Showing posts with label dorm. Show all posts

Surprising Encounter

Today, my roomie Hyemee and I met a guy from Saudi Arabia whose name I didn't quite catch (sorry). However, he was cooking some amazing chicken with onions in the dorms' common kitchen. It smelled really good. After exchanging some basic Chinese sentences, he asked us to join him and his friends for dinner in his room. We were unprepared for this invitation and had nothing to bring over except some Chinese candies. Turns out, the other guests were from Yemen and Sudan. Only one of them (the Sudan guy - Ah Ding) was fluent enough in Chinese to communicate with Hyemee. So the conversation went between Hyemee and Ah Ding. They then needed a timeout for Ah Ding to translate in Arabic to his friends and Hyemee in English to me since I could understand only 30% of their Chinese exchanges. Nonetheless, I felt very privileged to be sitting on their carpet and eating chicken rice, because I had never thought by coming to China, I would be sharing a meal with people from these countries. I have travelled a few miles in my short lifetime, but have never encountered Saudis, Yemenis and Sudaneses. We didn't especially bond (heck, they didn't even ask my name) and couldn't speak directly to each other, but it was still very nice of them to welcome us and share their food with two strangers. 

Now, my biggest wish is for Hyemee (a South Korean citizen) to befriend those two North Korean guys in her class so we can all have a meal together. Haha, I doubt that will happen...

Chinese candy

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Lost in Translation

Briac and I looked for a two-bedroom apartment for a few days until I gave up and went for a dorm at the university. It's great because it's cheap and really near the building where my classes are held. The downside is that I have to share my room with another person. But I was quite lucky and ended up with a Korean girl named Hyemee. We started off on shaky ground because Hyemee speaks Korean (duh!), just a tiny little bit of English (the equivalent of my Chinese) and intermediate Chinese. On the other hand, I can only manage with English, French and Cantonese. So our first conversations were really tiring. We often had to ask other people who were fluent in English and Chinese to act as our translators. But a whole week has past and we are both improving and gaining confidence in ourselves. Hyemee uses more English words and I try to plug in as many Chinese words that I can. There are also a lot of pointing, miming and Google translating. Hence, we don't need to knock on other people's doors anymore. YEAH!

 Yesterday was a big test. Hyemee and I decided to go to Beihai Park on our own, just her and me. I know it may seem obvious since she's from Korea and I'm Canadian, but we discovered that we both love hiking and being outdoors! We have started a list of things we want to see or do in Beijing and it includes a lot of parks haha. We also have both a large face and can eat all day! YEAH!




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