Blog Post #5: Grilled Octopus

So, I must start off with a funny anecdote from last week's Chat Café. I consider myself to be a pretty adventurous guy when it comes to food. I will try (almost) anything once, simply because I love breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, and even Fourth Meal (shout out to T-Bell). This week, when my group and I held our conversation at Sweeting located on South U, I figured I would bring this adventurous foodie out in me during the session. Sweeting is known for their teas and desserts, but they also offer some savory dishes for those looking for a small snack. One such dish is Grilled Octopus (or, maybe it was squid. I would ask the creature what it was, but unfortunately, that's all she wrote for that one). This particular menu item got a rave review from one of the students in my Chat Café, so I took his word and decided to indulge. Don't get me wrong - I thought I was a huge fan of calamari before November 5. After all, when I go out to restaurants and order octopus, it traditionally, for me at least, has been brought out covered in fried breadcrumbs and usually is cut up into small pieces. So one might see why I expected something similar when I ordered the Grilled Octopus from Sweeting. No. Nope. Nah. It was grilled and not a breadcrumb was in sight (looking back, this should have been obvious given the name of the dish, but perhaps I was too excited to show my adventurous side to my conversation participants that I abandoned common sense). Furthermore, it was a long tentacle, suction cups and all, skewered onto two thin wooden sticks. Needless to say, we were not in Kansas anymore. I tried a little bite at the heckling of my conversation circle. Afterwards, I decided to stick to my chicken wings and offered the rest to them, who like calamari sans breadcrumbs (probably the better way of eating it to people with refined palettes).

This experience reminded me of the very first conversation circle I led with my group back in September. I remember being so surprised that nobody had ever tried, or even heard of, Reese's PB Cups or Nutella. After talking with my group more last week, octopus is their version of Nutella. That is obviously not meant to be generalized to say that all Chinese and Taiwanese people love calamari, just as not all people in the US love Nutella, but it did illustrate a very salient point about the universality of food. People around the table tried some of the calamari and talked about stories in which they remember their dad devouring so much calamari at the dinner table or when their mom found out she was allergic to it after taking a bite of the tentacle. I talked about my preference for the breaded calamari, to which I heard some chuckles. Food brings us together with memories. So, regardless of how much I didn't like the Grilled Octopus option, if I had to do that day over again at Sweeting, I would order the same menu option. Not for the taste, definitely not for the look, but for the conversation.

Blog Post #5

I think adjusting to the overall American culture is difficult for international students in general. My participants don’t seem very frustrated, rather, willing to learn about how to assimilate to this new environment and embrace the culture. Language, social norms, socializing all are very different from China, where most of my participants are from. They seem to most benefit from taking excursions to restaurants where they can practice their demeanor, etiquette, and ability to engage in conversations with others in the U.S.

I think Sweetland can provide them with learning tools or videos depicting the transition of international students who have been a part of Chat Cafes in the past. Hearing from them can help them relate and understand what they can do better to learn about a foreign country. It will provide them with advice and guidance from people who have been in their shoes and help them better position themselves in the environment and culture associated with it.

What are you thoughts on this? Does the class have any other suggestions? Have you seen many cultural frustrations in your chat cafes and if so, how have you dealt with it?

Blog Post #5

Some of the cultural frustrations that my participants have discussed include language barriers in their classes, and other students misunderstanding them because of their accent. Surprisingly, most of the frustrations that my participants have expressed are related to language. I was expecting them to express more difficulty with cultural assimilation. However, they often say that few drastic cultural differences exist that they are unable to accommodate to, and they have already been so exposed to American culture that they knew what to expect before coming here. Language, however, is something that constantly has to be worked on in order to improve, and accent is not something that can be obtained very quickly. Personally, I sometimes feel bad for having to ask the participants to repeat something because I could not understand it properly the first time. I know that asking politely and affirming their response are good techniques to alleviate this, but I still feel as though it puts them on the spot negatively.

I think that having workshops specifically designed to improve accent and pronunciation might be helpful for international students. Of course, practicing conversational skills should be prioritized, but I think that mastering details in pronouncing words like a native speaker can give English language learners more confidence in their abilities. I think that learning should be a combination of practicing words and grammar, but also training yourself to pronounce new words and sounds more effortlessly.

Overall, my Chat Cafe sessions have been going well, and I think that it really helps in terms of language and accent development to be able to practice English and converse with a native speaker. I have tried a few different activities with my participants that have worked well. For example, we played Mad Libs this week, and they really enjoyed it. Each person got a turn being the writer, so they filled in word suggestions from other students and then read the completed story aloud, which I thought was very helpful for their grammar and pronunciation skills. Using prepared discussion questions also works very well with my quieter group, and this is something I would like to continue doing with them every week.

