Meet Becky!

So, I just HAVE to share about one of my students... for the sake of the blog we'll call her "Freckles" she is a tiny little thing who often times hides behind her bangs and is more shy in class than I know what to do with! But recently, little, sweet Freckles has been coming out of her shell!

In class the other day, she came up to me during break and she had a notepad with her. (I giggled on the inside because when students bring their notebooks up to talk with me, it typically indicates it's going to be a complex conversation because they're not quite sure what words they're looking for) As she gets my attention, she opens her notebook, points to one word on one page that says "register".... then she quickly flips to another page and it says "twitter". Literally, I kid you not, she then looks up at me expectantly without so much as one verbal word to explain her question. I am smiling ear to ear. Twitter. Ha! One of the many social medias that are not accessible here in China. I acknowledge that I understand what she is asking, and then I begin my attempt of explaining not only that she cannot "register" on twitter, but also why she cannot... After several minutes, she seems to think more clarification will change my answer and she pleads her "twitter registration" case. She says, "teacher, do you know Justin Bieber?" Do I KNOW Justin Bieber?! Girl, do you KNOW who you are talking to?! Only (and not ashemedly so) one of his BIGGEST fans! I KNOW the Biebs... and I LOVE the biebs! I quickly assure her I KNOW who the biebs is and she continues, "teacher, I want (she points to her two words register and twitter again) so I can see him!" Oh! This girl just moved up in my book- yes please! Girl, I can understand- I would want to follow him on twitter as well! And then it hit me! BAM! I would have to explain to this sweet, poor girl that her country has blocked this social media and therefore, it will be impossible to "register" on "twitter" to follow JB! So... I begin the longest process ever trying to explain to her exactly why she can't get one. And finally, when I thought her eyes would be misting over in tears (as most true fans would be at the breaking of this devastating news), she actually looked at me with hope, "teacher what if I was in America?" haha, oh the faith of the hopeful! "Yes Yes, but if you "register" on twitter in America, you still cannot see it in China".... and there- the look I was anticipated minutes ago appeared... utter disappointment. Poor thing... maybe I'll follow him and feed her his updates ;)

Today, was another wonderful encounter with this sweet girl! This afternoon, me and my friend Megan went on a a nice run in the warmest weather all year- a wonderful high of 36 degrees! Be-a-u-tiful! We finish the run and walk over to the entrance of our building when we notice three of our other foreign teacher friends, Abram, Monica and Danielle hiding eggs all over the little field that sits in front of our doors. Curious, we walk over and ask what they're doing. They reply that they are hiding real hard-boiled eggs around the yard for another teacher, Ashley's, English Corner activity. We laugh at the creative approach to integrating an Easter lesson into her English Corner and move on toward our buildings to prepare for dinner and fellowship later. Then, about an hour later, I receive this text (and I'm quoting verbatim!!!)

"hello, I am {Freckles}. today when i came back from class, I saw the foreign friend on the lawn put eggs. i am very curious. i walked over and took up the eggs. i want to know is it right?! i really do not know what they were doing. so i do not know what should i do. so i afraid they will be angry. what should i do?"


Oh hahahaha.... I laughed so hard for about a good, solid minute when I received this text!!! It literally made my day today!! Can I just take a quick sec to point out the obvious cultural difference here... clearly in our land of America it is quite normal to hide eggs in the spring to celebrate a lil' bit of Easter... but in the land of China- it is an odd thing and you might just wanna be a lil' careful because you might find half your eggs missing when you go hunt for them!! :)

I was quick to reassure her that it was okay... and Freckles replied,

"Oh. Ok. haha, how are you today? are you happy? do you put the eggs? I only know the Easter represent hope. so i hope you happy for a lifetime. ha ha"

Um, so sweet!! She is such a doll! I was quick to assure her that yes, Easter is "hope" and I am happy! This is one of my favorite things about being here! There is an innocence in the Chinese culture in my eyes in many ways because of political and cultural ideology. And I love that I get to share this "hope" of Easter with precious students like Freckles who seek to find happiness and hope everyday for a lifetime!