these are our good chinese friends: jacob and joe! most who study english choose english names...ian knows their chinese names-i'd prefer to use my memory on how to ask what time it is! jacob is late 20's, joe is younger. they are studying to pass their verbal & listening english tests soon. i met jacob at Ikea when asking him where i could find a larger trash can! he spoke such good english, i commented, then a whole conversation ensued. our colleages warn us that every chinese person wants to have a language exchange & will hog the time learning english. our story is very different. we have to insist on helping them w/ english-they're so helpful teaching us things the books don't. and just learning about their culture. we've b/c social friends now as well.

on the left is a fellow qsi teacher from canada trying to learn as well.

jessica. she is a kindergarten teacher, studying english as well. her hubby is somewhere else in china (i think an engineer). we've hung out (taught her what that means!) a few times. we're both so excited to learn from each other.

this is some strange couple we keep bumping into-they follow us everywhere.