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.
Since I have spent nearly five years in this campus already, I had some experience in making foreign friends. Last year, I got a part-time job as a Chinese teacher. Briefly speaking, I taught a Thai girl named Goon, and made friends with her. In my spare time, we often went shopping together and I always bargained for her. After a semester, I met her younger brother, her friends and classmates from different countries. Finally, some of them became my friends and we even added each other on both MSN and Face book. Till now, we are keeping in touch with each other.
Actually, the “mission” friend has some connection with them. His younger sister, Hasegawa Manami, was a friend of Goon. When the Japanese girl heard about the mission, she was glad to introduce her brother to me.
Last Sunday, I met Mr. Hasegawa Shogo at the Starbucks in Tianhe after my shopping. We spent several hours talking there. Mr. Hasegawa was attending the same level of class as his sister did last year. He was elder than many students in his class, but he looked just like a fashionable college student—T-shirt, jeans, backpack, and rimmed spectacles. He had a job in ANA (All Nippon Airways) as a copywriter. He loved traveling, because the experience of flying made him full of energy. This time, he had taken a leave. I didn’t think a typical Japanese man would do such things like him. When I asked him about this, he laughed and claimed that he was quarter-blooded Chinese. He got the spirit of adventure from his grandmother as a heritage. We talked a lot about his journeys, anecdotes and plans in the future. I told him my dreams, such as opening an audio studio, and teaching Chinese in other countries. Mr. Hasegawa encouraged me a lot. “If you have a plan, carry it out instead of daydream. Maybe you’ll see me as a pilot next time,” he said.
It was fun for hanging out with such a foreign friend.
She is absolutely a genius on learning languages.
I was introduced to her by my professor. He told me last year that this semister a Polish student would instead of him to teach us Latin. At that time I was a little bit worried about it because it is so difficult to learn Latin even in Chinese, how could I learn it in English?
But after meeting with Maria, I found I was totally over-worried. She’s got a fluent English although I can hear her Polish accent. Furthermore, when I had problems in expressing my ideas in English, she could soon catch my thought with eye-contact and gestures, which made me feel comfortable to communicate with her.
Once in the Professor’s home, I found her watching the TV with pleasure. It was a Chinese movie with no scripts. So I asked her if she understood what this movie told about. She nodded and narrated to me what happened in this movie, and she also told me she was so loving movies, dramas and so on. I said, “I’ve got 2 tickets for the Yue Drama next Tuesday, would you like to come together?”
“Sure.”
“All right, I’ll phone that day.”
So on the Tuesday night, Maria and I went to Liang qiuju Hall to have our drama. You know it’s not easy to understand what Guang Dong people say in their native tongue. I have such problems, so does Maria. But it’s lucky for me ‘cause I can read the script. So I intended to translate the meaning to her. However, Maria told me I didn’t have to, because it must affect my own watch, Just translating the introduction would be OK. So I did. Therefore we both enjoy the drama very much.
One regret: we were willing to take a photo with the actor of Zhong Kui, but there were billions of people arround him, so we had to give up.
I want to introduce my new foreign friend from Tanzania whose name is Konzo. He is a MBA student in LingNan College Sun Yet-Sen University. He has been China for three years: the first year for doing business and next two years for study. He can speak four languges: Tanzania, English, Chinese and Cantonese. How brilliant and quick learned he is! Besides a MBA student, he is also a business man who doing the external trade, from China to Tanzania. So he is very busy beacause he takes so many classes and also has a lot of work to do. He said he loves China, and if one word should be taking to discribe his feeling about Chinese culture, that word must be complicated. I think he tell the truth. During the time we have dinner together, he always keep smailing and talking. In my opionion, he is an interesting and experienced person who is kind to everybody.
The way I know him is introduced by my classmate. At first I get his name and phone number from my classmate, and I send a massage to invite him to have dinner with me: Hi, Konzo. This is Amy. I want to invite you to have diner with me this evening. We can eat some food which you prefer and have a good conversation. So if you are available, please let me know. And he said: Ok. Then we have dinner together and chat with each other. What a wonderful day!
Having missed the opportunity to attend the English corner and Chinese corner with my roommates last Saturday, I just consider attending it this week.
One day, on our way to cafeteria, we came across my roommate’s new foreign friend-Li Xiaofen. She also went to cafeteria with her friends, so we had lunch together.
During the lunch, I got to know Li Xiaofen and her friend Xu Meilian—a girl also from Thailand with my roommate’s introduction. When I prepared to talk to them in English, they talked in Chinese fluently instead. They told me that they come to china majorly for studying Chinese. I was surprised by their names look the same as our Chinese name, Meilian explained to me the reason. It is because their Thailand name cannot be translated into Chinese correctly due to language differences, they have to change a new Chinese name after living in china. We talked about our study and shared some interesting place to go or shop in Guangzhou.
Except having sense that Thailand is a place of interest and its capital is Bangkok, I known little about it before. Meilian told me a lot about her country and I got to know more about this beautiful country. Meilian recommended some places of interest in her country to me. I want to have a trip to Thailand in holiday next time. Meilian said that it was worth having a tour in her country. It is very happy to have dinner with them and I made a L2 friend who is so kind.
Right after class, Doris and I lingered around the First Teaching Building, looking for some nice foreigners to make friends with. There were so many foreigners round in a circle chatting and we didn’t know how to insert into the conversation. At this time a charming guy was walking towards us alone. We went up to him immediately and said hi. After we introduced ourselves in turn, we were surprised to find that he came from Egypt and arrived at China just that morning. At this time I started to look at his face carefully. That’s true! His eye pupil and eyeliner were dark black like the figure of Sphinx, a typical Egyptian. We stated that this was our English class assignment and we also hoped to grab this chance to improve our English. He was very surprised and confused. He showed his ID card for the trade fair and said he would work as a translator there in the next few days and recommended to us this way to practice our English. I responded with my appreciation and said that I like the great scenery and the mysterious culture in Egypt. I made clear that I did want to make friends with him regardless of the assignment, because I wanted to know more about Egypt and I was local citizen in Guangzhou and would be willing to offer help if he needed. He smiled and said then he would be willing to be our friends. We exchanged our phone numbers.
