Matti's blog about Xi'An rural school visit:
Today's school was a lot of fun. We got to talk to the kids and learn about them in a less formal setting than we did at the other school, which was nice. A lot of the kids kept asking me if I knew how to speak Chinese, even though I had told them a few times that I only know a few words. The first girl I talked to didn't know very much English, and we had a really hard time communicating. The second girl I talked to knew a little more English, and so did the three or four boys I talked to, but it seemed like the conversation went around in circles because they did not understand a lot of what I said and I didn't understand a lot of what they said. We also talked about where they live. The girls live in one building of dorms and the boys live in another building. They wondered when I was leaving, and if I was going to come back, and they were sad when I said I was leaving to go back to Boston on Saturday. They also seemed sad when we left the school. It rained, so we did not get to play any sports with them, but we had a performance in a room on the sixth floor of the school where a lot of kids performed songs, and there was a group that performed a poem. Hamish and Mike sang a song from Little Mermaid, and Cassandra and I sang Moment Like This by Kelly Clarkson, which we also sang at karaoke last night. A few of us thought we were being taken to the bathroom, but they took us to a classroom instead, where they made us sing the National Anthem, and finish putting verbs into sentences. One of the kids I talked to was having a hard time with a sentence from a worksheet, and we tried to answer it correctly, but there was only one answer out of the four choices that didn't make sense, so we had a really hard time. We ended up putting the worksheet away and talking instead because we could not figure it out. I think the kid answered it right, and the teacher told him the wrong answer, but I didn't want to tell him that his teacher was wrong. The other thing we talked about was QQ, and a couple of kids gave me their account numbers so that we can still talk. All in all, it was a really good day, and a really fun experience. Zaijian!
Emma's blog, same topic
Ni hao!
We're on our way back from the school near Xi'an. The school paired us up with a student and we spent time with them. First we went to their auditorium/meeting room. They had lots of kids play instruments, and one kid did kung fu. They had baskets of cucumbers and tomatoes on the table which tasted so good! These kids didn't speak English as well as the school in Beijing, so I had a harder time communicating, I used a lot of drawing and hand motions. She gave me a little blue notepad and I had her write her name in it. She also gave me her phone number and I gave her mine (so mom, if you get any calls from China, don't be surprised.=] ) We went into a classroom and some of the kids tried to talk to me. They all wrote notes in another little book and they gave it to me. One boy sang a song in the classroom, he was really good. Then we went to lunch where they gave me a bowl of three different vegetable/pork dishes, a bowl of rice, and a bowl of soup. There was so much food. Then they came around with a spicy roll. The girl kept telling me to eat. She showed me some of her drawings (which were AMAZING) She let me keep one of her anime drawing which also had a picture that she took. She took out a piece of string tied into a look and we played cat's cradle. Then she showed me two magic tricks she knew with the string. I learned one of them. I gave her the heart knot i learned to make at the Beijing school as well as the pens. When I left she kept telling me not to forget her. She followed me to the bus to say goodbye. This was one of my favorite days so far!
-Emma
