Hosting a student from China - need answer fast!

In My Humble Opinion
21

I hosted a high school student from Beijing last summer for two weeks under what sounds like a similar program. He spoke basically no English, and he was the shyest student I’ve ever hosted (I’ve done German and Polish students, also). But the other students in the group were much more outgoing, so it just depends on the teen. I did get the feeling Chinese teens just talk less than Americans, but that could just be shyness of speaking a language they don’t know well.

He did what most teens do, which is sit around on his computer playing games and listening to music. We tried not to let him do this too much though so he’d have interaction time with us.

He couldn’t eat cheese, but tried to eat everything else. We made a pot roast once in the slow cooker and he literally ate the entire thing, and he seemed to vastly prefer meat to anything else. We were in a group of other parents and kept them active every night (kayaking, skating, horse back riding, etc.). so he wouldn’t have time to get bored.

My student had the worst culture shock out of his group and talked to his (VERY CLINGY) mom constantly, and it was tough for me to deal with; I thought he was miserable most of the time, but just tried to push through. Our coordinator said we were allowed to limit parent time, so if it comes to that, you might have to lay down the law. At the end he wrote us a letter saying how much our cheerfulness helped him, so hopefully it worked out. Just try to be kind and understanding toward them, and if they need alone time, try to give it (but not TOO much - they are there to learn).

He loved playing games with us on the Playstation and board games that weren’t English heavy. I asked him to show me where he lived on google maps and tried to get him to talk about his family, play me his favorite music, etc. Also, I’ve never seen a group of kids take to the mall quite like they did.

In his room, we put a “welcome kit” of snacks, tissues, allergy/pain medicines (he wouldn’t touch it, said Americans are pill crazy haha), water bottles, souvenir shirts, etc. so if he was awake at night he didn’t have to scavenge in the kitchen. The organization we went through also made them ID cards with information about how to ask for help/our contact info if they needed it, so you may want to make one of those for them to carry if you don’t have that. The student needs to know how to contact you in an emergency. Oh yeah - he also hated the air conditioning and was constantly cold, so we had to adjust that for him.

Also, Google Translate on our phones was a godsend. He had an app that would translate all English writing into Chinese, and us trying to communicate back and forth through our phones added a lot of levity to sometimes frustrating situations.

If you have a problem, I’m assuming your program coordinator should be in easy contact. Ours was very close by, and had no problem with us texting her for questions. Good luck!

22

Just call him Annyong and everything will be fine.

23

Be sure and come back here and let us know how it’s going!

24

Just keep an eye on your Coke.

25

I don’t have any advice specifically concerning Chinese exchange students, but my advice is to try and add a little extra time between words. (Not like the old joke “You asked me too fast,” so you say, “How… are… you… today?” But a little bit like “How.are.you.today?”)
There was a Japanese exchange student that came to my high school, and even though she had studied English, she listened to us with amazement, then said, :confused: “It all sounds like one long word…?”
I know when I was taking classes in Spanish, I tried to practice it with the guys I worked with, and I had to constantly ask them to please slow down. It was all one big word. I heard words I knew in the middle of it, but I couldn’t figure out how it all went together.
Native speakers of any language don’t need the pause, because they know the words.

26

Yessah…

We can get a PRAWN pizza round here - freking PRAWN on a pizza - words are failing me

27

Good advice.
Many people speak louder when the other person doesn’t understand them.
That does not help at all.
You need to speak more slowly and clearly.
Also, try to use common and simple words, do not use a lot of slang.

28

Prawns or shrimp on a pizza is delicious.

What bothers me is all the mayonnaise and 1000 island dressing on some pizzas in China.

29

Plus, he’s on American turf, not Chinese turf. He won’t expect people to be aware of such connotations.

30

The only thing I can think of that may be a new thing is that dishwashers and clothes dryers are not common household appliances outside of North America, so people may not be familiar with them. Beijing is a pretty ho-hum modern city, there’s unlikely to be anything that’s going to be too surprising. Sure there’s going to be foods that are not commonly eaten in China - rare steak, fancy cheese other than mozzarella and cheddar, etc. but if this fellow doesn’t already know that to be true for pretty much any place in the world then he’s got bigger problems.

31

There’s a saying regarding Chinese dietary restrictions : the Chinese will eat anything with four legs that isn’t a table, anything that flies that isn’t a plane and anything that swims that isn’t a submarine.
So far, I can vouch for its accuracy :).

Apart from that, the few cultural “weirdities” that I’m aware of :

  • the number 4 is traditionally considered bad or unlucky, because it’s pronounced sì which can also mean death. So don’t buy him/her Luke Walton’s Lakers shirt :p. Three on the other hand is plenty lucky !

