3 Amigas

Best Friends: Shirley, Becky, and Janny

One thing that we've noticed about classmates in China is that they seem to have a stronger bond than classmates in the US. It is almost "sibling-esque." While I'm not sure exactly what to attribute this to, I have a few ideas. One obvious thought is that China's One Child Policy has created a generation of "only children" left searching outside their families for brotherly or sisterly relationships. Another thought is that the students spend so much time together - they're here 6 full days per week at our school, studying, playing, doing chores around campus, and even sleeping - that their classmates become more like siblings to them. A last thought relates more to Chinese culture. From what we've witnessed, Chinese people seem to recognize that they share a common bond, and as a result they are extremely supportive of and helpful to each other, no matter the cost. I can't help but think of the students who stayed behind in crumbling school buildings to pull their fellow classmates to safety during last May's Sichuan earthquake, in which over 5,000 students died..

While this close relationship generally extends to the entire class, every student does tend to have one or two "best friends." It's easy to spot these groups. Spend 5 minutes standing in the hallways between classes at our school and you'll notice the girls holding hands and chatting as they walk to the water fountain. The boys, too are not afraid to get close to one another. It is not uncommon to see boys holding hands or walking with their arms around each other. At first, I thought it was a little strange to see these "big, cool" boys getting all "touchy-feely" with each other. Now, I think I like that they're not afraid to show that they care.

Shirley, Becky, and Janny are one of these "best friend" groups at our school. They're in my (David's) Junior 1 class 7. They're pretty much inseparable, and we never see one on campus without the other two. We often see these girls around school during the evening meal period eating "dinner" or watching the boys play basketball. I use the word dinner very loosely, as dinner for these girls typically consists of a small wedge of pineapple that they've bought for 2 yuan from a street vendor who's set up shop outside our school gate. (Interestingly, the girls can't go outside the gate to meet the street vendor and he can't come in, so the transaction happens through a hole in the gate). They've got enough money to buy a "real" meal at the cafeteria, but they choose to eat fruit or bread for dinner because they don't like the cafeteria food. It's no wonder these girls are tiny - when you see them, it is hard to believe that they are in 7th grade! Shirley is the group's ringleader. She clearly speaks the best English of her group, and she's also the boldest.

This group of friends, led by Shirley, had been asking me if they could come up to see our apartment for nearly a month. I was happy to oblige, but because of illnesses, holidays, and field trips we kept having to postpone the "field trip" to Mr. and Mrs. Joe's home. Finally, 2 weeks ago, we were able to have the girls over to our apartment after school. I wish you could have been there when I invited them over, because their reaction was priceless. All 3 girls literally jumped, threw their arms in the air, and screamed "YAAAY!" Ecstatic is not a strong enough word to describe their joy at my invitation. I told them how to get to our apartment (it's on-campus) and asked what time they thought they would be able to come over. They told me that they'd arrive sometime after class got out at 5pm.

That afternoon back at our apartment, we waited for the girls to come. At around 5:30, we heard a sound at the door, but no knock. Several minutes later, we heard a strong "knock-knock-knock" at the door. We assumed that it had to be the girls, but we were a bit confused, as the knock had seemed too loud to have come from one of our tiny students. We opened the door to find 2 of the 3 girls, Becky and Janny, standing sheepishly in front of our American neighbor Janet. Janet later explained that she'd returned home to our apartments from running an errand and saw the two girls standing nervously outside our door, as if debating on whether or not they should knock. Janet asked them if they were looking for us, and they nervously nodded their heads "yes." With that response, Janet decided to help the girls out by knocking for them. She said their reaction was hilarious: Both girls faces turned to panic at the thought that we might actually answer our door and they would have to come inside!

Anyway, we did answer our door, and the girls came in. We asked why Shirley had not come. Apparently, she had been asked by a teacher to stay after class, leaving the two shyer girls to come to our apartment alone. (We were a little fuzzy on what exactly had happened to Shirley, because Becky didn't describe it very eloquently with her limited vocabulary: "One student . . . one teacher . . . away!" She did this while making a motion that seemed to indicate that the teacher had literally snatched Shirley off the sidewalk!)

