Friday, July 17, 2009

conversation with a stranger

Bill and Susie taught us the English speaking skills and we got an assignment from them to chat with some certain persons on the OSU campus, which maybe help us practice communication in English and know more about Americans.
Beside the Wexner Center I met a lady who is a teacher of a middle school in Columbus. She was reading when I walked to her. She said she enjoyed reading on the OSU campus to relax herself because she must worked over 40 hours per week to be devoted much to her students ,and spent most of her spare time staying with her family. She had visited most countries of Europe but never traveled to Asia. So she knew very little about China. There were some Chinese students in her class. I ask her the difference between the Chinese students and other students. She told me that Chinese students were shy in the class and they prefer to make friends with Chinese. They were accustomed to speak Chinese so that they could not communicate with teachers or other students very well.
She was curious about the life of China because she couldn’t imagine how so many people get together in harmony. And she also felt unreasonable that why every couple had only one child. I explained that the population of China is so huge that the government has to take measures to control it because of the limited resource. We had a nice and delighted talk.
After the conversation I thought a lot. Before I came to America, I had thought people here knew about China well with the development of globalization. But the fact was not exactly what I thought. I was under the impression that Americans knew about China so little. Or they just know but not comprehend. So I feel strongly the significance of communication. We should open our door not only know the world but also let the world know more about China.

1 comment:

  1. Tanya Wan, it is really disappointed that Americans do not know much about China, but we are mutually do not understand them sometimes as well. We should try to figure out our future career goals and decide what to do in the following two years. So, brush our tooth together?

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