At the evening I received his call. He said he wanted to hang out at Saturday or Sunday night and we could dine out together and then go shopping. I promised I would show him authentic Cantonese food. To be honesty, at first I was a little bit disappointed because I thought he was a black American who could speak native English. But now I thought making friends with an Egyptian was funnier. Any way, we talked in English and as I had explained to him, “Steel sharpens steel.”
English is beautiful, because it broke arriers which come from different countries and different language, which can be proved by the fact between my new friend Martin Pfeiffer and me.
Last Friday, I went to 201 room in school of Chinese as a second language, where I met Martin Pfeiffer, to join Chinese Corner with my friend Su Hong. Martin Pfeiffer comes from Germany, who had got the degree of master in UK, and now as an advanced students in Sun Yet-sen University. His name impressed me first, which is the same to my lovely oral teacher Martin Wolff. After we were introduced by Su Hong, she left early because of something, so we must exchanged by ourselves, of course there are kinds of difficulties, at the beginning, I didn’t know what to say and what he was interested in, so I hadn’t done nothing until Martin talked to me initiatively. “Have a girlfriend?” His question really surprised me, but it brought harmonious atmosphere at the same time. Then we chatted so warm that got a lot of the common topics, such as R&B, travel, basketball, the views on Chinese culture, and so on. Martin learned some musical instruments, and sang in a bar, we both love R&B singer Craig David and Babyface. And at that time, he sang “seven days” to me, only one word can be described his singing is “perfect”!
Good times are always so short, after about 2 hours, Chinese Corner ended, but the friendship between Martin and me just started, like the “ Auld Lang Syne”.
On a Saturday morning, after a lazy lie-in I went to find myself a foreign. We went forth to the International Student College where most of the exchange students study Chinese.At the beginning, we found everyone is having a class, both Floor#3 and #4. So we stood aside the corridor and waited for someone to come. Luckily a boy seems like African came up, we caught up with him and told him our purpose of making a foreign friend. Unexpectedly, he asked, you want my name and phone number, right? We are so surprised. It seems like he had met someone that has the same purpose as us.
With our talk going deeper, we found we have many things in common and continued to talk about hobbies like music, dishes, and books. Even though he was hurrying up to a Chinese class but he continued to talk with me and said that’s ok. He said he had already learned Chinese in another university in Guangzhou before but that’s not so useful so as this one. Being a Chinese learner seems to be a kind of fashion for them.
We were both felt glad to know each other and promise for further communication someday later. With a new foreign friend will enable us to know better how China looks like in foreigner’s views.
In fact, the first time I saw her is last year, the first sight of her is amazing, she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, deep eyes, high nose and white skin, sweet smile. That time I was an assistance of Lingnan MBA centre and she was consulting about MBA education. Then I took charge of classifying information of students of new term and found her material and got some information about her. She is from Russia but stayed in China more than 5 years, graduated from Sun Yat-sen University majored in Chinese Language and Literature in 2008 so she can speak Chinese fluently, also she has a very poetical Chinese name. I remembered such a girl looks like a Barbie but never thought that I would know her better in coming.
Another new year came, I picked a Specially-appointed Professor from Nagoya University in Japan up, I would be his teaching assistance of course Managerial Economics in MBA centre. I followed him to the classroom and saw the beautiful girl again but now my role changed. Actually, there were more than 5 foreign students in Class 09 Full-time A, boys from Ukraine, Indonesia, Vietnam, girls from Russia, Thailand. They cannot speak very good Chinese so we commuicated in English. We communicated not just said simple “hello”, but also discussed Economics Case. Maybe some of them English are even poorer than mine, all of them are not English L1 the same as me, but small language barrier could not hampered our communication. All of them are nice, met each other in classes, different countries, different colors and different first languages, but became schoolmates and friends soon. That should owe to English, universal language for human beings.
My L2 language friend is Mickel who comes from America. Actually I have knew him for two years. Because we share a good friend called Thierry who comes from France .As a professor ,Thierry teaching western philosophy in philosophy department .
Let us go to Mickel, we have a dinner in Thierry’s apartme . I went to the apartment which on the 19 floor of YaXuan building behind the little north door of our university. And I took some vegetables for cooking ,because Mickel is a vegetarian.When I was cooking ,the door bell rang ,I get the phone and listened the familiar voice belongs to Mickel. Along with him there is a Porland girl called Mary who major in latin language and exchange to china for three montns for learnimng chinese.
When we have dinner together. We talked to eachother .and I knew Mickel’s grandfather is a chinese and his grandmother is an africa Americane.so he has chinese blood and had relatives in Guangzhou.He knew Thierry in Beijing.and he major in International relations in Sun-Yat-Sen university.he got a scholarship from chinese government .so his fee for living and studing in China nearly all paid by chinese government.
Mary came from Porland last month,I didn’t remember her full name ,Marry is just her english name.she has a habit of smoking.and looks heavily ,nearly one cigaratte half an hour.and she like talking and laughing ,looks very happinese.
After dinner,we ate some cheese cake for dessert .and enjoy a movie together.
Another Challenging Day
Today is another hard day for me to challenge my English and courage because I have to make friends with an exchange student who is also a stranger for me.
Every time when talking to some strangers, I will blush. It makes me disappointed to myself. I am convinced of that communicating with strangers is a very important skill nowadays, but I don’t know how to conquer it.
I bite the bullet and accept the tough job. I go to the Foreign Language Building where there are many foreign students having classes here. I am standing outside a classroom and thinking about that how I should start to strike up a conversation with the strangers. Maybe I should begin with telling them I get lost at school and need some help. However, I veto this misadvice immediately because it is too old and makes me look like an idiot. Suddenly, the bell is ringing and many students come out from the classroom. I am nerves.
A tall and fair boy is coming to me. I am staring at him and try to open my mouth to talk to him. I can’t speak anything until he leaves. “I must be brave and seize the opportunity.” I encourage myself. Now a very beautiful foreign girl comes out and I try to raise my hand to say hello to her. However, it seems that she doesn’t see me and leave, which makes me so upset. I miss one by one till no one comes out from the classroom.
When I am despairing totally and would like to go, a girl who looks like Chinese comes out. I try my best to say hello to her. I tell her I would like to learn English together with them and get more details about the English course. She tells me that she came from Vietnam and exchanges her cellophane number with me. Finally, I overcome myself and complete the tough assignment.
