english corner

i just had the strangest exprience of my life, right here in china. jordan and i were returning from the front gate back to our dorms and ran into ECNU's english corner nightly gathering at the mao statue. there were about 40 chinese people, waiting to speak and practice english with native speakers like ourselves. we thought that we would just stop for a bit, but instead it turned into a 40 mintue conversation about everything from guns, obama, social security, and jeeps (mind you, all with chinese people). i got bombared with questions as to why america uses corn for fuel when people are starving, how social security works, why do americans own guns, and countless other of contraversial topics. they might not be as big of an issue in t he states, but ive never met people before that are so eagar to learn from someone about their home country. it is acutally such a shame that in america we have tons of foreign students and we do not have the same intrest in where they come from. ive never felt so singled out or chalenged in my own beliefs as an american before. probably one of the best experiences i could possibly have, and im definitely going back again on sunday. i met a girl named cici, and some guys named tony, larry, (haha, brothers names as well), jordan, and greg. those are just the names i remember; it constantly cracks me up at the names that chinese people choose as their english names. they know SO much about our politics, and what is going on. some guy, i think larry, knew that obama and won in oregon, and the demorcatic primary. do you think any random person in america could even name the president of china? didnt think so, let alone follow their political system and elections. phew....

so that was my exprience in english corner. i highly reccomend any one to ever try that. you are not truly soild in your own ideology until you have to defend yourself and your country to 20 chinese men and women.

other than that i had my first day of chinese class. three hours a day... sooo much but ive already learned a great deal. now that it is finally almost nine, ill start my homework. today flew by sooo fast. i was worried at first that i would be struggling to spend my time, and even though im here for another seven weeks, i think that everything is going to be ok.

ill give another english corner topic update soon.

em