Ni hao!

"China is like a sleeping giant. When she awakes, she shall astonish the world."

-Napoleon Bonaparte 1803

Hello people!
Greetings from the land of the sleeping giant!
it's been a totally different experience here! Been speaking so much chinese, and even required to translate for Cindy, Mojo and Ziech most of the time. It's quite demanding actually! haha and i've been working to remember how to read chinese and how to write it as well.
I've improved tremendously in days, now i know that immersing yourself in the culture is really effective in language acquisition. (mari will find that phrase familiar) It really matters alot to mainland Chinese if you can speak their language. They're quite intrigued that i can speak english and understand chinese as well. (if the accent is not so strong and if they don't speak really fast). But the communication is really good enough, there's a sort of bond in a language. Which is why so many students are learning english as well! But the problem is speaking, i think alot of chinese students can write... (thru rote learning and drills) but not really speak or listen. so that's our main focus... speaking and listening lessons.

We've been planning resources for the camp, the American team (which consists mainly of American born Koreans) about 10 of them are arriving on the 17th of July when the camp starts. So Cindy, mojo and i will have to take the first 2-3 days of classes before we delegate and do shifts with the classes. Ziech has left to Malaysia today and will be back in perth quite soon i think! =) Cindy and Mojo have never taught before but i must say they're fantastic! they're going to be great in the classrooms!

We visited the Yellow River (huang he) yesterday. Got to see a small part of the river only... one of the smaller tributaries. It was drizzling the whole time! was quite a dreary day, but it was a good experience! i took a photo with a giant Chairman Mao statue! haha... the culture here is really different, despite all the rude behaviour (which is unintentional) like spitting and loud talking... the chinese people are really warm hearted and animated! haha. The volunteers we work with @ the school are excellent people! they're really helpful and very eager to learn english... 2-3 of them are actually going to be translators in the classes with us.

Food's good! been eating home cooked food for the past couple of days... haven't really eaten out cept for a really good meal we had @ a student's family restaurant! super good noodles. Best in Henan province apparently! cos they are from the Hui tribe. so it's authentic Hui noodles. =)

Will try to update soon again! maybe in a couple of days or so!!
Do keep us in prayer... health and safety in particular. (Cindy's had some bad food poisoning past 2 days)
Catch you soon!

Love mishi =)