I tried to make friends with foreign exchange students last week, but the three students I asked were strange with my request and they didn’t plan to accept my invitation. I felt upset and didn’t know what to do. But luckily, I finally made friends with a foreign tourist from Australia.
I met this tourist near the campus library that Friday afternoon. He asked me the way to YiChou Memorial Arch and I surprisingly found out that he spoke English although he looked like a Chinese. He told me that he was a tourist from Australia, exactly speaking, he was an Ethnic Chinese. So I made up my mind and introduced myself to be his “campus tourist guide” in that afternoon. He was very happy!
So I showed him around our campus, from the south gate, along the Yat-Sen Road to the north gate, with introducing the famous building and places of the campus, such as HuaiShi Hall, Martin Hall, XingTing. Sometimes I was not quite sure about the history of the building, I could only tell him the general information of the building, but he was still interested at what I said. Besides that, I told him that I was a student from Lingnan College and introduced what I was learning to him. He thought highly of the course information and our extracurricular activities. I also told him the interesting experience of my buddy job and teaching assistant, he thought that it was a good way to learn more about the culture of foreign countries and how to communicate with foreigners, especially their way of thinking.
We had a good time that afternoon. In the end I asked him whether I could get his phone number, he was surprised at first. After explaining the reason, he was pleased to give me his phone number and his email address to me.
I spent a happy time with Tommy.
My foreign friend, Malick, is studying in South China University of Technology and majoring in architectural design. He is such a tall man that I have to look up on him when I talk to him. I know him about a year ago, but it is a week before I decide to make friends with him just for the task. So I try to send him message in QQ, and tell him the reason why I want to know him. To my surprises, he get vey angry, and think me as a strange woman. And I agree on that, which makes him happy. That’s the beginning of our cross-country friendship.
Later, I find more and more amazing experience about my friend. He came to China four years ago. It is so long that he forgot why he comes to china. But He has been to all the province of china, except Qinghai and Tibet province. He also has been to my hometown, Yiwu, a little business city, famous for small commodities. What’s more, he began his travelling around the world since 4 years old. Apparently, he has been to a lot of places in the world. He manages a company in his spare time for his mother, which makes him become more mature than his peers. And he has a little brother in Guangzhou; his parents come to china very often for business.
For his Chinese is excellent, when I cannot express myself in English, I speak Chinese to him. It is strange that makes a friend with a totally strange foreigner. He has a lot of strange ideas to the Chinese and China that I cannot accept it.
I think that making new friends through old friends could be a good way. Thus I asked my friends whether they had known any foreign students, and one of them, Wing said that she could introduce one to me, Shakirovich. Since we all like playing badminton, we four students went to the Ying Dong Gym last Friday. He is now major in Business Chinese in Sun Yat-sen Universtiy. He has come to China for three years, so he could speak fluent Chinese. He likes China and he had been to some cities in China. Sun Yat-sen University has given him a deep impression, including the beautiful campus and friendly students. Badminton is his hobby and he comes to play in the gym quite often. There he made many new friends. He had already known other two friends, Wing and Bob, they met exactly in the Ying Dong Gym. We talked as we were playing badminton, and we had two on each side and played for 2 hours. He played quite good, so did Wing and Bob. It was really a good time. And we all hope that we could play badminton together next time.
Tonight I met Karan at the South Gate of Campus. He is a student who is going to study computer science in our University. It was awkward at the very beginning. I told him about the assignment, he asked if I talked to him just because of the assignment and looked a little upset. Then he told me he was trying to find a girlfriend here and asked if I was available. After answered no, I got nervous but I convinced myself not to judge people that quickly. So we went on talking and I found that he just got to China not long ago. So I offered to show him around the campus. On way he told me what he learnt so far about the campus, I agreed with some of that, but it’s still very interesting to hear about that: 1, people do a lot of kissing and intimate behavior in public in campus, and that is not common in India. India, they don’t even hold each other’s hands in public in campus. 2, Seems almost every girl has a boyfriend on this campus. 3, Girls are hard working here, even more hard working then boys, and they are also the earning hands in their family. But in India, most of the time the males are earning hands and they work harder than girls. 4, Chinese food sucks. He is waiting for the new term in September, 2010, so he has been going around and observing a lot without knowing Chinese. I am the second friend he made here. At the end of our walk, I said nice meeting you. But he thought I was just trying to be nice. Luckily he went on asking me about the negative thing I thought about him, which gave me a chance to tell him I was uncomfortable with his questions about my privacy at the beginning. Then I told him but his observation and experience surprised me, I really mean it when I say nice meeting you. He seemed feel much better and thanks for my company tonight.
That is not an experience I imagined before, but, it broaden my experience.
Nearly all of my classmates came to a English corner help by Rebecca, we invited a beautiful girl who is from Thailand, with a very long name Kijchanuthiphong Wadee. Sorry that I still could not pronounce her name. I just called her “Hei”. She was very kind. We told her what we wanted from her. She said 250 words was just a little piece of cake, which may be too easy for us to finish. However, I was the only boy there that night. When they talked about something like lady boy in Thailand and what was and is happening in the Entertainment Industry, I was totally speechless. I guess I just interested nothing like that. But I have to say that they did have quite an intimate knowledge of that field. I do not care what other singers or dancers doing, whether they have affairs with some sexy isomerism. Anyway it was a nice listening even though the English corner lasted only for an hour or so.
But I want to make a new friend myself, not from such meetings. So I did not ask her for her cell phone number. This is why I write this so late. I live in building 351, where the foreign students coming to learn Chinese also live. But the problem is they shows no interesting in talking with me in English, in contrast, they talking to me in Chinese even I started the conversation by saying “Hello, my name is Marco”. I am sure it is not going to work, what I need is some exchange students. But where are they? We are not having lessons with the exchange students of Lingnan College.