Once inside, we started showing the girls around our home. Contrary to what they probably believed, our apartment is not that exciting. It was kind of a stretch for us to find interesting things to show them. We showed them our pictures from home, maps, etc. One of the funniest moments of the afternoon came when we tried to show them a Chinese tea set that we have in our Study. On the floor in the Study, we have a bamboo mat lying on the floor serving as a rug. These mats are actually used in China as bedding in the summer because they're cooler to lie on than sheets (They're not soft at all, and I don't think they'd be too comfortable to sleep on, but they're in every home). We use the mats as rugs because, well, they look like rugs to us. Plus, they're really cheap. Anyway, when I motioned for the girls to come into the study to look at the tea set, they refused to come in. At first, I was a little confused as to why they wouldn't enter the Study, and then I remembered: the mat! The girls had seen the mat on the floor and thought it was our bed. They thought I was asking them to enter our bedroom and were afraid of walking on top of where we slept! I explained to them that in our home, the mat served as a rug, not a bed. I even jumped on it a few times myself to show them that it was okay. Still, it was ingrained in the girls' minds that the thin bamboo mat on the hard, cold floor was a bed, and it just wasn't right to walk on it. The problem was, it was impossible for them to see the tea set I was trying to show them without coming into the Study, so they eventually came in. It was hilarious watching the steps they took to avoid walking on the bamboo mat. They climbed on chairs, jumped, and did anything possible to avoid walking on it. We couldn't help but get a good laugh out of it!

Is this a rug, or a bed?

So, it was pretty clear the girls were a bit nervous in our home, especially without their "ringleader" Shirley. We could tell the girls were a bit eager to get out of the study (almost walking on the rug was a bit traumatic for them, I think), so after we'd looked at the tea set, we made our way into the room that serves as our all-in-one entryway, kitchen, dining room, and hall. Tiffany had baked an apple cake in our rice cooker to make our home seem more inviting. (Yes, you read that correctly - who knew that a rice cooker could double as an oven?) We offered the girls a slice, and they each took it. We talked with them a bit as they ate. It was now past 6pm, and we thought the girls would be about ready to head out. They'd pretty much seen everything in our apartment worth looking at, and the apple cake was our last "trick" to keep them interested.

At about that time, we heard another knock at the door, which perked the girls up a bit. I went to open the door, and there was Shirley, the "3rd Amiga." Shirley excitedly entered the room and apologized for being late. She did not display any of the nervousness that her friends had, and her mere presence transformed the other girls into more outgoing personalities as well. They began joking, laughing, and bouncing around our apartment playfully. We offered Shirley a slice of the apple cake. By this time, the other girls had finished their slices already, so we offered them another. They were a bit coy about how big of a slice they wanted, so Tiffany gave them the knife so they could cut a piece for themselves. We watched amazed as Janny cut herself a giant slice that was about 1/3 the size of the entire cake. She then handed the knife to Becky, who cut an equally gargantuan slice for herself! We were happy they liked the cake, but Sheesh! We'd been counting on having some leftovers for ourselves that night, and now it was all gone!

As the girls ate, Tiffany and I stood in the background, watching them joke with each other in English and Chinese. We felt like girl scout leaders supervising snack time at a weekly scout meeting! When I'd seen the sizes of the cake slices the girls had cut for themselves, I'd thought that there was no way they would be able to finish them, but they ate every last bite! I guess we shouldn't have been so surprised, Tiffany's apple cake was serving as dinner for these girls tonight, and this sure beat a measly slice of pineapple! I'm still amazed at how these tiny girls together ate an entire cake by themselves that afternoon. By the time the girls had finished off the cake, it was around 6:30pm. They said they had to leave to go to evening study class, thanked us for letting them come over, and headed out the door. We were happy that the girls had a good time, and relieved that the meeting had gone well.

I remember this game from elementary school . . ..

Joking around at the table and eating apple cake

Since we only teach each class once per week, we figure that a big part of our job is to interact with students outside of the classroom to encourage them to use English. We also enjoy sharing a bit of our culture and food with the students. It's always interesting to see how students react to our home and our food. Most students seem to think that we have a very "warm" home. I think this has something to do with the fact that we have hung decorations on the wall (the walls of many Chinese apartments are often left bare). Reactions to the food are generally positive once the students grasp the basics of using a fork and knife. Spaghetti and Chili seem to be a hit with the students because they're not too different from Chinese food. Still, we've gotten some mixed reactions: We fed some of Tiffany's students spaghetti for lunch earlier on the same day that Shirley and her "posse" came over. At the end of the meal, we realized that a couple of those students had eaten only the noodles and left all of the sauce on the plate! They just stuck to the part of the meal (noodles) that was familiar to them!

We enjoyed the fact that Shirley and her friends enjoyed coming to our home so much. They're still raving about the apple cake, which makes us happy! Before our time here is through, we'll have to have them over again. Next time, we'll just need to make sure we have more food!