Monday, January 24, 2011

The Meeting of Cultures...

Our son rents a room in his house to a young man from China who is working as a TA at Auburn University while he works on his PhD in mathematics.  This young man went back to China this past summer....and while he was there he got married.  His young wife could not return with him because she had to wait for her visa to the USA to be approved.  Ye (pronounced as "yeah") finally arrived in December, so now she AND Fung, her husband live in my son's house.  Ye has had  much to become accustomed to......dogs that live in the house (namely my son's) in addition to a whole new language, a whole new culture...a whole new way of life.
Our son brought his girlfriend and this Chinese couple to our home this past Saturday for an afternoon of skeet shooting (None of the three guests had ever done such a thing before!) and a supper of my husband's barbecued babyback ribs (possibly a culture shock in itself to Ye). 







While we waited on the food to cook, Fung entertained us with his talented piano playing...





 


It was interesting to watch Ye watch us  to see how she should eat...everything about America is so totally different from what she is used to.  Their food is cut into bite-sized pieces so that they can pick it up with chopsticks...And here we had these ribs she had to actually "gnaw on" using hands and teeth:).
She's a "trooper", though, and after eating she entertained us with Chinese folk dancing.  Normally shewould have had a bongo drum (that's what I envisioned from what she said, anyway) player for the beat, but since we had no drums and din't know the beat anyway, she sang the beat aloud while she danced:





So graceful, so joyful...

Truly a delight to watch!

Ye seems to be embracing the American culture for all it's worth (my son says she studies English while Fung is at work/school, and when I emailed her these photos...she emailed me back and asked me to please correct her response...She is studying for the TOEFL - Test of English for a Foreign Language (or something like that) - test that she has to pass to be able to stay here, to get a drivers license, etc.)

Yes, I think Ye, Zjong will be fine!


Have a lovely day!
...and remember to check out the "Chicks":)

-Mug

1 comment:

  1. How FUN! Neat that you all shared things you enjoy doing ... shooting, cooking, music, dancing, & so made the time so-o enjoyable & interesting. Sounds like a great time.

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