I may just do something really wild and crazy and go with John, the Chinese student that calls me Eric Teacher, to visit his home town, to speak with students and his former Laoshi. He lives close to LanZhou, where the CLC students went last week. I guess tomorrow we will get some train tickets and after a short 12 hour train ride we will be somewhere that I have never been before and may never be again. I think we will leave late Thursday and return on Sunday. I think we will get one bunk and one seat and then share the sleeping time. I think I will need to move around some anyway and this way John can also rest. I can experience the thrill of train travel in China. I am sure this will be different but then that is why I am here to see new things and experience all that I can. I had a late supper with John and Zhang Yao tonight. Zhang Yao is the student of mine that plays the GuZheng. We had the "yang yu ca ca" or the Chinese hash browns as I call them. I like them and if I had my way I work crisp them up a little more, but they are good. John and Zhang Yao were talking in Chinese and I could tell that Zhang Yao was talking about someone and something. Right after she stopped I said, "Zhen de" the Chinese word for really. That got their attention especially because I used the right tone and the right facial expressions. There was a brief pause and then she asked me if I understood what she was saying and I laughed and said "no." It is fun to be here and I so much enjoy talking with and being around the students. After we ate I walked ZhangYao to her dormitory, I then headed towards the hotel and walked by three young girls. They said good evening and hello and I said Ni Hao. I had never seen them before, that I am aware of, but one of them said to me, "you have been to Fujian." Fujian is where Xiamen is and I was there to visit Xiaoling and Kevin Shu this weekend. I am always amazed at what happens in Xian. The power of the QQ.
After my class today I saw Zhao Sha Sha and talked to her. She told me that classes start 20 minutes later now. Which explains why I was so early to class today. If you let things like not having someone tell what time you need to start work bother you, then China will drive you crazy. I was talking to her about my visit to Xiamen. She graduated from Xiamen University and has friends that work there. Xiaoling gave me some snack food to try and I am going to share some with Zhao Sha Sha on Thursday. She is still surprised at the fact that I really enjoy Chinese food. I showed her the cook book I bought and we squatted down in the hall way and she was telling me what was delicious and what was easy and that her father is a good "cooker". I may be able to eat supper with her before I leave and I hope to learn more about what recipes are good ones in the book I bought. That could be of interest to Chef Keith. I will do what I can to get some good information. Zhao Sha Sha thinks Americans eat hamburger and she is correct but not everyone eats hamburgers. Some of us also like hot dogs. I am going to QQ her some pictures of Xiamen and some of the food that Xiaoling's parents fixed for me. I am also going to share some stuff with her, the snack food that I have. I like her. She is nice to be around and with her English skills and my Chinese we seem to be able to communicate with each other. I enjoy that because I have to work at talking with her but I know that we can communicate. She was telling me that she has studied English for 8 years but the last couple of years she has not practiced and has forgotten somethings. I was very serious and told her what she needed to do the get better at English. That is "hao hao xue ci, tian tian xiang shang." That means good study every day and you will get better. That is what she emailed me on QQ and told me to tell the students. I do tell them the only way to get better is to practice and I am trying to get them to practice over the summer. If I can just get them to do something outside of class it will make a difference. I am trying to get them to listen to NPR's five minute news summary and to read one of the news storys and look up the words they do not know and then use the on line audio dictionary for pronunciation. If I can just get them to do 10 or 15 minutes a day outside of class it will make a huge difference. I also tell them that is what I need to do if I am going to get better. In my classes I think they try and teach you how to memorize things but not how to actually figure out what to say and how best to say it. That is my opinion.
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