had learnt Hindi for a short period in his own country. I asked why he chose to go to China not India. He answered that he preferred Chinese culture to Indian culture. Later we had a dinner together in the fifth canteen. To my wonder, it took him several minutes to make his rice like a perfect semi-sphere in his dish before he ate it. I didn’t know its reason. Maybe it was a mysterious convention in some oriental region. Eventually I had not asked him why he did so. Most contents in his dish were vegetables. To sum up, I thought he was more oriental than I was.
I meet my foreign friend after a class, his name is Anthony. he is a nice guy when I told my task to communicate with a foreigner, he promised he can help me. so we decided to meet at last Sunday and had a supper together. I never talked with somebody in English totally, so I felt very nervous before I meet with his. But when I saw him, his sense of humour and witty made my nervous disappeared, and I tried my best to express myself. Amazingly, he can understand what I said.
We went to a Chinese restaurant and I told him the dish and explained to him when the waiter introduced the dish to me. Although my English was not good and he cannot understand what I said totally ,but we had very good supper together.
Make friends with foreigners
On the last weekend, I knew two foreign girls through my good friend , Bai. The two foreigners came from two different countries. One was called Ding from Vietnam; the other was called Xiao fen from Thailand. They were cute, friendly and easygoing very much.
Ding had been in China for five years, and did her best to learn Chinese and English. Her family was in the north of Vietnam where was near to China, and her farther came into China usually because of business. Vietnam was a socialistic state, and the fields of communication and cooperation with China referred to every aspect, which was frequent and convenient extremely. In the culture, Vietnam was affected by Chinese culture, especially Confucian school. Many festivals were the same between us, such as Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Tomb-sweeping Day, and so on. I told her to marry with Chinese boy to stay in China forever. She smiled to answer me that she wanted to go home. Even though, there were many similar parts, it’s very different in life style and customs.
Xiao fen came into China in the last year; even so, her Chinese was OK. Buddhism was the State Religion of Thailand. And English was Thailand’s official language. In addition, the computer language was English, too. So her English was very good.
On that day evening, we went to double Sheng Sweetmeats, and communicated with each other for more than one hour.
Before talking with foreigners, I felt that foreigners were mysterious greatly. But now I do not think so. They love to make friends with Chinese and help with each other. We welcome them to China.
I am a lucky dog! Why I say like this, because I am an assistant of the office in the school of teaching Chinese as a second language. Everyday I can see the foreign exchange students. Let me to show you how I acquainted Kate and my supercalifragilisticexpialidocious with her.
She is a 23 years old girl from American. I told her that my professor assigned a task to me which was to introduce myself to a foreign exchange student who was a complete stranger to me. She was so kind, so kind, so I invite her to the English corner on Wednesday.
The English corner began at 7 o’clock, thus we met at 7. She and I were both punctual at the English corner. At first, there are a few people; however, we didn’t feel lonely. So she stared the topic with “study Chinese in China”. She told me that she had studied Chinese for six months; she could speak and read a little Chinese. What’s worse, she can’t pronounce the right tone. She also told me that she wanted to go to the north of China to study Chinese, because the people over there are speak mandarin Chinese but people in Guangzhou speak Cantonese.
About 30 minutes later, the people were more and more. The Chinese students wanted to speak to a native speaker, so she was surrounded by so many students. And the students asked her so many questions. I thought she must be very tired. I also wanted to speak to her but I failed. I just have only mouth, I can’t conquer with so many different mouths.
About one hour later, we left the English corner. She said to me “feel free to call me when you need my help”.
How nice the girl is!
Last Friday, after I finished presentation for the course, I just would like to have something fun to relax myself. Then the assignment of meeting a new foreign friends came into my mind, after a second thought, I went to the L2 to have a try. As I walked into the L2 Third teaching building, I found there are several students on the aisle. When I was confused to figure out who would be more easily to get well with, a beautiful Asian-looking girl was walking towards me. I introduced myself to her, and then I realized she also would go to the canteen, so we walked together to the canteen and chatting along the road. I am glad to know that she came from Vietnam, and she was funded by the China & Vietnam Government to study here. Before came to China, she already had a job in Vietnam. To my delight, we have exchanged many ideas in the field of the similarity and difference between China and Vietnam as well as the tourism development. I was interested to know that there are many people worked for agriculture in Vietnam, and every village had one field which is work for all the people in the village until 1990s. What is more, the development of tourism is on the rise, and more and more people go to Vietnam to appreciate the culture and wonderful landscape there. We chatted happily and she was invited me to pay a visit to her hometown Ho Chi Minh City, and I said that I would love to. We exchanged our contact message for future contacting.
