Chinese Hosting

My church, All Nations Baptist, has a program where you can host an international student for about a week when they first come to the US. This gives them time to find an apartment. My sister Karise, 2 roommates, and I hosted Yongling, from China. Yongling had spent a year or so studying in England before coming to the States and learned much of her English from there. After hearing her speak and noticing the British accent in her voice, I commented, "Your American sounds very English." What I meant to say was 'Your English sounds very British', but it came out wrong. We all had a good laugh at my typical blunder.

We were able to take Yongling to the MN State Fair to experience some pretty greasy, traditional Fair food. We all had a fun time sampling the different foods and looking at the various sights. All 5 of us crammed into a small picture booth together for a group picture. We barely fit all of our heads in the picture! It was quite a funny sight, but now we had a picture of great memories.

After Yongling had been with us for a few days, another Chinese girl, Angela, joined us since her host could no longer keep her. The one difficult thing we learned with hosting two students from the same culture is that they tend to talk to each in their own language more than interact with their host family. But, this is also understandable and I know I would most likely do the same thing if I was in a foreign country and found another American there.

We did all have a good time together though. They cooked us a great Chinese meal and we introduced them to Smores! This is them making Smores! Yongling is on the left and Angela on the right.