The Host Family and Various Stuff

My host family is wonderful; there’s just no other word for it. I’m the third Peace Corps volunteer they’ve hosted and so they seem used to my Meiguoren (American) tendencies. The second I arrived, they hooked up my computer and told me I should check my email. Over breakfast and dinner each day, my host mother reviews the words I’ve learned in class with me. She is so patient with me and my perpetually uncooperative mouth, which still refuses to grasp the four tones. Whenever I do get something right I almost get a standing ovation, they’re so proud. I love it!

The host family

Both of my host parents work at Sichuan Normal University: my host father teaches Chemistry and my host mother works at the university library. I'm the same age as my host sister (22), who is just finishing her senior year studying public health. She cracks me up because she absolutely loves to play World of Warcraft.

My host sister, me and my host mom downtown

My host family's house is nicer than anywhere I’ve ever lived. I have my own room, complete with balcony (!). We live on the sixth floor of our building and there’s no elevator, so I’m going to be toned when I leave here. Watch out, Chinese men!

I've realized that moving to a foreign country where you don’t know the language is kind of like going suddenly deaf. Whenever I’m walking somewhere around campus alone, I pretty much hear nothing because I can’t understand a single thing being said around me. Every day after language class, though, it’s as if I’ve gained a tiny bit of hearing back, such as when I heard a little girl say “he shui” (drink water) yesterday and understood what she meant. I wanted to shout, “Yeah! He shui! He shui forever!”

On the actual-reason-I-came-here front (i.e. to teach): model school starts on the 23rd of this month. During model school the other trainees and I will teach Oral English classes to Chinese students for 90 minutes a day five days a week in order to practice teaching in a Chinese classroom. Once we finally get to our permanent sites we may have up to 80 students of varying levels in one class, so this practice will be invaluable. The Peace Corps gives us complete freedom as to the course content (except, of course, for a handful of taboo topics), so right now I’m spending a lot of time debating what I want to teach. I’m hoping to be offered a literature course or writing course at my final site, so I’m trying to work some of that material into model school (even though it’s Oral English). I’ve contemplated throwing some postmodern literary theory at them but doubt that’ll go over well. I’ll probably just stick to discussing Disney movies as my host sister suggested. If you have any suggestions on what I should teach, let me know!

I miss you all!

Chen Ke'er (my Chinese name, which I can't pronounce correctly)