One day, I went to English corner for the first time. I really didn’t find an exchange student , and I didn’t know any other new foreigner except Mr. Martin this semester, I’m afraid that I have to talk about my former student Collins who I taught her Chinese last semester.
I met her with the help of my classmate Li, who helped me find a part-time job of teaching the foreigners Chinese. In fact, Li shared the job with me as she taught Collins in weekends and I taught Collins on Monday and Friday.
When I wrote here, I missed Collins very much. She was so kind even though she was a little cool because she only told me she was an European and she never mentioned her homeland. I respected her, and I never asked her about her privacy.
Also she was fond of learning, she asked me not to speak any English with her, because she wanted to improve her Chinese as soon as possible. Also, she was such a polite person that she gave me some chocolates as Christmas gift on Christmas Eve, I felt so moved as it was my first present that day.
At the end of last semester, I had to stop teaching her because my heavy homework.. I felt sorry to her as I never met her again. Maybe this is so-called: Destiny, as we are the passers-by of each other.
I kept her phone number but I never called her since the last time I met her. Maybe someday, I will call her, and say how have you been these days? Maybe she has forgotten me, but I still remember her.
First, Name: Isak Gunduz French and his friend Farid Azzag
I know quite a lot foreigners. But we are just nodding-friend and I seldom contact them. In order to finish the homework assigned by Martin, I invited two French exchange students for lunch on Wednesday. But they never showed up that day. I made several calls and sent many short messages but didn’t get any reply until evening. They apologized to me that they went out the night before and got drunk. So they slept all day and totally forgot my appointment. I was a little disappointed but I told them never mind and asked them to take care of themselves. Then I invited them to the English Corner on Friday evening. They said OK and promised to come. On Friday afternoon, in order to avoid the unpleasant experience of the first time, I made calls to remind them about the English corner appointment. They just rang off and again they didn’t keep their promise, which made me really angry. I think these two guys owe me an apology and explanation, and they can’t escape because they take an IMBA elective course which begins on May 4, of which I am the TA. How could they break an appointment without any information?
Second, Name NICOLAS INSIXIENGMAY French
I knew him because he missed a class quiz and the teacher agreed to give him another quiz only for him. Then the teacher asked me to be the proctor. I supposed him to be foreigner from his name, but I was shock by his Chinese-looking. Both his grandparents and parents are Chinese, but he was born and grew up in French. I called him on Friday evening when I knew that Isak couldn’t come to English corner. He was very happy to accept my invitation and arrived half an hour after my call, with his girlfriend. It was very funny that his girlfriend was very foreign style while was actually a local girl who is from Guangzhou. They are managing an export company together. It was a very happy experience with him.
In order to complete to homework, I and my roommates decided to make a foreign friend in this afternoon. When we walking in the road, I thought we may run into foreign on the road. Fortunately, we met a foreigner on the road, but I and my roommates wanted to talking to them go ahead. It was disappointed that we did not talk to them go ahead. Finally we went to the three religions to find foreign friends. Because there were many exchange students. When we entered the three religions, we saw a lot of foreign students on the balcony. I was very anxious and afraid. But in order to improve my English, I told a foreigner not far away and I said: “Excuse me, I want to make foreign friend and I asked him where are you came from? But surprised me, he actually told me that he is Chinese. However, my roommate found a foreign friend. So she introduced me to this foreigner, he called Enre and he came from Britain. He told me he liked China. And he told me he came to China to study Chinese. Because he went to class so that we did not talk too much. But we felt very happy. Finally we exchanged phone numbers. I think that I will make many foreign friends in the future.
When I had knew that our final assignment was to make friend with a foreign exchange student, I was all at sea. I was afraid that striking up a conversation with a foreign girl casually could be regarded as crudity. Just when I had not gotten any countermeasures, my roommate Ken saved me. He was the president of SYSU Taekwondo association. He told me there were several foreign exchange students in SYSU Taekwondo association, and he could introduce to me. Last Saturday, there was a Taekwondo competition held by SYSU Taekwondo association. Most members came to Guangzhou, and I came with Ken too. That day, I made a new friend called Denis. He was a Vietnamese exchange student, and was also the member of SYSU Taekwondo association. We were both a little shy for first meeting, and we didn’t know what to say except Hello. Then Ken suggested that we should go to bar after the competition, we all agreed. After drinking some beer, our conversation was getting well. I knew that Denis was a mixture of Russian and Vietnamese. “You’ve got a Russian face and a Vietnamese body”, Ken said it in joke. I asked Denis his hobby, he said “Drinking”. We smiled at one another: it seemed that meeting in bar was the perfect choice. We had a good time and a good drink. When we left, he suddenly called out my name in Chinese and said goodbye to me. I was surprised, but Ken told me his mandarin might be better than someone lived in Hong Kong.
