Core Kind of Turned Out to Be That Way

“Even if the Chinese students couldn’t always understand what was going on… they still felt like a part of our family.”

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Transcript for Core Kind of Turned Out to Be That Way

I also have some Chinese friends, and, I don’t know, it’s kind of interesting trying to understand their culture just because we’re not very exposed to it, I don’t think, here in the Midwest. And they often feel embarrassed because they don’t know how to pronounce words right or they don’t say things the right way, and I don’t know. They don’t get upset about it anymore, though, because if I correct them, they’re ok with it. They just learn and they move on, and we all still get along fine.

My Core professor actually has taught Core—or, he’s taught in China over the summer, and so a lot of the Chinese students that are at Valparaiso know him, and they feel really comfortable with him, and I actually had three of those students in my Core class.  And even though they didn’t talk a lot in class—they weren’t very familiar yet with kind of the American culture or I don’t know, just little things like, they couldn’t keep up with our conversations, or stuff like that, they weren’t really acquainted with English as well as we are obviously since it’s our first language—but, I think he really did a lot to welcome them, and even if they couldn’t always understand what was going on, or communicate with us as easily as they would’ve liked, they still felt like a part of our family. Because Core kind of turned out to be that way.  I mean, we had dinner at my professor’s house, and we all just got to know each other really well.

I actually got to go to an apartment where four of the Chinese students are living this year, with my Core professor and I was the only one from my class that was invited.  And they made a really, really authentic Chinese dinner for everyone, and it was delicious, it was amazing. And I also received a necklace from one of the students, and when we looked up what it was online when I got back it said, ‘Possible engagement gift.’ So I’m not sure if that means I will be traveling back to China at the end of the semester. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.