I’ve been doing an abhorrent job at publishing these, but here are my blog posts 3 and 4, each typed and (basically) done for a long time, but stranded, lonely, and forgotten in the notes app of my computer…
#3
As I get to know my circle members better, I find less and less that I need to plan conversation starters, and am more comfortable just asking them each about their weeks in a way that is tailored to what I know about them (i.e. “How are your grad school applications going?” or “How has that econ class been for you guys?”) to get our discussion started. In this way it feels more natural for me, more like we are all in a circle rather than having me looked to as the one with the topic chosen and guiding discussion. I definitely still jump in to ask things that I think will get the most people talking, or to get one person talking who is a bit quieter, but altogether I am happy that we are all becoming more acclimated to the less planned-out approach in my group.
In the past two meetings since my last post, we have gone to get bubble tea at Bubble Island, and most recently we have gotten coffee at Amer’s. At Bubble Island we had a cool discussion about Spring Festival, which I know very little about, and they all got really excited to tell me about their own traditions surrounding the holiday. This was a nice twist for me, since in the past meetings they had been excited to learn about American holidays/seasonal things, but this entailed me speaking more than them, which I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty about. We have also been talking a bit about tv shows and media differences in the US and China, which has been awesome to learn about - and it’s never a bad thing to get more people watching some of my favorite series on Netflix (although I worry what they will think about me if anyone gives Dexter a watch…).
#4
We do end up addressing cultural and linguistic differences quite often in our group, just because I think we all find each other’s backgrounds quite different and—in the least offputtingly-voyeuristic way possible—quite fascinating. Linguistic differences have been brought up quite a few times, and unsurprisingly I find myself falling comfortably into my role as a tutor in the writing center…I’ve uttered the signature “See, that’s absolutely correct grammatically, but English is weird and for some reason it does this here”, or "for whatever reason that is the idiomatic way of putting the same thing, not sure why”. On the other side of things, wherever it was natural in conversation, I have asked what it is like learning a language with an entirely different script (yes, I have done the this with Greek, but I am so ignorant of the Chinese language that I was not sure if the characters expressed phonetic characteristics or only semantic ones).
We have also spent time talking about holidays, politics, economics, education systems—at some point we all talked about what made them choose to come to the United States for schooling—and familial differences between our cultures. At the same time, I do my best not to universalize their experiences, and do my best not to universalize my own experience of the US. At the same time, it is always hard not to feel like you are prying into someone’s life by asking them these questions, and I would be lying if I said that this were not a hesitation that I felt when asking questions that start with “…so what is it like in China?”
Two weeks ago, for our fifth meeting, we went to a place called Sweeting on South U for bubble tea, and Anjali joined us. Only two group members were there for this meeting, but we nonetheless were able to hold a pretty good discussion. Frank told us a lot about the graduate programs that he is looking at, and Allison was as talkative as she always is, which was awesome. We also decided pretty definitively that the tea was better there (and apparently the desserts). And early this afternoon I had three/5 of my members over to carve pumpkins which was a lot of fun. The three girls were interested in what people usually do for Halloween, which got us talking about what the holiday was like for kids, and what most college kids do on Halloween…which got us talking a little bit about the culture here at the university concerning parties/alcohol/the like. Finally, we made plans to get Korean barbecue with each other on a coming Saturday just for kicks, a night for which—insofar as I haven’t convinced any of my other friends to go to Tomukun with me yet—I’m disproportionately excited.
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