Kallon is a black man who comes from Africa. Before meeting with him, I was a little upset, for under my impression, black men always wear heavy perfume which is smelly, and you can not tell who is who, especially at night, the only thing you can see clearly is their teeth which is bright white, except for this, you can only see the moving eyes. I do not cherish kind of discrimination anyway.
A friend of mine introduced Kallon to me. I phoned him and asked for a jog. He was nice enough to reply me with OK. We made the appointment of meeting before his dormitory, but I made a mistake of the building number, so we met at the north gate of our university after half an hour. Kallon was a man of 30 around, he was easy going .after talking with him, I know that he was from Africa, and his major is animal science. He came here 5 months ago, and going to live here for 3 years to get his PHD degree. His wife died in country war years ago, and to my sorrow, his father died last week. He cannot back home until July. Because of study time, also the expensive plane fee, which will take him about 21,000RMB.
Everyone has his own story; you can never tell whose happy one is. And you can learn from every other person no matter where he is from.Kallon is such a person .He goes to bed late into 2:00am and gets up early at 6am. What a hardworking guy he is. How I wish he can find his soul mate soon. Hope he everything goes well. Nice meeting Kallon.
In fact I had planned for several days but I didn’t take any actions until today. I decided to make new foreign friend this afternoon. I left my dormitory to the classroom building with my personal information card at about 4 pm. I walked from third floor to fourth floor to look for my future friend. Finally I found a girl who stayed outside the classroom alone on the fourth floor. I decided to make friend with her. I approached her and told her my request to make friend with her. Then I give her my personal information card and introduced myself and she accepted it. We began to talk. She came from Indonesia and had been in Guangzhou for about two and a half years. She came to Guangzhou after she graduated from high school in Indonesia because her parents are Chinese. She was a third year undergraduate majoring in Chinese so she could speak Chinese fluently. I asked her why she chose Sun Yat-sen University and she told me that because she had a relative in Guangzhou. I asked her whether she had been used to the life in Guangzhou. She said she could get used to the life in China but her families were all in Indonesia so she missed them. She told me that Chinese students were well-behaved. Time was flying and she had to go back to class. I thanked her for her conversation and asked her to keep in touch. I felt happy after this wonderful conversation because I made a new foreign friend. But I forgot to tell her my Chinese name so I sent her a message tonight. I hope we can keep in touch in future.
Before the homework,I had made two foreign exchange students.Because of the same interest,we knew each other.All of us like free combat,we went to the same trainning hall.Wu Yuezhong is a Vietnamese,he comes from Hanoi,which is the capital of Vietnam.He joined the association before me,he have achieved the green belt.He is fascinated by the Chinese Martial Arts.One day,I performed a set of chinese Kongfu,he came to me and asked something about the set of Kongfu,then he asked me to teach him.Through the communication,I learned something about him.He is a undergraduate student of Chinese Department.His chinese is not very good,when I said something,I needed to explain it in detail.The other friend is a Colombian,his name is Lan Tianyu.He speaks in english.He said that Lan means blue,tian means sky and yu means universe in chinese.He have learned some of MuayThai,so his body flexibility is good. But in this trainning hall,he is a green hand.Sometimes he asked me how to do.He trained very hard time and made rapid progress. I find that it’s very easy to communicate with foreigner. Except for diffierent skins,languages and so on, they like us in some ways.
When I went to the English Corner on April 16th, only several foreigners were surrounded by too many Chinese classmates. So I have to choose another way, finally I recognize Henri through my roommate who works in the EMBA courses.
The first meet come in last Sunday morning, I invited him to play snooker in the north gate. He has been to China for two years with his parents, and he has a part-time job in the French embassy in Guangzhou. He will go back home for his fiancée is waiting for him. We talked about the history of snooker, and the top players in the world. Coincidentally, we both love Ronnie O’Sullivan best, who is the number one player in the recent seven years. Although I had considered to avoid referring to the politics between France and China, when he said how Olympic Games solved the conflicts among different countries and peoples, I remembered the Olympic Bid in 2005, in which Paris also participated, and China always supported Paris for the long good relationship with France at that time. However, President Sarkozy’s recent acts led to dissatisfaction by Chinese people.
