Across the Barriers

I posted this in the FEU Community Blog...

Day 2: May 16, 2006 (Tuesday)

Wow, the sun shines here in China at 5:30 a.m. The water was so cold when I took my bath, but I enjoyed it. Altogether, we went to the cafeteria to have our breakfast and the foods served were siomai, mantau, two 'unknown' dishes, HOT ORANGE JUICE and cold water (they served cold water just for us!). I love the tasty soup that was served.

After that, we went to our classroom for Chinese Language class. We met the President of Zhejiang Gongshang University and he personally welcomed us. There are 21 initials in Chinese language and though they claim that 12 of these have the same pronunciation as that of in English, we still found it hard to pronounce. We learned the basics in their language, like greeting others and introducing oneself. Miss Wang Fang (our instructor) gave us our Chinese names. Learning their language was indeed fun and challenging. We had an activity wherein we practiced it among ourselves. then, Miss Angela came in and told us that we can now make use of the computers in the computer rooms and then we went there and accessed our friendsters and yahoo! mails with much excitement. Then we realized that it was already 12:40pm and we should take our lunch, so, we hurried our way to the cafeteria (foods served were coated shrimp, veggies and still, there were unknown dishes). Then, after the lunch, I, Jellyn, Eula and Gino walked along the markets to buy some needed stuff.

Time: 2:30pm

The English professor assigned to me, Mr. Wang Zhen, met me at our hotel's lobby, and entrusted to me his students. They were Wanna, Cathy, civil, and Zoe. We went to their room so we can have our English conversations. They accepted me warmly. I was delighter with the decors in their room. I asked them to tell something about themselves and with speeches, they never failed to include information about their families such as how many they are, the occfupation of their parents and how proud they are with their hometowns. By the way, all my students today were all Electronic Engineering freshmen. Hmm, they gave me a bottle of mineral water. :-) We talked about the China and Philippines. We had a dynamic discussion since everybody participated. They are good English speakers but since they have this British accent, I somehow found it hard to understand the words they uttered. They showed me a magazine of Chinese superstars and I really don't know who they are. Haha! They told me that June 1 in China is Children's Day wherein parents buy new clothes for their children and bring them to amusement parks and restaurants.

Time: 3:40pm

I transferred to the next room and I met four new girls. They were Cherry, Catherine, Wnedy, and Jenny. Jenny was late because she attended an organization's meeting. Since this was our first meeting, I let them introduced themselves. They gave information about their families, why they chose Electonic Engineering as their course and the beauty of their hometowns. I asked them questions about China so that they can express themselves in English and at the same time, I gain info about their country. In return, I told them facts about our country and they were really amazed. By the way, they gave me a Chinese tea. It didn't smell good but the taste was tolerable and it refreshed my system. This group was a little shy and they avoid the limelight. i told them that the best way to speak good English is through practice.

---Around 5pm, we took our dinner but the food was served at around 5:30 pm and I have a class at 6pm so I rushed in finishing my food. There was a slimey veggie and fish.

Time: 6pm

I went to the dorm of my students. Building #24 (male dorm). When I entered the room, there were 12 people inside instead of only 4. They were all nice. There I met Joe, Weida, Kevin, Devin, Sky, Rain, Gilbert, Sheidan, Hamilton, Leon and others. Same routine, I asked them to say aomething about themselves. Chinese guys love to play basketball, football, and computer games. I couldn't believe I was able to laugh at their jokes. This group had an overflowing energy that I was able to absorb. One factor that made us jive is our age (we are all 20 years old!).

Time: 7:10 pm

I transferred to the next room, there were 7 peeps inside instead of only 4. This was the best group for the day since I learned a lot from them. I came to know Napoleon, Ace, Grubby, and Sky and others. What were the things I learned from them? First, A chinese couple is only allowed to have one child becuase of the One-child policy existing here and second, they were already one year old when they were born (it depends from what part of China they came from). They told me that they are willing to tour me in the beautiful places of Hangzhou if time would permit.

The discussions I had with my Chinese students made me realize that barriers are not really barriers, since we could conquer it. Barriers between these two races like language was overpowered by our desire to merge as 'friends' and of course, through the power of English Language!