Conversation Partner Reflection - #1

My conversation partner for the semester is Cindy.  As soon as I got her contact information, I emailed her, and she replied immediately.  We set up a time to meet at Union Grounds, and I began anticipating our meeting.

I was apprehensive about how well we would be able to communicate.  Britt has told us that she would try to match us with an intermediate to advanced English speaker.  I was hoping that we would be able to converse with ease but was scared if we were unable to.  Cindy is from China, and I know none of her native language.  However, I knew somehow we would make it work.

The day came for Cindy and I to meet.  I sat at table at Union Grounds and looked for someone who might be Cindy.  I saw a girl, on her iPhone, standing in line for coffee, and I thought she must be Cindy since she was the only Asian girl in Union Grounds.  I was terrified to walk up to her merely assuming that she was Cindy based on her physical appearance.  I proceeded to take out my phone and text her.  As soon as I started writing the message, I realized that it wasn’t an iMessage but a regular SMS.  Therefore, I concluded the girl in line couldn’t be Cindy.  I finished my text saying where I was sitting and what I was wearing, and I pressed “send.”  She easily found me and, lo and behold, it was the girl I first suspected could be Cindy standing at the counter.  While that first assumption turned out to be true, our conversation included many assumptions, on my part, that were culturally inappropriate and ignorant.

We introduced ourselves and sat down and conversation flowed naturally.  I quickly learned that she has wonderful English and language would not be a barrier between us.  In fact, she is one of the chattiest people I have ever met.  I found it hard to get a word in!  We talked about our families, our homes, our favorite foods, our pets, our schools, our hobbies, our taste in movies, and so forth.  Since it was our first day to meet, our conversation felt somewhat superficial.  There was one moment when I felt extremely culturally unaware.  We were talking about our parents and their jobs, and I asked if she had any siblings.  She quickly responded, “Of course I don’t…because of the law.”  It was a common, American question to ask, but it was ignorant of me to have forgotten that that was the custom.

She shared how excited she was to be able to share the Chinese culture with me.  I assumed that she would want to know more about the US since she had only been in the country for three weeks.  However, she wanted to tell me about their customs, their traditions, their way of life, and their language.  She started out teaching my how to pronounce her name, Xuejun.  Even in the five minutes it took for her to teach me her name, I learned how different the Chinese alphabet is from the English alphabet and how Chinese people introduce themselves by their family name (last name) first.

The time flew by and when we decided to end out conversation for the day, we had been talking for nearly two hours!  We planned to meet at Fruitealicious the next week so she could share a typical Chinese drink with me – milk tea.