Chinese Students Get Taste of Culture
Last month, a selected group of the Grade 6 Chinese program had a fantastic adventure. We visited the home of Mrs. He in Stone Mountain to celebrate the Lunar New Year. This outing was so we could practice our Chinese language skills with a Chinese immigrant family of three generations. All I have to say is that it was a success.
We had a pretty long drive there and by the time we got to our destination, I wasn't very motivated to spend the next three hours there -— maybe because I had just eaten an entire box of doughnuts and was grumpy! As soon as I got out of the car, all of that disappeared. The house was decorated with red lanterns and all sorts of red banners with Chinese characters all over them. Now I really wanted to go in! I went up to the doorway and encountered about 20 pairs of shoes laid down neatly. I assumed that it was a custom to take off your shoes before you go in the house so I politely took mine off. As I walked through the door, the first thing I noticed was the amount of people of all different ages. Next I saw a huge banquet. It had dumplings, noodles and plenty other things that I had never seen before. I was very excited about the food—maybe a bit too excited—but I controlled myself. I would have to wait a while...
I started interacting with the other people there. At one point, a nice Chinese woman asked me how many male and female students there were in my Chinese class. At first, without thinking, I automatically answered her question in English. Then I remembered how to tell her in Chinese, "wo men ban you shi er ge nan xue sheng" (our class has twelve male students). My pronunciation must have been unusual because the lady had a confused look on her face. But after I repeated it a couple of times, she finally said to me in Chinese, "wo dong le" (I understood).
Through conversations with many people, I not only practiced my Chinese but I learned some more of it. It was such fun meeting new people of a completely different culture. Suddenly, I heard someone call out, "Dumplings!" I immediately ran towards the table but it was still not time to eat. I was confused, but I soon discovered that they were making the dumplings, not eating them. My heart sank, but I joined in to make some and it was fun.
In the end my patience paid off. I had about four servings of noodles, tofu, beef and, of course, dumplings! After that we relaxed with some traditional Chinese games. None of us had ever played them before so it was great trying out new things. Our visit was almost over, but before we left we sang the Chinese happy new year song for our host family. I am thankful for the generosity of this family toward us, as we were strangers to them. I am looking forward to our next Chinese outing.