Westerners

I have met two other western students. One of them is Tracy from New York. She is in an intermediate-level Chinese class, but I met her because she stopped by my room to say hi. We went to dinner and grocery shopping together and talked about studying abroad and funny things we've noticed about China. Tracy has been here for seven months and she said she wished she had written more of her thoughts and impressions down.

I write several times per day. I'm filling up a notebook very quickly, and sometimes I wonder why I write so much. As I'm writing, I feel that much of what I'm recording is mundane. Tracy says to keep writing! I know she is right- when I get back to America, I will want to remember the everyday things about life in China. I hope that as the semester moves along, I will still write as much as I do now.

Anyway, the other westerner I have met is named Dustin, from Winnipeg. He is in all of my classes.

Usually conversations with international students begin with "What's your name?" in Chinese. We all have Chinese in common, so after that we can easily figure out each other’s native languages. The next question is "What country are you from?" and I am always asked what state. Not many foreigners know about Ohio, though. (Is it near California?) When I met Dustin, our conversation went like this:
“I'm from Winnipeg. You?"
“Columbus, Ohio.”
“Awesome.”
“How'd you end up at Lanzhou?”

I find it interesting that three westerners are at Lanzhou University. The first thing we wanted to know about each other, other than names and where we are from, is how we got to Lanzhou. Tracy was randomly placed here. She received a scholarship from the Chinese government and they decided she would study at Lanzhou. Dustin and I are both exchange students.

I have heard that there are one or two more American students who haven't come back from break yet. I wonder if I will be able to pick them out easily and I am curious as to how they came to Lanzhou.