Henri explained a lot, I couldn’t understand all he said, the main idea was that France had always supported the independence of China, but some innocent people were killed in Tibet because of Dalai Lama. I don’t whether this is true or false, maybe both countries have done something wrong, and we need to reconcile and cooperate more to solve these problems.
Both of us were happy to meet each other, when all is said and done, nothing can stop our communication and cooperation. After the first meet, we have sent messages to talk about many other things, like hospitals and the coming World Cup, I hope we can keep in touch, and help and understand as much as possible.
This afternoon, my two roommates Nancy and Kate and I were talking about the email from Martin sent. The thread was opened again, we still have to finish our homework. But how to find the L2 friend to cooperate with me? So we decided to go to the Third Building where we have our chinglish class. Before 3:30 when the foreign students may still there, and we can make friend with them.
On the way to there, we heard some people talking in excellent English, there are just three handsome boys behind us, Nancy said we should talk to them, and Kate said, “go, go, go”. Unfortunately, we were not brave enough to grasp this big chance, but see them go away.
Then we reached our destination. Woo, as usual, there were so many foreign students standing outside the classroom. Just at the second floor, there was a big platform with some tables and chairs. Two or three people were talking or playing game.
We were observing them, hoping to find someone that looks friendly and easy to talk with. I noticed there was a boy listing music with his earphone and drinking a coffee. He was chatting with another boy. When the boy left, I walked to him directly. He was kind and has a good-looking face, I guessed he come from England. I told him my purpose and asked whether he could help me. He agreed pleasantly. I was a little nervous and embarrassed because I have never talk with a foreign people like this way. From our talking I know that his name is Enre, and he came to china eight months ago from england. He can speak a little Chinese. When I saw most of the foreign students were leaving I asked him whether he had a class. He said yes, but he didn’t want to take because he felt it was very boring. I asked him for his telephone number, and he tore a little piece of paper and wrote down his name and number. I intended to talk something else to him but I found that maybe he don’t want to talk more because he put on his earphone. So I thought I have to leave.
This is my experience.
I did not know a foreigner before, and my friend introduced her foreign friend to me. So a few days ago I knew a foreign friend for the first time. Her Chinese name is Liang Meihua, she is from Thailand,.Although I spoke English not very well, I tried to use simple words and talked to her. We talked about the origin of our names, she previously had an English name Amber, the same to me. She is a Thai Chinese, and her ancestors came from Guangzhou Meixian, she is the third generation. Then We talked about home, major, learning and living. This was her first visit to China on September last year, and she majors in Chinese Philology now. I think a girl who is alone in a strange country to learn a language, facing different people, different culture and different life, is very brave. In addition, she enthusiastically introduced some methods of learning English. I found that she was very friendly, patient, and her words were very encouraging. In short, I felt happy to have the first foreign friend. If I can always insist on talking like this, I believe that my English will certainly make a lot of progress.
That was the first time we have met on the Sunday evening. His name was cangjin who was a exchange student now and form Thailand, I tried my best to speak English and introduced me to a foreigner. He was a very neighborly person, we discussed many delicious topics, I found great illumination in his remark. For instance: have you ever wondered what you would do if you were a billionaire? He said to me: many people say that they would buy a big house or travel the world. As for me, I would start school. If I had a school, I would be able to educate many children and teach them right form wrong. Anyone can tell you that children are a country’s future. If my dream comes true, I will be very happy because I will be doing my country a great service. After listened to his words, I had lost myself in thought deeply. China was a developing as well and Conception of education is still very backward. If everybody was concerned about the future of our country like him, Future would be better. In the end, we had the phone number of each other, this was a pleasant talk, Looking forward to next time.
The first time I met him was on my way to the classroom four days ago. He was playing guitar at that time, his nice singing voice attracted many people. Everything was quiet, the bird in the tree stopped working too, only the excellent voice and the gentle wind disturbed our hearts. So wonderful and hansom he was! During having a rest, he told us that he began to learn guitar at his age of seven from his father, his father was a very strict teacher. ”I hate him.” He laughed sweetly and had no any anger on his face. And then he friendly let a girl who stood beside my right to choose a song from the list, we enjoyed the happy time together again.
Yesterday was the second time I met him. After introducing to each other, he understood what I was going to do and gave me his personal message soon. To my surprise, he could speak Cantonese, many some simple sentences, though not well enough, I was so excited and shy, because he had been here just for more than six months. This time we communicated just for about 15 minutes.
His name is Chris, who is a gentleman comes from Sweden.