Not very long, my lucky day came. It was the last day of April, April 30th. I was working as a student administrative assistant in the Wu Shunde Library that afternoon. Then she came, Marine, an exchange student from France, but she speaks very good English. She is very tall and smiles brilliantly.You know, she has been here only for about two month, who even did not where the university library is. But she had to do some research into the Finance. So she came to the library to find some journals. The administrative manager of the reading room is in her 50s, who speaks no English. Such, my time to make a foreign friend came by very good reason. So I showed her around the whole library and told her what she could find in a certain room. We talked about her trip after her arrival in February. She just came back from San Ya, Hai Nan Province. She strongly recommended me to make a trip there. Sure if it permits. She spent the whole afternoon there. When she left, I handed her a piece of paper that with all my contact information on it and told her I will be there for her anytime she needs. She thought for a while and called me immediately. That is how I get her number. I never told her about this. That is a nice chat. She would be back to France in about July. I hope I could get a chance to have a dinner with her. I wish she has a nice time here.
I went to the HEL building in an attempt to “catch” a foreign student and he came into my sight. He is thin, not too tall and with blond hair. So I thought he is from some East-European country, maybe Ukraine or Belorussia, but it turned out to be I was wrong.
I said hello to him and he turned back. I asked him if he could do me a favor to complete my English assignment, which I admitted was a really lousy start to chat with a foreigner. I was amazed that most foreign students include him, speak very good Chinese so that I don’t believe anymore about“Chinese is the most difficult language in the world to learn”.
He is from Vietnam. It seems he dyed his hair. Lol. He came to China a year ago, and did some commercial business before. Now he started as a freshman in SYSU majoring in Chinese. When I told him I was surprised by his fluent Chinese, he smiled with shyness and said some classmates speak much better than him. About the future, he is not sure whether he will stay in China as the world is changing rapidly.
The experience is fun and when you started talking, you found it was not that difficult than you though it would be. He is a cute guy and perhaps I would send SMS to him and ask him to tell me something about the Vietnam culture next time.
Michael CHANG is my new friend. He was born in America and now studying in SYSU. I get in contact with him through a friend of ours. Well, the first talk between us is by phone. Before I called him, I felt a little bit nervous. When the line is through, I heard a friendly voice. I told him my intention and he was pleased to be my friend. I felt a little bit successful. Then I asked him whether he would be free the next afternoon to have dinner with me. He agreed. So we decided to meet this Saturday afternoon. I am sure there will be a great English chat tomorrow.
Jordan comes form New York, and his home town is in M. He is not a exchange student who studies in SYSU, So I don’t know if this is counted as homework accomplished or not. But Jordan is really a good friend of mine. I don’t like make “friend” just for accomplishing the homework, asking for their cell-phone number and then never meet again. what I want to do is to share the true and wonderful memory with my friend, Jordan.
We met about 10 months ago, the same summer just like today. When my friends and I were bouldering-a form of rock climbing-in the bouldering wall that established in the campus’s ground track field, Jordan came to us and asked if he could climb with us, because he climbed in New York and thought that was fantastic and attractive. We let him join us, however, we are too shame to talk with a foreigner at first. So we just bouldering and bouldering and bouldering, in silence. Even we yelled for somebody who finished the problem, we were yelling in Chinese and without explaining to Jordan. He always seemed as confused.
But Jordan is a good talker, he asked us about our majors, hometown, interests etc. We began to try to talk with him, ask him the same questions and give him some advice to improve the skills of rock climbing. The language barrier among us disappeared.
Then, lots of things happened. We met almost twice a week, climbing or eating together. Sometimes we went to Baiyun Mountain to climb the real rock. I still remember one day when we are in the Baiyun Mountain, the weather is good, with blue sky and little cloud, someone were climbing and I were protecting, Jordan laid on a hammock and said “em…this is the life”. It is absolutely true.
And, he invited me to his dormitory to watch movie on Christmas day, the movie is called “nativity” which is about the birth of Jesus. Jordan is a protestant, but he never ask us to believe in God. He told me that when he was about 20, he was addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, but one day he found his body is almost damaged by these habits, he wanted to quit these bad things. It harder then you can ever thought, he told me, then he found the God, who can lead him and give him the power inside. He made it at last. To be honest, I don’t believe our world is created by god or something, but what Jordan told us, such as the human love, the inside power or peaceful life, is still meaningful.
Jordan is also a traveler, Guangzhou is just his first stop in China, he is planning to go to Harbin, a northern city of China in July this year. I gonna miss him.
It was on a sunny afternoon last month when I first met him, a muscular, sun-tanned Asian guy. I was practicing my service at the tennis court as usual; at the court next to where I was were him, volleying tennis with a girl with a similar Asian face. Sometimes they spoke to each other in a language I cannot understand; thus I though they must be from somewhere in Southeastern Asia, countries like Thailand and Viet Nam.
From my ‘professional’ view of point, they didn’t play very well, especially the girl, who must be a beginner. It was obviously that the girl was exhausted, so she looked around, trying to find a player to replace her; and I was the one chosen.
She came to me, trying to express herself in Chinese, without fluency, “Excuse me, do you mind playing tennis with my brother, coz I don’t play very well.” “Okay”, I nodded, then there came the guy, and we chatted as we played.
His answer to my first question about where he came from surprised me, instead of somewhere adjacent to China; he grew up at the other end of the globe, a small country in Latin America, Panama. To my greater surprise, he is technically a Chinese, since both his parents were born in Guangdong and speaks Hakka as their first language. I guess it is the fierce sunshine that made him look like Asian resident around the equator.
However, he, as well as his sister, is a typical ABC, (here the letter A stands for the continent America, not the States.) The main characteristic of such ABCs is that they only have limited ability to use Chinese, if they can speak any. It was their father’s wish that they learn Chinese in SYSU and that’s why they were here. In fact, their English is no better than ours, because it’s their second language, too; back in their country, they speak Spain. Even though, we had to communicate most of the time since their Chinese is inadequate indeed.
In spite of language barriers, I still had a good time playing and talking with him, and I learn a lot about Panama, geography, climate, people, the Panama Canal, you name it. We exchanged our numbers, and he said he will call me if he wants to find someone to play tennis in the future.
