Hearing the words “host family” brings a lot to mind. Many, including me, thought it would be a small family living in the country with animals. Boy, were we wrong. It turned out to be the cool tea-lady’s family and her neighbor plus another family. All in Shanghai! We spent all of Saturday with the tea lady and her neighbor. She lives in a beautiful apartment with her husband who is quiet but speaks English. They were very kind, always offering us coke to drink or asking us how things were. We got to meet their 22–year-old daughter, Aleena, who had just come back from England for the summer. She was really nice and helpful in translating things that we said. She served us tea and described what it was like to live in England and go to college there. We had some tea and helped the tea lady make pork dumplings, and Tanya got to make some vegetarian spinach dumplings. During lunch, we asked Aleena and her cousin many questions about Chinese culture. For example, how do they celebrate birthdays and what types of careers are Chinese students interested in? The school system in China is very different from ours. It is harder to get into any university, and their semesters and summers are different. These two families were not so different from ours back in Austin. Parents want their children to learn a lot but also to have fun, so they take their kids on vacation, give them music lessons, and they let their kids choose what careers they want. After we talked, we ate the dumplings that we made; they were delicious. The tea lady even complimented us because none of them opened up during the boiling process. When we were done with lunch, we gave them our gifts, and they were surprised at how many they were and they were very thankful. We then headed out to the tea market for the rest of the afternoon. We learned about the different types of teas, their value by weight, and the age of the teas, because the more expensive teas will always be several years old. I liked one shop in particular because they had a beautiful blue bird who said “Ni Hao” and “Ni Hao Piaoliang,” which means “Hello” and “You are so beautiful”! The tea lady asked each of us to choose a small animal that was handmade from one of the shops as her gift to us. After a couple of hours browsing through the tea shops, we went to a nice jade cuisine restaurant. I ordered some yummy noodles with shrimp, some tea, and a desert that looked like little white balls in some liquid. When we finished our dinner, we spent the rest of the evening flying kites at night. There were many kites. Some even had lights. We had a lot of fun. We want to thank our host families for taking time out of their schedules to show us around Shanghai and for showing us what it’s like to be a Chinese family!
Solyenithzin Perez
Shanghai 6-Week, 2011
Austin, TX
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