Owen, a man of mixed blood, his mother is a Chinese, and his father is a foreigner, but I can’t remember what his father’s native country is. I can’t make sure whether he is accordance with your demand. If it doesn’t , you can delete this comment.
Some days before, I went out to have a dinner with my friend, and along with him was Owen, a handsome guy, and when I saw him at the moment, I used to think he is an American, but after my friend’s introduce, I knew he is a man of mixed blood, it is so interesting that this is my first time to make friends with a mixed blood. And from our conversation, I knew he is a freelance, he is good at photography, and also he is a model who had appeared in many magazines, and he invited me to take a few photos some days later, I agreed with no hesitation.
He is a humorous man, and also a friend worth making with.
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It’s a fotgetable experience for me to make friend with him. One day I walk on the street as usual, and look the advisement on the wall. Sudenlly, I found an advertisement of look for some Chinese teacher. And then I call the telephone number on the advertisement to make friend with him. Because he want to improve both his Chinese and English he make friend with me quickly. First We had a long conversation at cafeteria. I learnt that he had stayed in China for 2 years already, and he has 8 brothers and sisters in his own country that is to say he has 10 family members. And his brothers and sisters go to different countries to study. Surprise me that he just go back once time a year and he said this is because he must spend 20,000 to go back. That is means that it is too expensive to go back. And he make bussiness in China as translation to earn some money. When know these about him, I admired him very much and not only English but also other I can communicate with him to have an improvement. I was shy at the beginning but then I open myself to communicate with him and say something about me. Later we decide to join the English corner to make more friends and to improve both his Chinese and English. Last week we got to the English corner and have a very happy experience.
I was very ashamed that I did not finish my homework in time. It was a fine day, in order to finish our tasks, my roommates and I decided to head for the 3rd teaching building. On the way, we met three handsome foreigners who were planning to play baseball. We wanted to say, “Hello”. However, none of us had courage to chat with them, we chuck away a good opportunity, what a pity!
Fortunately, when we came to the 3rd teaching building, many foreign exchange students were relaxing and enjoying sunshine on the open balcony. Then I made a fool of myself. I saw two students were communicating with each other. I walked toward them and said, “Excuse me, I am sorry to bother you, my name is Nancy, I am a postgraduate. My English teacher gave me a homework that I should make friends with foreign exchange students. Do you have any time?” They laughed, “sorry, we are native of Sinkiang (a Chinese province). But I can introduce some foreign students to you.” They introduced us to two foreign girls. “Hello, nice to meet you, we are students in Sun Yat-Sen University. Where are you from? ” “France”, “Belgium”. “……” We chatted away like old friends. But they began alert to us when I asked for their telephone numbers. “Can you tell me your telephone numbers?” I asked. “Sorry, we don’t have mobile phones.” I was surprised, “Mobile phone is an important tool for us to keep in touch with our friends. What kind of tools do you use?” “Computers”, they answered.”So, can you give me your ICQ number, or Emails?” I added. “Sorry, we have to go now, classes beginning.”
My roommates and I felt utterly deflated and got ready to leave. Just then we found a foreign man enjoying a cup of coffee, we decided to have a try once more. As an old saying goes, “A work ill done must be twice done.” After realizing our purposes, the man said, “Yeah, I can help you. I’m Enre, an Englishman. I have been learning Chinese eight months. This university is quite beautiful, my classmates are warm-hearted, everything goes well, except for boring classes and difficult lessons. Maybe I need time to find my feet. Sorry, I must leave now. Chatting with you is a nice thing.” “Wait for a moment please, can you tell us your telephone number? Can we make friends with you?” We asked. “Yeah, of course”.
“Experience is the best teacher.” Through this experience, I realized that practice was the most important element for English learning.
I knew her through a friend, and we had a conversation with each other on Saturday. She told me that she was not living in the exchange students’ dormitory and rented an apartment close-by with a friend. I asked why, because I thought it was more convenient to live in campus and it was more interesting to live with many classmates. She told me that she had lived with a roommate in students’ dormitory in campus at the beginning, but her roommate usually made phones very last at night, so she could not sleep well and feel sleeping in the morning. Then she found that renting an apartment outside would spend equal with the cost on students’ dormitory, so she decided not to live in the campus any longer and rent the apartment.
I asked her what she usually did except learning. She told me that she spent most time after school on watching movie. Although she knew many Chinese friends, they didn’t play together usually. I thought her life was a little monotonous and maybe she would feel lonely sometimes. I told her that I usually went shopping with my roommate, played cards and badminton with some friends, and sometimes sung sings in KTV. She asked me if there were any place in the school where she could learn table tennis, I did not know this either, but I was willing to pay attention to involved information.
