John & I went to the campus canteen for lunch and as luck would have it we spotted two women sitting at a table for four.
I asked them if they could speak English to which they enthusiastically replied that "YES" they could; and they accepted our request to join them for lunch. Qin Dongxin teaches English Literature at Shandong University and attended an Emily Dickinson conference this past summer in Ohio. Her mother (who lives with her) is presently visiting family living in Springfield, Massachusetts and will return to Jinan in mid-October. June (her English name) is a graduate student who is from Jinan, China. :))
We had a marvelous time getting to know them and as we were talking I pulled out a map of various tourist sites in & around Jinan. They were both very well acquainted with the map, the bus routes, the tourist sites and the train routes & schedules.
We all struck gold today: they are thrilled to get to be our tour guides and translators and we are thrilled to have their help getting to know and see more of this ancient and incredible city that now houses 6 million people.
John enjoys accompanying me to my classes. He helps me tons with the technology involved in running PowerPoint through the computer console and gets ideas watching me teach. Today he took some pics of my sophomore English Writing class and I took a few photos at lunch.
'Twas a new day in China for the Kuzmiches. :-)
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