Speaking Partner

When I first heard that my Speaking partner was from Hong Kong I was excited.  I have studied Chinese for roughly 6 years starting freshman year of high school so I was excited to try my language skills again.  The first contact I had with Ricky was an email exchange trying to set up a time to meet.  We both had relatively busy weeks and could only meet on thursday at 6.  We agreed for me to pick him up on stadium by the BLUU.  As I pulled up I saw Ricky standing on the side of the road and I pulled in to pick him up.  When he first spoke I was surprised at how well his english was.  He had a few accent errors but that is to be expected.  Overall he spoke english was very well and was easy to communicate with.  

After I picked him up we went back to my house and began talking.  We discussed our future plans, how he came to America, and why he chose TCU.  Ricky had a very impressive plan for the future.  He plans to become a practicing minister.  His god father was a minister in Malaysia and he wanted to follow in his foot steps.  Ricky was also very passionate about music.  He talked about his aspirations to be able to be a minister and teach the choir at a church.  After his time at TCU he plans to go to southwestern, a school that specializes in ministry degrees, to study both religion and music.  He said that southwestern was the Juilliard of religion schools which was very impressive.  

TCU he said was a great school but was just a small part in his future plans.  Apparently when he originally applied to southwestern he did not pass the english part of the entrance exam and needed to get certification from a school like TCU.  He says once he is done with this semester at TCU he will apply again and hopefully get in and be able to pursue his dream.  

Ricky also talked about some of the struggles of being an international student in the US.  He said that the culture is very different and that he doesn't understand some jokes.  My friend, who was also sitting in on the discussion, happened to be wearing pajamas for a sorority event and Ricky did not understand the concept of pajamas.  He said that with a lot of cultural references he just smiles and laughs when other people do because he does not understand.  This reminded me of when I was in China and would try and interact with the Chinese students and wouldn't understand certain jokes.  Ricky also said that he thought that all Americans look the same and that he couldn't remember anyones name which I thought was funny.  

Overall the discussion went well.  I learned about Ricky’s future plans and what he hopes to get from TCU.  I think that it was a successful first meeting and I look forward to talking to him more.  We plan to contact each other next week to plan another meeting.