Tuesday, October 28

Today I worked alone with Amanda, and discovered her English was worse than I had thought. We spent a painful hour and a half walking around the museum with me correcting her pronunciation, asking her to repeat what she had just said because it probably wasn’t English, at least not as I know it, and figuring out how I can best teach her. I asked her if she thought I was a good teacher. Without hesitating she said yes, then said she was a terrible student, if she was the teacher and had a student like her she would be angry. I’m not happy with her, but not angry either. I really think she would do better if she had a better attitude. I don’t think she wants to be there.

This was another chilly day; the long underwear felt good. I hope I have enough warm clothing with me. I think I have to start wearing gloves. I was hoping it wouldn’t happen until November.
This evening we had a lecture/concert about traditional Chinese music. A lovely woman named Li Hong Wei, a recent graduate of Xian Conservatory, came and played the Guzheng, a 21 stringed zither. It was a lovely concert with folk music and a couple of contemporary works.

It was kind of a slow day, but I also did my laundry and had another Chinese lesson. I suspect I might learn something if I stayed here long enough, but with only a week and a half left it’s not going to happen.