Culturally Abrasive Sutdents

I realize that it's been quite a while since I've updated this thing. My students have finally realized that I leave in a few months so they are taking advantage of speaking with a native English speaker and because I'm awesome of course. However, because of this I've had almost no time for myself and no time to process through things that I've needed to. Sometimes China throws unexpected things at me that, as an American, I don't really know how to process.
Last week was a pretty hard week in China, culturally speaking. Every so often I have "China days", this is code for a culture clashing day in China!
Last week, I had plans to go out with 5 of my female students for lunch and climb a mountain, go shopping, and whatever else they wanted to drag me to. I teach their class on Wednesday and Friday and our plans were for Saturday. On Wednesday I asked my student Sherry if we were still on for Saturday, but she told me that we would only have lunch because it was supposed to rain on Saturday (In Nanchang, it's always supposed to rain). I told her that I was looking forward to lunch and that I would see her on Friday for class. Being American, I thought okay, now I have the rest of the afternoon/night off on Saturday, so I made plans for 230, a reasonable time for after lunch. On Friday morning Sherry approached me to tell me of the new plans for Saturday, we were now going to lunch (Hot Pot, which takes about 2 hours by itself), going shopping, and going to a museum downtown. I informed Sherry, that I had made plans because she told me that we would only have lunch together. Then I got the guilt trip of how she had bought a new camera just for the day and needed me to switch my plans. However, I meet with a study of about 5 sisters and I had invited them over for Easter eggs and to have dinner with me, and then maybe watch the Passion movie. I was booked. After a little more of a guilt trip, Sherry realized that I wasn't going to change my plans. Although I felt bad about the misunderstanding, I had made plans with my girls, so I couldn't change them.
I entitled this blog, "culturally abrasive students" because I guess I interpreted their actions during our lunch to be very abrasive. I went to hot pot with the girls and quickly realized that they haven't been out with foreigners much. Not only were they extremely close, you'd think I'd be used to the lack of personal space by now, but they had some interested/annoying observations of the lunch. They asked me about what I'd like to eat ad quickly pushed the menu in front of me, of course I can't really read Chinese so I told them anything is fine, but I don't really eat seafood. Of course, they ordered kelp, shrimp balls, squid, baby shrimps, fish balls, and more. There was a few things that I got in, but most of it was seafood. I was then asked about chopsticks. Now I have been living in China for about 8 months now, so I've gotten pretty good with chopsticks. Of course, I've been using chopsticks since I was pretty young but to my Chinese students this is a foreign concept. The conversation went something like this:
Student: "You know how to use chopsticks?"
Me: "Yes, I have used them many times before."
Student: "Did you learn to use them in China?"
Me: "No, I've been using them for quite sometime, I learned to use them when I was younger."
Student: "Really, who taught you how to use them?"
Me: "My mother"
Student: "Oh, has your mother ever been to China?"
Me: "Nope, she has never been to China before."
Student: "Well then, where did she learn how to use chopsticks?"
Me: "I'm not really sure, but we do use chopsticks in America"
Student: "Oh, that is good."
Me: "Yep."
Student: "Would you like me to get you a fork?"
Me: "Nope, I'm good with chopsticks, that's okay, thank you though."
So this is a little taste of some encounters with students. I just thought I'd share a little about some of my experiences. I'm sure there are more to come. I hope this finds you all doing well. Now I'm off to Wuhu for the weekend, I'll try to update again when I get back.