It is my pleasure to know a new friend from Denmark, and I’d love to have a further conversation or go shopping with her. I hope I can introduce more information about china to her and know more knowledge about Denmark.
In SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY, there are a lot of exchange students living and studying here. Therefore, in my opinion, if you are brave enough, you are bound to make friends with foreigners. I am a member of SYSU Taekwondo association, and there are some foreigners in our association. When I had knew that our final assignment was to make friend with a foreign exchange student, I remembered our association’s foreigners at once. Last Saturday, there was a Taekwondo competition in our school, so I went with my roommate Kevin. We talked with a Vietnamese exchange student Denis, and knew that he was a mixture of Russian and Vietnamese. After the competition had finished, I suggested we went to a bar for some drink because I thought that foreigners would like to talk in a bar. He bought us to a bar that we have never visited, which has a lot of foreigners there. At first, I felt a little nervous, because there is a place where the number of foreigners is more than the number of Chinese. However, after drinking some beer Denis told us there are a lot of his friends in this bar, our conversation was getting natural and well. We all found that Denis was good at drinking, because he told us his hobby was drinking. About one hour later, we left the bar and went home. That night, we overcame our fear for foreigners.
Thanks to my roommate’s exchange trip in Germany last year, I can make many foreign friends from his introduction. Knowing my task of making a new L2 friend, he introduced his friend Daniel immediately.
Daniel, who came to China for his research on the city geography, is a foreign student from Cologne, Germany. I was introduced to him last Sunday, I told him my purpose, he is so kind and polite that made me so embarrassing. He introduced his specialty in college, his favor, also some culture in his country. For his kindness, I introduced myself happily and invited him and my roommate to get dinner.
Luckily, the more we chatted, the more same habits we found from each other. We both loved traveling. He told me that the Tibet is his dream place, where I used to be a volunteer as a teacher last year. I talked a lot about Tibet, and the journey in there. He said I was a lucky guy to be born in China so I could be a volunteer easily for Tibet. I promised him that in the next year when I came back to Tibet, I would take him and make a wonderful trip together.
What’s more, we are both football fans. We talk lots about the football league in EU. We shared our experiences, skills and tactics about football. We also made a deal that we would organize a small team to play in our school. Thanks to the homework, I made a real friend.
It was in the morning of April 23, three classmates of mine Jennifer, Nicole, Levin and I got together at South Lawn Café. We came there with the purpose of coming across foreigners. Because South Lawn Café was popular among foreign exchange students, we believed that there was a large probability.
It was just 8:30 am, there were few customers. We sat around a table in the corner and chat with each other. The weather outside was good and it’s beginning to breeze; the circumstance inside was also pleasant; I enjoyed the background music very much.
About half an hour had passed, more and more customers came in. Among them, there were two foreign girls. We greeted them warmly and expressed our wishes of making friends with them. They said it’s a great coincidence, because they came here with the purpose of making friends with native students of this university too.
We invited them to join our table, and we started to introduce each other. The fair-skinned one was Nicole, she had a pair of blue eye which were very beautiful. The brown-skinned on was Maria, she worn wavy hair and always had a sweet smile. They both came from Hawaii. Maria’s ancestors were Colombians, so she could speak Spanish. They were not exchange students but travelers; they spent much time teaching pupils in Hunan province before they came to Guangzhou last month.
I found they were very talkative. We talked many kinds of topics such as hometowns, hobbies, foods, famous scenic sites, etc. They were eager to learn Chinese, asked us to teach them on the spot. For example, they wanted to know how to say “thank you”, “how much money does it cost?”, “it is beautiful.”, “water closet” in Chinese. They were very smart, and learned very fast. We were all so excited that we almost neglected the fact that it’s raining heavily outside.
We complained to them the awful weather in Guangzhou, they totally agreed. Maria looked outside and told us the proper sentence to describe the situation was “It’s pouring outside.” When I found they did not take umbrellas with them, I went to the supermarket nearby and bought two umbrellas for them. We planned to have dinner together at our campus canteen, but we canceled that plan because of the bad weather. Before they left, we exchanged our phone numbers and promised to keep in touch.
