Making Friends

We had our first meal at the school separated from the students, but we got to join them in the main cafeteria for breakfast the next day. Over this period of time, we received many curious glances, as well as a few shy “hi”s from different groups. We were also greeted with many questions, which was expected because we were the foreigners. Everything to this point came as a surprise, I hadn’t expected such a warm welcoming and the many curious questions from the bright students. We had many nice conversations where we learned much about the school, such as: they had to run every morning and read on the field, they had missed their families a lot when they first came, they’d be hit/punished by the teachers (for things such as lateness to class, unclean dorms, failure to show respect, etc), the school did not permit any “relationships” between boys and girls, and 9th graders had a final test to determine the future of their high school years. Many of these conversations took place either during meals, between their classes (classes were split with 10-minute breaks), or at night in our dorm room (before the 9:30 lights out). With the quickness and common amount of these interactions, we were quick to make friends whom we related to and marveled at in regard to their life at the Shennongjia school.

We talked with many super sweet girls, and even gave some of them English names. These included names such as Molly, Cheryl, Chloe, and more. All were just as eager to learn about America as we were about life there in Shennongjia. We shared many stories about our school environments in America, as well as daily life (foods, hobbies, etc). As stated before, they told us much about the school, also their homes. A fun thing we did with some of them was teaching them volleyball on the soccer field. It was a great way to just have some fun and play around. Some of them were so nice they even bought us refreshing drinks, and throughout the trip, we received many warm gestures.

After coming back from the short 6-day break (all students besides testing 9th graders were released), there was only a week left of teaching. Nearing the end, we began to interact with the girls much more, such as allowing them to stop by our dorm room more often. We made bracelets together and took many pictures. We met many spectacular people, such as: Krystal who was an amazing singer, Molly who showed me her great report on Journey to the West and gave everyone in our dorm nice Chinese books, Cheryl and Chloe who were friendly dorm neighbors and had bought us drinks, Wang Nina who linked arms with me as we raced to their class on the first day, Wang YaLi who gave me a beautiful necklace and hair clip, and Daniel who had a great spirit when we played volleyball with him (and there are many more). On the last day, we gave many many hugs and received many heartfelt notes from numerous students. We also received sweet little gifts such as lollipops, origami flowers (which we taught in our class), and milk. In return, we gave a printed group picture to Molly (whom I had talked with the most, and I remember being very caring and considerate), our name tags, and of course our WeChats. The next morning was a sad farewell, a few tears had been shed by some of them (which was very touching). It was sad because although our stay there was fairly short, we had such a connection with some of the nicest and happiest people we’d ever met.