Monday: Met a man that lives on the floor underneath where I take classes named Francis (American
name). He was very friendly with his bad English and suggested we become language partners. The catch is
that when I attempted to reply in Chinese, he just kept speaking in English. Additionally, he has a
southern accent that is different from the Beijing one that I am learning. The dialect issue is one that I
expected to be much worse, but it seems that there are people in Beijing from all over the country without
much problem. Francis gave me his business card and invited me to his room, which I though was strange, but brushed it off as a difference of culture. He is a journalist for the Chinese Economic Herald, which appears to be pretty legit, and he showed me some pictures of him with some people he told me are important. He is from a city in the south which is called the most beautiful place in China, Hanzhou. We spoke about my studying situation and what I’m going to do over the break. He invited me to be his room-mate … that was a little weird … and said that I could live there for free because his work pays for the double room. I didn’t sign anything, but we exchanged numbers, so i’m sure he will call me.
So, I wasn’t satisfied with having just one tutor that was only required to meet 4 hours a week. I feel like it is really time to get out into the city on my own and stop hanging out with all the Meiguorens (mei=america, guo=country, ren=people, there should not be an s, there is no plural in Chinese). There were some fliers requesting native english speakers posted in the underground cafe behind my dorm. I called a couple of days ago and just met with a girl named Peggy. I can tell this will be a great partnership. She speaks English fluently (with some minor hiccups), and she is willing to do several hours in Chinese for one hour devoted to English! The reason for that is because we need to speak in English for me to learn Chinese… it’s going to be tai bang le (awesome).