I Heart My Chinese Tutor!
This semester I opted for the “Intenstive Option,” which involves 10 hours of one-on-one tutoring every week. After the first week or two of classes (20 hrs/wk) and tutoring (10 hrs/week), I came up with a really good way to describe the Intensive Option — intense! An extra two hours every day of Chinese practice has been great for my spoken Chinese, but on top of classes and homework, it really makes weekdays almost 忙死了 — busy to death! In the first few weeks, it was possible, but now that my number of Chinese friends here has increased exponentially, I find that 1) I have almost unlimited (and free!) opportunities to practice Chinese and get help with homework, 2) I often have to give up fun Chinese-friendly activities in order to meet my tutor at our scheduled time, and 3) necessary on-my-own study time (such as for memorizing characters, which for me is best accomplished alone) is reduced. So for these reasons I have decided to opt out of the Intensive Option for next semester.
That being said, I arrive at the real purpose of this blog - to talk about how incredibly grateful I am for my tutor Sunny! We’re like a match made in heaven. We have so much fun together. During the week we usually eat dinner together at her school’s cafeteria (cheap AND delicious, at least in my opinion! And definitely much healthier than eating instant noodles every night, which is probably what I would otherwise be doing), then run a few errands together, and then go to my apartment to study and chat. In all, I’d say we usually only spend a quarter of our time together formally studying Chinese (which is possibly why I’m having a hard time balancing homework and real life, he he). In the beginning, I felt a little guilty about this, since I’m paying for a private tutor. But I evaluated the situation, and decided that me and Sunny’s modus operandi allows me to learn what can’t be learned from a textbook or audio tapes — culture. Like, genuine, deep down culture. For example, by spending so much casual time together, Sunny and I have really gotten to know each other’s lives quite well. We know each other’s daily habits, where we like to shop, how we usually treat shop clerks, how to tell when the other one is tired/angry/happy/embarrassed/worried/confused/content/whatever, what our plans for the future are, and what kinds of jokes we enjoy. Sunny and I have shopped for clothes together, eaten at restaurants, hung out at coffee shops, bought eyeglasses, gone on walks (when it wasn’t yet ridiculously cold outside!), and dressed up for Halloween together. Next week we plan on going to an amusement park together with her younger sister, weather allowing. When Sunny and I walk together, we link arms or hold hands, a habit between friends that I really wish we had in the US.
And of course, we always speak Chinese. She is patient with me and very helpful. We talk about everything under the sun, from boy trouble to the Olympics to cultural differences between the East and the West. She is currently getting her masters in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, and thus has the opportunity, if she chooses, to go abroad. We discussed the character traits a person needs to succeed in another culture, to make close friends and prevent cynicism and isolationism from creeping in to one’s attitude. I didn’t think it was possible for me to already be having these kinds of conversations in Chinese, but somehow with her it is possible.
I’ll miss her seeing her every day next semester, but I’m sure we’ll still see each other, watch movies together, go shopping, and laugh when I mistakenly say her feet are really cute dumplings. I heart my Chinese tutor!
-Bethany Allen