#5 Formalities Formalities Formalities

After hosting eight chat cafes, I realized I have only three more left. As I get closer to my final session, I cant help but think whether they actually got anything out from my sessions. Since day one, I have been fussing over what to bring to the table every Sunday in terms of language and how can I serve my community as much as I can. Knowing the struggles of being a non-native speaker, I took great pains of making a schedule that tried to encompass English language learning as well as different activities that appealed to my groups members. While being on top of such things is beneficial, I started to become rather uptight as a result and this caused unnecessary stress when things didn't go out as planned. However ,after talking to Scott and going through a period of self-reflection (which I do on a daily basis anyway), I realized to let go and not to throw a hissy fit if I have only one member attend my session. All I could now is wait for a final feedback from my members.

Besides that, I realized my chat cafe members tend to be overly formal with me. Cultural differences aside, I assumed they would be more comfortable with just saying 'Hi Irfan' rather than saying 'Dear Irfanul, my name is X' every time they would send me an email. I wouldn't bring it up because I know the answer they would give so I might as well just roll with it (although saying your name every time isn't necessary). In my last session, one member shook my hand before he left and I was rather unprepared - I didn't moisturize beforehand. I looked at him perplexed but went ahead and did what I had to do. I hope by the end of the semester, they would start treating me as fellow student/friend and stop being so formal. Oh and carry a hand lotion before attending future chat cafes.

#3 & #4 (alternatively titled: I'm so sorry these are so incredibly late)

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. 

Blog Post 5

Cafe Chat has been going pretty well! I am making this blog post right now because during class when Scott asked if we had all made 4 blog posts I had a mini heart attack and couldn't remember, but I did. Now I'm paranoid.
      Anyways, last week for Halloween, I bought in a craft for my Thursday Cafe Chat. We all made pumpkins. First, we cut up little orange strips and we wrote what we were thankful about on them. Then, we put it together in a way that made a pumpkin. I didn't have as much fun as I thought as I would, probably because I had already made so many with the 2nd graders I worked with that morning, but I think they had fun. I got chills when we all went around sharing what we were thankful for. A lot of them pointed out stuff that I had never though about, and it was very eyeopening. I felt like I got to know them a lot better.
       On Friday, my conversation circle carved a pumpkin together and it was a lot of fun because I've only "worked together" on it with my dad once. (He did the whole thing) The pumpkin turned out really well but it has started to smell and my RA threw it away.
     This Wednesday, one of the girls in my Wednesday group who had stopped coming came again and I was shocked but really happy because I really liked her when I met her that first week. We spent a lot of time on rose and thorns and we were all sitting on comfortable couches. I had a lot of fun talking to them, and I am really hoping no one felt too awkward during that time. We did the activity I did with my Thursday group where we write a phrase and pass on to the next person and they have to go off that phrase, but it didn't work as well it did with my thursday group because they didn't seem to understand the way I explained it as well, and there were only 2 people in each group instead of three. However, we still had fun and they all added me on facebook finally.
     Today, I had a really good time with my Thursday group. I get to vent about my problems to them and they think it's funny even though it's not, but that's okay. Rose and thorns took about 30 minutes. Then, we played the game where we start with a written message and someone draws a picture off that message and someone writes a message off of that picture...etc. We did 6 chains at a time so everyone could have something to write or draw at the same time. I started all the chains so it wasn't as fun for me, but that's okay because it made it more fun for them because I told them that everything was about me so they made fun of me (jokingly) in their writings and drawings. All 6 ended up with me in them at the end even though I didn't specify it was me in the beginning.
    I really want to plan and do fun things with my Wednesday group, but attendance is so shaky that I'm reluctant to do any of that because I leave the house at 9am and don't get back until after conversation circle. If I plan activities, I usually bring props etc and I don't want to carry it around all day and not be able to do it...I'm not sure what to do about this.

#4

I just finished my meeting for this week and it went really well. I have a moment of panic at the beginning of every session that no one will show up, but at least so far that has never happened! This week we started a little but by talking about Halloween again what we all did for the weekend and the whole time I had in the back of my head that if I needed a topic we could talk about dealing with stress and the different things available on campus for managing stress, but our conversation flowed really normally.
I'm not sure how we got onto the topic but we started talking about weddings and one of my group members described a traditional Korean wedding ceremony, which was really cool! Per usual our conversation led to talking about tv and movies, which seems to be all of our favorite topics :). We talked about some Korean movies for a while and then all got really wrapped up in a conversation about the avengers and the new Captain America movie. At the end of the cafe I suggested that sometime near the end of the semester we should have a movie night which they were all really receptive to! So I think the next couple meetings we'll work our where we'll watch it, what movie we want to see and of course, what snacks.
Attendance has become pretty standard, there are two girls who absolutely always show up and one girl who missed two meetings near the beginning but since then has been at all the meetings. There is a fourth member who comes everyone once and a while and when he does I think it's always a nice and don't notice too different of a group dynamic.