Last Saturday I had a walk along the Pearl River, where I met an Italian boy whose name is Mursi, he’s tall and gentlemen, Actually to say, it is very hard for a girl to chat with others especially foreigners proactively, but that time I got up my courage to do that. Mursi’s English was not so good, so we had a little difficult to communicate. However we could understand each other within some body language. He was a shy boy. Somehow shyer than me though I am a girl. W e walked along the pearl River, talking about China and Italian food like Italian noodles and pizza. I dreamed of having them. He said he was good at football, I thought there was no doubt about that, because Italians are always good at football, unlike China.
Then we went to the a dessert shop, having some cakes and a small pizza, he was so gentlemen that he paid the fees to the cash collector before I found out that and intend to pay the dinner. He had been Baiyun mountain and he said he liked the beautiful scenery there and wished to be there again, so we appointed to go to climb when the weather become fine some day.
I think it is funny to make friends with foreigners, not only for knowing more about foreign culture but also having mew friends and enjoying ourselves. From this experience, I went through cowardice and become natural and confident. In the future, I will be more brave and smooth to facing new strangers and new things.
I have a new foreign friend now! Her name is Cao Ngoc Nuong, she comes from Vietnam. When one of my close friends knew that I want to have a foreign friend, she introduced Cao Ngoc Nuong to me. Last Sunday, Cao Ngoc Nuong and I spent a whole afternoon together, and all of us feel very happy. She is a friendly approachable person and very beautiful. During the conversation, I got to know that she came here in 2009, and she worked very hard to learn our language. Form my point of view, her Chinese is excellent because she can communicate with me without any difficulties. How I wish my English could be as good as her Chinese! And she told me about many famous travel resorts in Vietnam and invited me to visit her hometown. I was astounded by her travelling experience, she has been to many places in China, even some one I have never been to. Besides, we find that we have lots of common interests, such as watching movies, shopping, listening to classical music, playing badminton, swimming and so on. At last of our conversation, we both believe that we can be good friends.
Frankly, previous to meet Cao Ngoc Nuong, I always think to communicate with a foreigner is so difficult, not to mention to make friends with he/her. However, now I think to have some foreign friends is a good idea, it will let us know more about different things and can bring us different way to view the common things.
When I received this homework from email, I feel it’s very difficult for me to make a foreign friend. Because, I am a boy who doesn’t like to talk with strangers. So, I tend to help from my friend. I hope them to find a foreign exchange student for me, but several days passed, there is no answer from my friends.
Last week, I was lucky to meet a foreign boy with my roommate in the third classroom building of SYSU campus. He came from Japan, who is tall and handsome. He speaks good Chinese. He is exchanged to China to study Chinese. His major is education. English is not his mother language, so his English is not very good, but his Chinese is so perfect. It’s very hard for you to guess the nationality of him, if he doesn’t tell you that where he came from. We had a pleasant conversation on that evening. He told me some things about his country. He also told me that his feel about the china. Through the talking, we know some basic information. He had been in China for several years. By this way, we not only make some friends, but also improve our English. If possible, I’d like to know more foreigners and make friends with them by this way.
It was the first time I strike up conversations with a complete stranger especially a foreigner in this way. Yesterday was a sunny day; I decided to finish my homework of making a foreign friend without delaying any more. I asked my roommate Joe who was also worried about the task to go with me. First, we went to the library to take a chance. There were some students but very few exchange students. I found a student who was reading a book concerning oral Chinese that I guessed he was an exchange student here from a certain Asia country. We walked around him for several times but didn’t have the courage to talk to him. It was so silent in the library that we were afraid of disturbing others and gave up finally. And then we went to the Building 351 where most of the exchange students live to”wait for windfalls”. Several minutes later, a foreigner with fair skin and golden hairs was riding towards us. I felt nervous and forced myself to come up to him without thinking too much. I said “hello” to him when he responded “你好” in Chinese. I was surprised and asked him whether he could speak in Chinese. He said “yes” with confidence, so we started to talk in Chinese. After I present my purpose in coming, he took my telephone and started writing his own number in my cells directly with a cold voice:” You are not the first one to ask me for telephone number with such a goal. If you just want to fulfill your homework instead of really making friends with me, I will give you the number. ” I was ashamed of making him feel offended and just didn’t know what to say. After a moment’s silence, we tried to make up this embarrassing circumstance by asking him about his grade, his major and his interests. That seemed work because he started to talk on and on. We knew that he was in the same grade with us and was going to be a Chinese teacher for foreign students in the future, which encouraged him to study Chinese well. That he was able to talk fluently and write correctly in Chinese after learning it for 3 years surprised us a lot. We made a promise to keep in touch with each other and say “Goodbye” happily.
