From 11/13/08
I met with several girls today. A little gaggle of freshmen. One of the girls in this group is beautiful in a very Western way, and her English pronunciation is far more advanced than many of the seniors. Most of the university students who come speak to us are English Majors. They come talk to us to improve their skills, and hopefully, their chances of trading a life of teaching English for one of translating for a wealthy foreign company. One of the girls in this gaggle, however, was not an English major. We’ll call her Belle. My teammate Melissa went with some of the girls to see their dorm room (sixteen girls in one room… fun), leaving me some time to just hear about Belle’s story.
She is an Art major, which is hard for her family, because as an Art major, she pays about four times the tuition of the English students. She loves English though, and she desperately wished she could major in it. But her scores weren’t high enough. She scored a 471 on her college entrance exams, and her university required a 513 to major in English. Her oral English is good though, especially since she doesn’t study it often, or so I though. She is so desperate to learn the language, and so disinterested in learning how to draw and paint, that she often skips her own art classes and attends English classes instead.
I can’t imagine ANY college student in the US skipping their own classes to attend someone else’s!! We are so coddled with our myriad choices. These kids here just have to do as they are told. They go to high school seven days a week (yeah, seven), with just two days off at the end of every month. They get ten days off for the Chinese New Year, and one month off for Summer Holiday. That is it.