  • Chinese people are big on extended family and networking. They’ll try to connect their own family & extended network to yours so that you can both be part of one big in-group (even if that hinges on simply being aware of the existence of the cousin of the son of the guy who tended the bar where Uncle Po’s best friend used to drink back in the 50s). If you can, try to invite your exchange student to participate in Official Group/Family Things - book club, cooking class, whatever. Not church though. I know it’s a Thing among (some) Americans to bring their new acquaintances to their church to make them feel welcome, but speaking as someone who was subjected to it thrice without his explicit consent, don’t… just don’t do that, please :o.

  • Chinese people don’t say “thanks” very much. It’s not impoliteness or snobbery on their part, it’s just cultural - they generally feel that saying “thank you” to something that is expected like a waiter bringing you your food or a host being hospitable “cheapens” the sentiment. They tend to reserve their thanks for when you really do them a solid, and they owe you one in return.

  • Humour doesn’t translate well across cultures. That’s just a general rule.

32

LOL! I speak enough Spanish to get by, but when talking with native speakers one of my favorite phrases is “Hable/a con despacio, por favor!” - “Please speak more slowly!”. It does tend to all blend together in normal speech.

33

This is more important than you realize, and also surprisingly more difficult for you to do than you realize.
When speaking your native language, you don’t consciously think about what you are saying. You complete a sentence in 1 or 2 seconds, and move on.
But for the foreigner , every word has to be absorbed, translated, and thought about for a fraction of a second. It can take 4 seconds to hear and understand what you said in 2.
So slow down!

And, even more difficult----Before you speak, force yourself to think about the words you choose.
It’s easy to say to your guest “How would you like to go get some ice cream?”
But it much much easier for your guest to understand if you say “do you want to go buy some ice cream?”

Let’s (over-)analyze the difficulty of this simple sentence:
The phrase “how would you” does not necessarly mean “do you want to”.
“How would you” can also be the start of a sentence asking for help, such as “how would you suggest I open this box, which is glued shut?”
So it takes your guest an extra second to understand a simple phrase.

And then the word “get” is confusing --it has several dozen meanings… (get wet, get ready, get a birthday present, get to work on time, get laid :slight_smile: …or get ice cream.)So it also takes an extra second for him to process.
But during the extra 2 seconds while your guest is trying to understand your first sentence, you’ve moved on and started another couple of sentences .
So use simple words!

34

Great advice. My knowledge of French is pretty good, but I can’t understand the Quebecois.

As mentioned, I can’t tell when one word stops and the next word starts.

35

FWIW I’m French and I don’t really understand the Quebecois either. I mean official documents and government communiqués and such are fine, but as soon as slang or common idioms come into play, it’s all Greek to me. What pray tell good sir is a “tuque”, why and wherefore should I attach one in general, and where exactly am I to attach one in particular ?

36

Oh, but speaking of idioms, and since the OP said they didn’t speak word one of Chinese/Mandarin, a useful phrase snippet is* hǎo bù hǎo* (pronounced something like “raow boo raow”, only shorten the “oo”).

Literally it means “good (or) not good ?” but you can use it to mean “do you like this ?” or “is this OK ?” or “are you alright ?” and so on. Even “good morning”. If the guy answers “hǎo”, it’s all good ; “bù hǎo” means something’s wrong (Chinese doesn’t have words for “yes” or “no”, instead you either repeat a “yes” statement or question to assent, or assert that an affirmative statement/question is wrong by adding a negative modifier to it - in this case, bù).

37

I have been in eastern and southern China for 7 years, and I have never heard “hǎo bù hǎo” with the “h” pronounced with any type of “r” sound.
Did you study Mandarin in Beijing ? I have never been there, but I have heard that the Beijingers speak Mandarin with a heavy “rrrr” sound.

I am surrounded by Chinese that say it as more of a “how boo how”.
http://translate.google.cn/?hl=en#zh-CN/en/好%20不%20好

Click on “listen”

38

Transliteration’s hard and never 1:1, your Honour :o.
There’s not really any English phoneme that equates with the throaty, kind of phlegmy Chinese “h” one, so I made do. “How” just doesn’t have enough scratchy throat action IMO, and the pitch transition is all wrong (although admittedly that doesn’t matter all too much - gweilo speak like gweilo ;)).

But I’ll readily admit I know nothing, John Homes :(.
As for actual details : I study Mandarin in Paris with a French teacher who grew up half in Szechuan… somewhere (I don’t recall the actual citie(s)) and half in Shanghai. I also have a friend from Hong Kong to teach me how to say all the naughty words the “wrong” (i.e. Cantonese) way :D. Still in my first year though, so my advice is worth what it’s worth.

39

He’ll probably be tickled if you speak some Chinese to him, although he will likely not understand at first.

Try ‘Bu Je Dow’ as well (I don’t know)

Honestly though he won’t be expecting it. He’ll be expecting to come here and speak English only, unless he meets some other Chinese.

I may be hosting a student for 2 years! He’s my wife’s nephew from China though, and in his twenties. :slight_smile:

40

Chinese typically don’t wear shoes in the house. Indoor only sandals are fine.