I know a new friend who is a Korean, his name is Kim Joo wan.He is an exchange student of Myongji University.I know his cellphone number but I do not think it is polite to post it here because I never tell him that my original intention of trying to know him is finishing my assignment.During long holidays of May Day ,I found a notice of seeking oral Chinese partner in the publicity column .I saved his cellphone number , sent a message to him to introduce myself,and we decided to meet on May 6th.This afternoon,we had a chat in Rongguang Restaurant.He wanna to speak standard Mandarin,so i promised to chat with him during this year.We had an hour’s nice talk and he went to study Taiji at 5:05 pm. When I came back to my dorm,I received a message from him ,he wrote in chinese that “I’m happy to talking with you,I will keep in touch with you “.I replied “OK ,you can contact me when you are idle.” To my surprise,he replied me “ok ,I have an QQ id,i will tell you it when I come back home.” Foreigners use QQ too!
I have to say “Thank you” to Martin. I have never talk with foreigners initiatively！I think I can become into a confident and brave girl. What I lack of before is driving force and you gives me!Thank you,professor!
Several days ago, my roommate Susan and I decided to go to library to seek a foreigner in order to finish the assignment. We walked around the reading-room and saw one boy holding one book named Spoken Chinese who looked like a Korean. However, we were too nervous to come up to say hello, for the season that he might reject us.
For various consideration, we went to foreign student dormitories, waiting for foreign student’s coming and encouraging each other. And then, a white man was coming. We came up and said, Excuse me? That man smiled and said hello in Chinese. Susan and I were surprised by his pure oral Chinese and told him our goal. He pulled a long face suddenly, and said, “I can give my phone number to you, but if you just want to finish the homework, that’s, uh, you know.” We felt abashed. After a moment’s silence, we explained to him that’s not only for assignment but also a chance for us to make a new friend. After exchanging each other’s name and phone numbers, we tried to have a talk, just like friends. It was nice and amazing that the boy came from Roumania knew so many things about China, including the ancient Chinese characters, my home town Fujian and so on. At the end of the talk, we asked him to watch our chorus performance that night and made a promise to keep in touch with each other.
I did this assignment on 28th,April.It is really challenge to introduce myself to a foreign student who is a complete stranger to me.But I am lucky cause I had a very good chance to complete this assignment.My three classmates and I had to complete a presentation on our English class,so we planed to do an interview,the interviewees were the teachers and exchange students.Last week,my roommate and I went to the No.3 teaching building to find a foreign student.At first we found that all the students seemed so busy that they didn’t willing to accept our interview.Then we knew the reason was all the foreign students were having a Chinese speaking test that day,so they were very nervous and had to prepare. Soon we got a good idea,we went to the smoking area(a plat) outside the main building,there were many students seating together and talking about their test.We joined them and asked them if they need some help.They were so happy when they knew we were Chinese.After helping them pronouncing some Chinese words,I asked them to help me with the interview.An Arabian girl accepted me with pleased.We had done a very good job that day,the interview were successful.Now we have become good friend,we always talking to each other on MSN.
My foreign friend Hannah is a very beautiful girl from America. In fact, she is my teacher who teaches me advanced speaking skill. In my memory, at the first sight, I talked with my friend Fion “Look! How beautiful that girl is!” . Then she asked me where was Linhu 203, at that time I knew she must be my new teacher. She was so nice, so I thought maybe we would be friends.
Actually, she studied sociology in Chicago, she has been in China for one year and she is also an exchange student. Her family members all like China and Chinese culture, her old sister and brother both came to China when she was young. Last week, we saw and talked with his old sister. She told us they would go to yangshuo in Guangxi province. I hope they will have a nice trip!
In my mind, she is a good friend because she tells us many interesting things in her family and hometown. She is also a good teacher, she always changes her teaching method. She lets us study breezily. After class, we always talk many beautiful things in our life. Sometimes we also change some mind about sociology such as modernism, transcendentalism. Actually, I have learned a lot from her.
Well, I thought tonight was a very interesting and nice. I had a dinner with a foreign friend. She named Hannah. A few days ago, I asked my friend Retina, who is from Russia, whether she could introduce a foreign exchange student to me. I told her that I wanted to make a foreign friend. She was pleasure to give her American friend Hannah’s telephone. When I first called her, I felt very nervous. I didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, she was kind and she tried her best to calm me down. Later I got ease. Then we talked about our countries and our major. She is also studying International trade. So there were a lot of interesting topics for us to discuss. Furthermore, we are all like Chinese ancient culture, and then we decided to save some time to go shopping on Beijing Road. I have heard there were some ancient buildings there. At last, I invited her to have a dinner with Retina and me some day. Then today she sent me a message. Well, when I saw her at the first sight, I felt she was so beautiful and warm. During the dinner, we talked about the current hot spot, classic jokes and our class life. We all enjoyed the leisure time. Before we said goodbye, we were ready to go to Chang Long Park this Saturday. Now I am looking forward to it deeply.
Frankly speaking, it is the professor that gives courage to me to have the opportunity to get acquainted with a foreign guy, although I am looking forward to make a friend with a foreigner all the time. As I missed the English corner the professor organized because of the coming of the friends from far way, I know it is difficult for me to be in touch with a foreigner, however, in order to complete the assignment of the professor and make the long-held dream come true, I try my best to get the information from my classmates and friends around me, but it worth it, I make it at last. Camden, it is a coincidence that I met him, who is a strong and handsome guy. When I went to the first canteen to have supper with my girlfriend, and after that, we wanted to go for a walk in the first gym, there were several guys playing football. Then the ball was kicked out of the border and I helped to kick the ball back. And Camden was the goalkeeper, and then I went up to him and talked to him initiatively. After that, I invited him to have meal together with several classmates of mine, during the dinner; I know more about him, he came from American, and has come to China for more than 5 years, he said he has already adapted to the life of China, and he liked the food and people of China. After that dinner party, I changed my impression towards the westerners, as I have a bad feeling towards them before getting acquainted with Camden, and after that we left out contact information, he is my first foreign friend, and I cherish the friendship a lot.
At two o’ clock in the afternoon, I with John went to ZiJinyuan to meet Michael Chang who studied in Institute of Asia and the Pacific. We have made an appointment to have a chat this afternoon. We sat around a stone table in the garden of ZiJinyuan. We introduced ourselves to Michael, talked about our background and hobbies. Michael was a quite friendly person, he told us his experience in China and the difference between Chinese and America. Also he talked about the differences between northern people and southern people in China. Especially when we discussed our future, he said he had no idea whether he would go back home or stay in China after graduation. The talk lasted almost half an hour. After that, I asked John about the meeting. “Exciting”, he said.
