I think language exchange is important because...

I have literally no idea what Sichuan people are saying when they speak to me. "But you speak Mandarin!" I hear you hark. Well, let me break it down for you: I speak putonghua (普通话, the way you're supposed to speak) whereas Sichuanese people speak gibberish (ok, sichuanhua 四川话, but it might as well be gibberish). Not only do they have a ridiculously frustrating accent (I now know why northerners hate southerners all over the world), not only do they put different tones on words when speaking putonghua, not only is it a completely different language where characters are pronounced....wrong, but they actually believe that the two are similar. No Sichuan. No.

Let me provide you with an enlightening example.

The sentence "你是哪国人?" means "What country are you from?" in English.
In Putonghua it's pronounced            ni shi na guo ren (with various tones)
In Sichuanese it's pronounced             ni si la gui zhen (with various, different, tones)

Yah. Not the same.

Sichuanese pinyin even has it's own Wikipedia page. It disgusts me.

But, I'm learning. I feel I have to as, although literally every Chinese person I met understands what I'm saying, in typical Chinese fashion, I, too, must understand them. On their own terms. Or f off.

CHATTING WITH THE NOODLE-SNACK LADY

On the other side of the coin, there are a lot of students who are willing and able to practice their English as often as possible with us foreign teachers. Most of them use the medium of the 'English Corner' which happens once a week, and is actually quite fun and interesting. This week we had a mini-party for 中秋节 (zhongqiujie, Mid-Autumn Festival), which was almost cancelled due to 4 hour non-stop torrential rain, but was happily relocated to an indoor location. As the teachers we provided the snacks, the chat, the convo and unfortunately a little bit of entertainment. Luke got to read a poem in English. I had to read mine in Chinese. 'Nuff said. Although, apparently my reading was 'good' and several of the students have contacted me on QQ to say they'd be willing to be language partners. Hopefully I can nick some photos and videos from one of the students soon and put them up.

Some of the other, more fluent students actually come around to our residential area for chats, especially some of the kids who are close to Andre. We've gotten to know them a little and they're mostly very sweet - one of them took Luke to get his tooth done and another bestowed the internet upon me - and often welcome. There are also the girls who live down the way, who by Chinese standards would be classed as 'bad girls' - they stay up late, go out (and drink I may add) and some of them even smoke. They're pretty cool, they even taught us how to play Chinese poker. I believe Ma jong lessons are next on the list.

QQ is amazing btw, if you don't know about it. It's basically the Chinese version of MSN, except it's actually in fashion and if you don't have one you are officially a social pariah. I had about 50 people add me in one day, and some of my junior 1 students seem especially keen to try out my Chinese typing skills. Well, in as limited form as possible. I'm not that cool just yet.