I overheard an interesting exchange the other day. I happened to be following a couple of girls down the hall and heard them chatting. When they saw me they switched from Chinese to English, as the expectation is that the students speak only English when they are at school. Ha! There is no real consequence for speaking Chinese in the hallway so the vast majority of conversations are in Chinese. These girls, however, attempted to follow the rules and continued on in English.

They were gossiping about their friends and, what was funny to me, every time they had negative things to say, they switched back to Chinese.

Girl 1: "Did you see what Meredith was wearing today? "
Girl 2: "I thought it was cute."
Girl 1: "Maybe, but [insert Chinese]."
Girl 2: "Justin probably thought so too."
Both girls giggle.
etc, etc.

I am very jealous of these kids' ability to switch between the two most commonly spoken languages so easily. I try tell my students that, even though it may be hard for them, what a gift to be able to speak both Mandarin Chinese and English. Many of these students also know Taiwanese and a smattering of Korean, Japanese, Spanish. My high school French, on the other hand, only helped me briefly in Vietnam to know when a restaurant may be serving French cuisine. Not what the foods are, of course, since that would all be in Vietnamese, but I recognized Chez Joseph on the sign outside.

I had hoped that I would be able to continue with Chinese lessons this year but I allowed too many obstacles to get in my way. Maybe I'll find a written Chinese class when I'm back in Connecticut and learn more about writing characters. Anyone want to join me?