My new foreign friend is Miachael, he comes from America, This afternoon, Jeffery and me meet Miachael at the second building of zijinyuan near the south gate of SYSU. We were introduced to him through an older classmate who will graduate in this June. It would be my first face-to-face talking with a foreigner, so on the way to the zijinyuan, I was a bit nervous. But on the first sight of Miachael, my nervous was gone. He was very friendly to us, although much taller than me. Just as an American, he wore a short breeches and a pair of slippers. We talked about my hometown Hubei, my undergraduate school-Nanjing agriculture university and the differences with SYSU, the weather between Guangzhou and Nanjing, both cities are very hot in summer. We also talked about our hobbies, I said I loved badminton, he said he liked football and tennis. He also said he wanted to live in Sichuan-southwest area of China, because people in there were very kindhearted and plain. This afternoon, he said he would buy a pair of glasses at renmin road for his mother who was in America. Maybe we will joint together to drink Tsingtao beer. At that time I can speak more English with my new American friend.
I recognize my new friend hans and his wife just based on the same interesting about taji. Hans E. Dehlinger is the visiting professor in digital media research center of Sun Yat-sen university, They come from Germany. Last semester, I start to study taji of Yang style in front of library, I went to there everyday, because this sport is benefit to health. There are many foreigner friends also interested in Chinese culture, and went to there to play taji, like hans and his wife, they are already seventy years old, this pleasantly surprised me. Because most western people are like fierce sports, but play taji demand a slow, smooth, and gentle way. In fact, after talking, I knew that to study taji is a very difficult thing for them. Hans said, this is very hard to learn, sometimes they will feel it more like dancing than sporting. And for me, as the new teacher to teach them taji, is also felt very hard to communicate with each other. I do not know which words can express the best meaning of taji. Taji of Yang style have three section, every movement has a strange name, such as “Strum the Lute” “spread wings like crane” “ probe the needle at sea bottom” “flash arms” and so on. When we learned the “spread wings like crane”, hans confused aboat this, he is under the impression that the movement did not like crane, why it will named that. Sorry, I don’t know how to answer him. This is not so easy to understand, but they are always smiling and practice seriously. The frequently words we used is “once more”. During this time, they are also encouraged me to study hard.
I think this will become the good memory in this university for me！
Although my hometown is not far away from Russia and I have met many Russians，I still have no chance to make a friend with Russian. However, my fate changed when I came to Sun Yet-sen University last autumn. In my mentor’s office, I saw several students who are my new classmates, but among them there is a blond with mysterious beauty and friendly smile. Her name is Renia I came to her and had a nice talk with her, during the chating, I got to know that she is from Moscow National Foreign Language University and her hometowm is just seveval hundred kilometers from mine. At that moment we just like the old friends who are picking up their mutual memory,such as cold winter and blue sky,then we exchanged our telephone numbers and leave a big smile to each other.
Renia is a genius in languages, she is good at English and Chinese, let along Russian, thus she can communicate with me in both Chinese and English and the we can convey our imformation smoothly. However, her academic ability is fair and she has difficulty in Economics. Fortunately, I can help her in Economics and she can share some interesting experiences with me, therefore we have the chance to meet. I have to say she is not only a genius in languages but also a smart bussiness women since she has bussiness in Guangzhou.I admire the people who can deal with earning money and studying well just like her. She says that the business is totally different from the theories in Economics textbooks and I quite agree with her.
God says everyone should be treated equally and they all have human rights. We usually talk about something unfair in China and the local war in South Russia, we are filled with the pity for them.She is very busy recently for her business and study and we have less time to meet but we still keep in touch by telephone.I cherish this precious friendship very much.
In the morning of 18th April, my good friend sent one message to me: do you want to make a new friend with a foreigner? Why not? I am worry about my homework now. We make a date to go to Shengsheng syrup store tonight. I feel little nervous because I hadn’t spoken with foreigner for a long time. Though I am not confidence for my oral English, I still go to meet him because my teacher said: you must take the first step however difficult it is. I go to the syrup store in time and meet the new foreigner friend. My friend told me that they made a friend with each other in the English corner, and the foreigner friend has some problems for help. In advance, my friend suggested me that we should help the new friend solve problem and don’t just want to finish my homework. I promise my friend. So I am very happy to know the new friend. We have a good time in talking. The new friend said that I speak bit by bit and I am a funny guy. I am glad that I almost can understand my new friend and so does him. At last, we give our phone number to each other for keeping in touch. It is an amazing day. To my surprise, I can talk to foreigner without difficulty.
I would like to show my appreciation to Jakie, one of my dear classmates. Without him I can’t meet those foreign friends. Jakie asked his friend Victor, who met Jakie at the MBA ，to invite 3 foreign friends to have dinner with us.
At the beginning of the dinner, we all presented a brief self-introduction because we met at the first time. Through the self-introduction I knew that Gaomo is a teacher from SYSU. It was funny to hear that he was also a student in China because he was learning the Mandarin and Cantonese. Besides this those three guys can speak more than 6 languages. When I asked that did they found any problems in learning so many kinds of languages, they all gave me the same answers definitely yes. Victor said that it was most difficultly when he was learning the first foreign language, and after that things became easier. From his reply I knew that he was very confident about his languages. However, they all thought that Chinese was the most difficult to learn for a foreigner. I guess the reason is that Chinese is totally different from the west languages.
We had chaffy dish at that night. Those three foreign friends have different taste. Two of them, who are from South America, don’t eat the head of the chicken, but Gaomo like it.
During the dinner we all told some interesting stories through our former experiences. Actually it was an interesting night.
After the dinner, I had a short talk with Gaomo. For a foreigner who is teaching in China, maybe money is not important, what is important is interest. Gaomo told me that interest is the only reason he went to China. He likes teaching. He told me that the students in China were the most outstanding students he had taught. But the Chinese students are lake of confidence to speak out. I said to him that maybe one day when we college students want to find a job for interest but not only for money and that is the day we China become truly strong. I believe that the day will come in the coming future.
Again, it is a wonderful night. Thanks Jakie. Thanks Gaomo.
