We have to turn in weekly summaries on specific topics- this week was about the most interesting person we've met so far. I thought I'd include it in my blog... Jessie ROCKS!
Jessie, my Chinese press workroom supervisor at the field hockey venue, is the smallest person in the room, but has the biggest personality. Unfortunately, I don’t have the correct spelling of her Chinese name, so I’ll refer to her by her American name. She’s a 24-year old journalism grad student at Peking University.
My interest in learning about China is reciprocated by her enthusiasm to pick up on all the American nuances. For instance, we taught her the “pound” hand gesture where you make a fist and hit the top, bottom, and knuckles of the other person’s fist. Jessie thinks this is the coolest. Everyday when we leave she gives us all a pound, with her million dollar grin gleaming up top.
Her curiosities about Americans have become deeper recently. Jessie and I were talking about our families when she asked about my brothers and sisters. When I told her I was the only child she gave me a shocked face. “Why?” she gasped. I told her my parents were unable to bear more children, to which she responded, “Why didn’t they adopt?” I explained that they were content with having only one child and that some American couples choose not to have children at all. This seemed to be a concept Jessie could not grasp. She asked if couples would get lonely if they didn’t have children, and I replied that married couples could still feel emotionally satisfied without children. Yet again, Jessie was floored. I was beginning to see just how important a child is in a Chinese family, especially since families are restricted to having only one. (end excerpt)
Pin trading is a huge deal during the Olympics. USA flag pins, Iowa pins, Mizzou pins... the more specific the better. I made my first trade with Jessie- a Peking University pin for my Iowa pin. The goal is to see how many different pins you can get. It gets pretty intense. They even have pin trading centers and booths, but that's cheating in my opinion! Gotta meet people and work for those pins!
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