May 22, 2010
Saturday was a good day. Jermaine and I were assigned to the same family, which was an English teacher named Joanna. Although she was an upper-level English teacher, she was not totally proficient. As we were walking to her apartment, she kept telling us about her 14-year-old nieces who were excited to meet us. I was a little worried, because I was not so sure I’d have much in common with a 14-year-old Chinese girl, let alone two of them. When we got to the house, we realized that her nieces were actually nephews; she just had the word wrong.
At their apartment we made dumplings and played ping-pong, but Jermaine and I both noticed that everything we did was a suggestion, not an order. It has been like that since we got here. All that has been said to us is “maybe you should be downstairs at 9:00am,” “Maybe we will have a sporting activity,” “Maybe I am an English major.” We aren’t sure if this is just a translation error or if the locals are just afraid of giving us direct instruction, but one of our professors said that this is most likely because the host tries to provide the answer that we want to hear, not necessarily the correct one.
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