Maybe you’d like to give a talk to one of our classes…
September 22nd, 2005 by Greg
Just a quick post to say that I’ve arrived safely. I’ve been in Qingdao since Monday evening catching up with old friends. My Chinese has been coming back really quickly, I’ve surprised myself at how much I know. Mr and Mrs Xue have been very welcoming and I’ve also been to have dinner with Judy Han and her husband. This morning I went to Mr Xue’s school with him – he mentioned to me last night that maybe I’d like to come to his school and talk to one of the classes (I haven’t heard a ‘maybe’ used like that since I was last in China) – I suddenly got the fear and started to panic – what am I going to talk about?, I haven’t had to do this sort of thing for years? do I need to prepare anything?, how long for? etc… I used to find situations like that really difficult but it actually seemed to go fine – it was a bit of a laugh. Waffling on in front of other people is not actually as hard as it seems, especially when they can’t really understand what you’re talking about! However in the end I think I spoke more Chinese with them than English. Then I was taken out for lunch in return – I’m not used to having such big meals. I love the food but I’m going to get so fat if I carry on like the last couple of days. I need to try to be disciplined about this. If I stay in Qingdao amongst Chinese friends then they’re going to force feed me every day, I think it might be time to move on!
Get a bike!!