Firsts

So this weekend was full of firsts for some of my new Chinese friends. On Sunday my Mom and I were having English conversation practice with an adult student who is relatively fluent in English, her english name is Amy. Her and one of the bilingual teachers Xaoting were talking and got onto one of my favorite topics...movies. And to my surprise I met my first two people who had never even heard of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. So we showed them some photos, and I saw their faces as they saw a lightsaber for the first time, and I demonstrated my lightsaber app on my iPod. On Monday night we had Xaoting and our Chinese tutor and her family over for Memorial Day dinner. I made BBQ pulled pork sandwiches topped with spicy slaw, potato salad, lemonade and watermelon for dessert. The pulled pork sandwiches, slaw and potato salad were a first for our Chinese guests. They really liked the potato salad, they kept eating it and we showed them the ingredients I used to make it, sour cream, mayonnaise and mustard are hard to find in China. Also for our little dinner party I got the wii to work. So it was great fun and everyone excluding me saw wii games for the first time, and almost all our chinese guests played table tennis, sword fighting, bowling, tennis, boxing etc. They really liked the boxing. My Dad had an upset stomach, but in a testament to his love and longing for comfort foods, he ate two large helpings of potato salad. During dinner we spoke about Memorial Day and why we celebrate it, and how it is the "unofficial start of summer" it was really fun, it was the first night since coming here that I didn't get a little homesick for my friends and the fun evenings I would have with them. I lived in Provo for almost three years, and I built myself quite a life there. I have to remember that when I first moved back to Provo in July 2007 that I didn't go out every night and I even had a few friends(plus I had the advantage of speaking the language that everyone there spoke). I must work harder here, first to learn the language, and second to become more self-reliant, then I can start filling my evenings with social plans. One step at a time :)