Found In Translation

I have been so happy to start to get to know a Chinese Scholar who is currently at Spring Arbor University!  We met due to a hope to have her work on translating some of our web content into Chinese for Admissions purposes, but I have been delighted by our conversations.  It is fascinating to hear her explain her perspective to me about what she is experiencing in the U.S. and the differences in her culture.  Like, she is amazed by the amount of talking we can do while we eat and that we say "COOL" so often makes her laugh.  She says in China, you definitely have a social part of a meal, but when you start eating you are quiet and enjoy your food.  She asked me if I thought people think she is strange because she is quiet.  She said when she is in a group of people and there are multiple people talking she does not know what to say or how to enter the conversation....plus she kind-of goes into a trance just listening to Americans speak English because she thinks it is sooooo beautiful.  She asked me today if I thought she should interrupt the conversation to make a statement.   It's like she is trying to merge into a super busy on-ramp as a brand new driver :)  That makes me smile!

She is a sweetheart!  Our project is one where we could correspond via email to make corrections and translate, but she asked me today if she could just meet me at my office because she really enjoys the one-on-one conversation and not having to feel the anxiety of when she should start talking in a group.  I would definitely enjoy that....and I encouraged her to try to enter into a group conversation during a brief pause if she has a question or a statement, with "What do you think about this"....or "I have a question for you".....I told her the American conversational pause may be very brief, but take it....haha....and report back to me the next time we talk about how that worked out for you.

We both had a good laugh over the current translation for some of our content which was added to our website years ago.....our University name is listed in Chinese as Spring Shade at the University....she thought that was very funny when she had to tell me that. :)  Well, we have some work to do.