I met my new friend in the self-study hall, who came from Egypt, he has a interesting Chinese name “Han”. When introduced himself , he written a wonderful Chinese characters. at the beginning , we talked in English, but we can’t understand each other and Han told we Chinese was also ok, therefore, we sometimes used English to express our Chinese talking and used Chinese to express its counterpart.
When I came to him and asked whether he could help me to accomplish martin’s assignment, he was so friendly and told me just let him know what he could do. after the talking I know he has finished all his courses in his homeland and come to Chinese to learn Chinese language, he always stayed for learning until dark night .
I have made a foreign friend, Tanaka, a pretty girl from Japan. She is now a doctoral exchange student in SYSU, majoring in anthropology. She makes Guangzhou as her anthropological field site, and comes to China mainly for her research, which will last for one and a half year.
The time when I first met Tanaka was last semester, in a reading party. She was a shame girl at that time. We even did not talk a word besides the reading part. But then a friend told me that Tanaka was encountering some difficulties when doing anthropological fieldwork in Guangzhou, probably because of the language thing. I am a Cantonese myself. I thought I could somehow give her some help. So I asked for her phone number, and connecting with her. She was so surprised and happy when receiving my messages and calls.
Tanaka’s research interest is tourist anthropology, which demands her to know the field site’s traveling resources as more as possible. At that time, Tanaka had been arrived in Guangzhou for just 3 months. All she knew about this city were from tourist books. So I told her that I knew this city very well and I could guide her to visit around the city. I did so. I also told her that I was a native Cantonese speaker. So whenever she wanted to learn Cantonese, I could give a hand to her. Tanaka was so exciting to hear this. Then we made a schedule for the Cantonese class. From that time on, I began going to her dormitory in Zijing Yuan every week to teach her Cantonese.
Last month I saw Tanaka and some of her Japanese friends in a conference. She introduced me as her Cantonese teacher and friend at a proud voice. I was so happy at that time. It seemed like it was a sweet reply from doing this.
Moli Yemen
We first met her at the NO.3 Teaching Building, she was preparing for her oral Chinese test. We realized she was an Arabian because of her special headband. She has a beautiful Chinese name called Moli which is also the name of famous flour. I asked her to help us with an English class presentation, and she told us some points on protecting animals, especially wide animals in zoo. She told us she opposite the behavior of keep them in zoo because they loose their instinct and freedom, and hope we human beings can have more various ways to put them back in nature reserve. Then, we praised she had such a fluent and standard accent of oral English. She smiled and said although she was born in Yemen, she was growing up in the USA. It’s no wander that she can speak English so good. Finally we became friends, and soon I found my value at the 3rd floor. Because there are many foreign students needed to prepare their oral Chinese test, we can teach them Chinese. To tell the truth, it is pretty proud to teach them our mother language.
Meixiang Japan
The teacher have requested us to make friends with foreigners for a long time , I had not finished yet . There are two reasons for it , at first , my speak English is very poor , It is very shame for me to talk with foreigners in English ; at second , Frankly speaking , I did not know any foreigners before this . The day before yesterday , when I opened my mailbox , I finded the email form my foreigner teacher , he said only 30% of us to finish this homework , he felt very sad about us , when I read this , I felt very ashamed , As a student , I cannot finish home work . At the same time , I realized It is a opportunity for us to improve our speaking English . So I asked my classmate ,who know many foreigner students , to introduce a foreigner for me . She introduced a japanese student for me and give her phone number . My trip of make—friends start . At the beginning , I decided to give her a phone message to introduce myself 、my homework and date her . I gave her a phone message in English , she returned back qucikly , we decided to meet each other the next day at library . The next day , I waited at the hall of library on time , I felt very nervous . A lovely girl look at me , then I talked with her , her just the japanese student . I know her name Meixiang . She can speak little chinese and English . Meixiang is very nice and friendly , relaxed converstion let me relax . We finded a quit place to talk . Sometimes we talked in English , sometimes in chinese . I knew that Meixiang studied in china for six mouths by talking , She said she like china , like Guangzhou , hope can know China more . How time flys ! It was time for to have lanch , we say goodbye each other and date for next time .
Louise is my new foreign friend. She is an easy going girl who came from Denmark .She likes Chinese food, Chinese culture and Chinese people. She said she had a project that she would go to every beautiful city in china. Last weekend we had a happy talk about Chinese. Sometimes she confused about the life style of most Chinese, they looked so peaceful and the rhythm was so slow. I explained that most people were lived like that, but with the globalization of china, some cities become changed, such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing and so on. People lived in a fast rhythm. Although this could create higher society value, in fact it was not a healthy life style.
Then she told me she wanted to go to Harbin where was my hometown .This was my first time to introduce my hometown to others in English. I was nerves at the same time I was very excited.
After one hour I finished my introducing of Harbin. It made me happy that she really knew something there. And she said she wanted me to be her tourist guide in Harbin. I was so excited because that was meaning I would have more chance to be her friend and practice my English.
This hour gave me an unforgettable memory. Now I like to make foreign friends at the same time I like to speak my English.
In my spare time , my favorite hobby is that watching Korean entertainment to have a relax, not only the conversation in the show but also the performance are very ridiculous and funny ,from the entertainment, I know more about the Korean customers ,and I feel interested in Korea, because of that ,when the professor give us the task of making a new foreign friend , I have decided to set the goal of searching one Korean friend .so I always go to restaurant named the Northeastern family ,because the Northeastern of china is geographically closer to Korea, the eating habits is similar .that can provide a good environment to meet new friend. Just as I expected, I chatted one Korean friend up successfully and tell her the task that the professor gave us, hope that we can make friends. She is also very warm-hearted, said that she would like to help me to finish the task together. She told me some Korean customers in comparison with Chinese customers and she said that she has stayed in China for one year and has been used to the life habit gradually, I also know that Korea has a long, cold winter, contrary to Guangzhou which has a long, hot summer. And the pronunciation of 70 percent of the Korean language is the inflexion of Chinese, so sometimes you can guess the meaning of the Korean language. The most important festival in Korea is mid-autumn festival whose position is the same as our spring festival in China. I told her my surname is AN, which is rare in China but common in Korean, and besides that I am very interested in the Korean customers, so maybe it is a predestination. We also talked about our life value and the plan about future for a long time. I feel very happy to make a new Korean friend.