I got to know Anne last Friday in the gym “Zhong Ding” on Xiadu Road near our school, where there is a discount for students. I and my roommate went to the gym the first time that day, and we was suprised to see quite a few foreigners exercising there. But they were almost men, I was not sure wheather they were our school’s students, so I just went to the callisthenics room to learn my yoga. Good luck to me, I found a female foreigner and her Chinese friend also learning yoga there. Yeah, the foreinger is Anne. They must be from our school, I thought. When having a break, I came up to say “Hello” to them, and then we chatted and knew each other. Just as what I expected, Anne is one of the MBA students from Lingnan College and her Chinese friend Susan is her buddy also from Lingnan College. After finishing our exercise, it was already 20:30. We felt tired and thirsty, and I asked them:”Should we go to have some drink together? I know there is an inn providing very delicious sugar water (what I meaned was Syrup) nearby the small northern gate.” They agreed and Anne was interested on the “sugar water”.
It was a happy experience contacting with them. Anne was a cheerful and accessible girl and we really had a good time. We four, including Anne, me, my roomate and her Chinese buddy Susan, intended to go to the gym together very Friday.
Last Tuesday, I made a new foreign friend under the help of my roommate, whose name is Victor. He came from Costa Rica. He put English as his second language. He has been in China for a month. That day, I invited him to dinner. Surprisingly, when he arrived, he also brought two foreign friends. They all were from Latin America. We had hot pot outside the north gate of the school. At the beginning of the dinner, each person introduced himself to the others. Then we started to enjoy the dinner. In the middle, we also talked about our learning and school life. We even talked about the romantic things, for example, love. Because it tasted delicious, we all ate a lot of food.
After dinner, we went for a walk beside the Pearl River. We enjoyed the beautiful night together. When we separated, it was close to 10 o’clock. We had a good time. We decided to climb the Baiyun Mountain when we were free.
On the road back, I was very happy to see these fiends. I thought I would have a lot of chances to improve my English. I would keep in touch with them.
There are a lot of foreign students in the building where we have our oral English class. We have a lot of chance to make friends with foreign students.
After the oral English class on Monday afternoon, Sara, June and I decided to seize the opportunity to make friends with foreign students to finish the assignment that Professor Martin gave us.
We went downstairs and found some foreign students there, in the gallery or in the classroom. At the beginning, when foreign students passed by, we were too shy and too nervous to say anything. It was really embarrassed to talk with strangers, especially foreign strangers proactively. We missed several opportunities. Finally, we decided not to hesitate any more, or else we could not finish our assignment.
We saw two Asian girls sit there and they looked nice and beautiful. Ok, they were our target friends! We went to them and said hi to them. We asked them to do us a favor that we needed to make friends with foreign students to finish our English assignment. At first they felt embarrassed as us. In order to tell them we were students in SYSU, we even shew our student card to them. They were two girls from South Korea. Their Chinese name were Zhenxiu Quan, and Shengyi Zheng. Their English were not good, but hey could speak a bit Chinese. We tried to communicate with them in English but they just spoke non-fluent Chinese to us. We talked about their study and life in China. And we also talked about the stars in South Korea. When I said Jang Dong-gun was my favorite South Korea star. They also became excited and said Jang Dong-gun was so handsome and he was going to get marry. And we exchanged our telephone number.
I sent them a message that “I am familiar with SYSU and Guangzhou city, if you need some help or want to practice your Chinese, please feel free to contact me.” They said I was the first Chinese friend they made in China.
In the May Day holiday, Zhenxiu Quan sent me a message to ask whether I still remembered her and wish me a good holiday. I am very happy to receive her message.
Thanks for the tough assignment, I have foreign friends now. I have finished the tough job and enjoyed a lot of fun. In the future, what I should do is to be more confident and never be afraid of losing face. And I will tell my two foreign friends more about China.
Ling, a tall and pretty Thai girl, was introduced to me through my classmate.
I never met her before, so we arranged to meet at McDonald’s outside school after my English Class. To my surprise, she spoke good Chinese, though she had been in China for less than one year. Of course, her English was much better. She was born in Thailand, but was educated in England for many years. So her English is almost as good as her Thai.
Though it was our first meeting, she acted so kindly and breezy that we enjoyed a cheery chat and a good evening there. Ling had been to a lot of places and it is interesting to talk about her experiences. She told me much about Thai, England and other Europe countries. She also shared her impression of China with me. She delights China and is likely to work in China after graduation.
She liked Guangzhou，so I share with her what I know about Guangzhou, such as shopping facilities, local food, leisure place and culture life.
We both would like to keep in touch. So before saying goodbye, we made another appointment with each other.