Living in the United States can cause one to come into a Chinese household with stereotypes and certain expectations. Up on my arrival, I expected my family members to be very serious and hard to communicate with. With open arms, my host family welcomed me and has only shown me extreme generosity. Having expectations, I thought my host family would be very close minded and very serious. In reality though, it is quite the opposite.
In the household I am staying in, I have two parents and a brother and a sister. My host brother, is 14 years old and goes to the middle school attached to New Beijing University. He loves to play basketball and treats the NBA like religion. His name is "Haosan" and just like an 8th grader in Arrupe loves to play games on his iPad. Haosan studies English but it is hard for us to speak smoothly. His sister, studies at a university in Beijing and graduated the high school I am attending now. She has two cats living with us but she usually stays on campus. My father and mother are a very happy couple. My father lived in California and studied at a university in California. My father studied to be a nutritionist teacher and really loves to serve me healthy foods. He speaks almost perfect English. We have many conversations about religion, politics, and culture. My mother is a doctor and she works very long night shifts in the ER. She usually makes us our meals and keeps up the house. The family is so giving and generous and makes sure I'm always happy.
Every morning me and Haosan take the bus to school. It's only a 20-30 minute ride. It gets very hot in my house but in all of the bedrooms we have air conditioners. We live on the 15th floor in a 2 bathroom apartment condo. My family has taken me out to dinner so far on two occasions, they love to over feed me. Compared to an American household, it is very similar. Everybody in the mornings is getting ready to start their day and go to work or school. I know that in my house in America we have a huge thrive for work ethic and so does my Chinese family. Chinese children especially in my household, their lives revolve around their school and study. But I know that today, my family will take me to see a Chinese movie in the theaters. They typically have little social life because they are so busy with homework or projects.
At dinner time, as a family, we usually discuss what we did that day, besides our excursions, it is my favorite part of the day. I found it funny how sitting down at a dinner table together is something so universal. We have our laughs and they crack jokes all the time. Dinner is usually a multi course meal filled with vegetables and meat. In every meal though, they serve some sort of lentil soup. Just like my family, do we sit down together and share a meal and discuss what we did for the day.
At school, I am beginning to make a couple of friends, who I usually play basketball with. Some of the biggest struggles in my daily life here is definitely the language barrier. For example, they pronounce some words in English very incorrectly so it's hard to understand them. As for my Chinese, it gets hard to understand them because I think they speak too fast. On this trip so far, I am adjusting pretty well and am looking forward to what is coming. A quote I keep in mind is St. Ignatius' "Go forth and set the world on fire". So I plan to keep up the good work and good relations with my family and friends. With open arms I was welcome into China so with an open mind will I begin to understand it.
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