She is my classmate in my major. We become good friend because we have the same friend. When I was a freshman, she and our friend came to me for help at the break of class. She asked me how to get bus 35 way because I used to go to my aunt’s home by it. I found it’s difficult to communicate with her because her chinese was so poor and at that time I knew the charm of English. English is really an international language, if you learn English well enough, you can communicate with others easily. I painted the way to get 35 way bus, and explained patiently. She didn’t have many friends in China, and I was a kind hearted man, so she always asked me for help when she got trouble in professional learning. I was very confused about that why she came to China to study accounting, which is a highly professional disciplines. Finally I knew the aim of her was to improve her Chinese, there were 50% of population in Korea who can speak Chinese. Her scores of classes were very poor, she couldn’t understand accounting in chinese well. So she didn’t graduate smoothly. Some days earlier, she came to find me to teach her math for exam, I acceptted it and told her everything I knew. we have been friend for 5 years, and will always be good friend.
When Mr Wolff told us we have a homework that introducing yourself to a foreigner and do a activity with her or him, I realized that it would be very difficult for me to do this homework, because I am not good at communicating with a strange person. However, when I actually finished this task, I really think it is a very interesting and unforgettable experience。The teacher have requested us to make friends with foreigners for a long time, I had not finished yet . There are two reasons for it , at first , my speak English is very poor , It is very shame for me to talk with foreigners in English ; second , Frankly speaking , I did not know any foreigners before this . The day before yesterday , when I opened my mailbox , I found the email form my foreigner teacher , he said only 30% of us to finish this homework , he felt very sad about us , when I read this , I felt very ashamed , As a student , I cannot finish home work . At the same time , I realized It is a opportunity for us to improve our speaking English .Last Sunday, I went to see my friends,she working in a French company,,we went to see her colleague, a French guy and very handsome, his name is Berton,as a mechanical engineer in his company, he introduced me to his company and how to do well of his work, he also introduced me to some French tourist attractions, and hope I would have the opportunity to travel to France, he has a good job in Guangzhou, like China’s traditional culture, like Guangzhou’s food, he lives in Guangzhou several years.Through the chat with him greatly enhances my confidence and courage to communicate with others in English, I appreciate our teacher gave us the opportunity.
I have met Martin for more than a month, during these days I always think about how can I start to tell you the process of making friend, it’s funny and this is also the reason for me to hand in my homework so late. However, being late is always incorrect.
Many friends of mine met their partners in Chinese corner. The difference is, we got to know each other by another man’s introduction. Martin chose supermarket for us to meet, I felt so anxious when I saw him because he had blue eyes. Those feelings disappeared after he talked just like we’ve recognize each other for a long time.
He was curious in Chinese culture and asked me lots of questions about China, such as what Chinese people did in traditional festivals, why we celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival by paddling dragon boat.
Time flies. After talking for half an hour, we decided to have dinner in a restaurant, he chose soup and noodle. That’s very interesting for me to watch a European eat those foods. He explained that he used to have noodle recently, although he couldn’t eat anything when come to China firstly. Now he and his roommate could cook delicious Chinese dishes, he also invited me to cook so that I could teach them how to use more skills in cooking.
I felt happy during this day, happy English guy brought me so many new ideas and joy, I’ll be thankful for our teacher gave us this assignment.
Firstly I am so sorry to post this so late. I didn’t finish this homework until this week because I am always afraid of talking to strangers, not to say a foreigner. Lucky for me my roommate Rita introduced Karen to me when we went to English corner together this Thursday. After a brief introduction I found Karen was easy going and he kept smiling, which made me relieved a lot. Karen came to China from India about a month ago and he will begin to study computer science in this university next semester. To my surprise, he is just nineteen years old but so independent and determined. He had visited Hong Kong and many places of interest in Guangzhou by himself. You should know that he hardly know anything about Chinese! Given that he is not very adapt to Chinese food yet, I made a suggestion that we three could go to canteen and have Indian pancake for supper. To my delight, Karen loved it very much although he said that it was not the traditional Indian pancake. In India there is nothing fruits or other stuff in pancakes but in china there is. However, Karen thought it tasted better. We had a good time together and I offered to help him if he needs. It seems not so scary to make a new foreign friend and I really wish I could do it earlier.
Dear professor
I have some good news to tell you, which is about my trip to Macao yesterday. I do not know whether you have been there before, but I think you do.
This is the first time I went there with my other four friends who are beautiful girls of our university, they were very happy too, because there were a lot of delicate waiting for them, of course, the classic sight spots there are so much attracted, and the snack is very surpercalifraglisticexpialadocious! but the most happiest thing I want to tell you is that I speak to five foreign friends there , the first one is the safeguard in the shop , who I think can not speak Chinese ,as my friends ask him about the price of the goods , he just shake heads , while I speak English to him , he replied quickly ! such as I asked him the price was US dollars or HK dollars , he said it was Macao dollars ,then I asked how can we pay , he said we can pay cash or by credit cards . because my friends forget how to speak in English and all of them are busy with shopping , I have nothing to do except find something to ask the safeguard to practice my oral English .Every time they came to another shop where if there was safeguard , I will always ask him the same questions
The most excited time was on the way to The Venetian by bus where a foreign visitor sat beside me , It was a rare chance for me to speak English , so I pointed to the air-condition hole and asked him if he need the cold air , then we began our talk ! The handsome boy, who was a university student , grade four , was from India with his family , this was the first time they came to Macao , of course HK ,too .we talked about the whether , the style of building in Macao and India , of course , the foreign language we both studied at school was another topic , he can not only speak English but also French ! However, I only can speak a little English but, anyway I am making progress now which thanks to Professor’s effort. yes , I really thank you from my heart , no matter whether you will remember me in future , but I can tell you that ,I will not forget you all in my life . without you , maybe I will not so confident to talk to the foreign visitors in public , after we got off the bus , all my friends admired me much , and asked how I dare speak English , they can not believe that was me ! Ha-ha, when hearing this, I thought that was the happiest time for me in Macao! Maybe next time I shall travel alone then find a foreign friend there to tour together!