Sunday, July 4, 2010

Cultural Experience


Yesterday, we had two exchange students from Shanghai arrive. They are here to learn English and will be staying with us for the next 3 ish weeks. Thankfully, we got really nice and respectful 13 yr old girls but the hard thing is that i'm running out of ideas on how to entertain them! Today, we brought them to the mall but evidently at 13, they are not quite into fashion yet so that was boring to them. I did figure out that they really like sports, video games, and tv so we took them to a video game store and thats what excited them. 

The picture above was the little gift they got for me from Shanghai, it's one of the mascots for the Expo going on back home. It's quite hard communicating as you can imagine b/c their vocabulary is limited and it takes them a few seconds to process what you've asked before they can respond with a yes or a no. Hopefully they'll learn more and more the longer they are here. My strategy is to try to learn their language so that at the same time, it makes them think of the phrase in English and connect it to what it is in their language. 

Random note: Their first day here, I was so amused/excited because one of them was wearing a shirt that said "HAPPY WANT TO HAVE" hehehe.

What else can i do with the students? Any ideas?

15 comments:

Trish said...

have them try out canadian/non asian food they are not familiar with?! maybe theres a big arcade there? go to the beach? ahhh! take them around tourist spots?! XD where they film movies & see celebrities?!?!

Ricademus said...

Hmmmm, forget what I tweeted about the Capilano..they probably wouldn't like it. Maybe go-carts and batting cages? An afternoon in Chinatown? Movies? Minor league baseball game? Do Canadians play hockey in the summer? =)

I have no real ideas! Good luck.

Klaudea said...

Lets see,

Shanghai kids eh? You should take them to a waterpark seriously that would be so fun!

What else? I bet they would love the night market oooh and you could get them to try crepes and poutine and all that good food.

Honestly there is not much to do around Vancouver besides the usual sight seeing, so my tactic would be to stuff them so full of food that they can't move! Vancouver isn't called food heaven for nothing!

PS. isn't video games + tv pretty much the same thing? You should bring them over so we can do a Mario Party on Wii LOL

PPS. Does this mean that later you will be able to talk in mandarin? Or are you going hardcore and learning Shanghainese?

Please don't go learn more scary phone phrases to trick me! "Wei? Been Gor AH?!?!?!?!" 0_0""

Nashe^ said...

I'm quite bad at this, too. I've got enough problems with my French ami as it is! But exposing them to typically canadian/american (or even mexican!) food can be a good idea, I think.

amileinherheels said...

Aww. I have homestays too! They're Korean, and they're awesome :) I usually take them sightseeing a bit.. and now we watch movies together every so often. Ooh maybe you can take them to Science World!

TG said...

You don't have any theme parks in your hometown? Or go play some sports like badminton or ping pong :)

Becks said...

There's both an indoor and outdoor track in Richmond.

Have you gone skimboarding down at kits/Spanish Banks/Jericho before?That's always fun to do...or just watch, if the weather ever gets warmer. :P

The Celebration of lights fireworks are happening at the end of July if they're still around.

Haha I find doing every day type things is even interesting to international students...like cooking, doing gardening or shopping, but then again I usually interact with university students and not younger ones.

Manju said...

bahahahhahahahah i knew Trish would suggest something food related xD
skating? amusement park? barbeque?

Amy said...

definitely amusement parks/theme parks, arcades, what types of sports are they into? (take them to a game or whatever sport they are into)

do they like trying food? lol. what about internet cafes for them play video/computer games?

teach them to make t-shirts! haha. oh KAROKE?

Curly said...

Amusement parks! Theater (movies)... you learn a lot watching movies! A musical perhaps too? I don't know...
:-)

the girl in stiletto said...

bring them to visit me in ireland. hehe

Stephanie C said...

i was going to suggest movies and musicals. You could for instance pick your favorites and they can pick their favorites so you both learn each other's language.

Sightseeing is always fun, you could go to museums and zoos too!

Wacky Jacky & Silly Willy said...

Hey Kym! We followed your new personal blog since we love you so much :)
Follow us if you'd like~

Also, wow that sounds really fun. I took chinese in high school, and it's pretty easy to learn. minus pronunciation and writing, but fun.
Maybe you could play video games with them or are they into anime? Well the good thing is that Chinese and english have similiar structure grammatically :)

Hope to hear updates~

izumi said...

ah exchange students is kind of hard. they're pretty willing to do whatever (: but yea, try sharing what your favorite things are and have them share theirs. music is pretty easy. maybe pictures.. things that are fairly easy to comprehend and explain (:

H. said...

hey...i'm 13 and i love fashion !!
well i think you should show for them what you like to do in your town. Rock concerts is a good idea too. well, i hope i had help you !!

xxx