Sunday

First thing today as I went to Worldlink, I saw a crowd of people by the hair salon. There was some music, and it seemed it was a race outside between the hairdresser assistants and the massage girls. Today is the Middle Autumn festival so I guess they were celebrating. Look at the picture.



Today I met my language exchange partner through WorldLink. They took us to a restaurant and gave us cards with names and a number on them, indicating who our partner was, and their were a bunch of Chinese people there. My partner is a 25 year old girl named Lu Yan Xia. I asked if she had an English name, and she didnt, but said she wanted one, so I told her I would think of a name. I suggested a few that started with L, and she said she liked Lindsay. Here is a picture of her.



We ate lunch with the guy I met named Mark and what turned out to be his 2 language partners, because one Worldlink student didn't show up.



At the beginning it was very hard to communicate. After lunch I figured out how to say let's go somewhere and do something.
So the girls took us to their university and we sat and watched a men's league soccer game which was going on at the soccer field. Their university is not as nice looking as ours, it seems to be mostly all Chinese. The girls were all studying English. They signed up through Worldlink to get a language partner to practice English with.
We sat and watched the soccer game, Mark and I talked by ourselves, because Mark hasn't had class yet so he knows nothing. Lu Yan Xia sat alone and was writing something, which turned out to be a note to me. It said:
Greg,
I can't communication with you. I feel badly, begin from today, I'll work hard. I hope. I'll communication with you as soon as possible. Thank you for me make name. lendsy.

So I said it was ok and told her it was communicate not communication.

Then we went to near their dorm and talked for a while. Another girl and her language partner showed up, and this girl spoke the best english out of them all. At this point I was getting good at communicating with the girls, because we both knew to speak slowly, and we figured out how to explain things. So the speaking was going well. I asked them all if they would like to go watch a movie at this western/bar club called Lush near my apartment that has movies on Monday night. So they said ok. Then they asked us out to dinner at their student cafeteria. So we ate there and talked and then Mark and I and this other guy named Greg from California left.

On the way home this Chinese guy was passing me and he said Ni hao and I said Ni hao and he said your chinese is good, (in chinese). We talked for a while and I told him that I was watching a movie at Lush at 8 tomorrow, because he seemed to want to hang out with me. So I guess he will be there too.

In one hour I am going back to the hair salon to talk some more English/Chinese with the hairdresser guy there.