BEING A FOREIGN STUDENT IN CHINA

　　I, I want to say something about being a foreign student in China. And... Right now, I'm not a foreign student any more. I am a foreign worker, because I work in China.

　　But, last, not last year, but in 1998 I came to China to study Chinese. And the first few months here were very difficult, because I did not understand any Chinese, and I did not understand what my teacher was saying in class, because she never spoke English, she only spoke Chinese. And I didn't understand what she was saying.

　　I also had some problems when my family came. They came on the train from Hongkong. And, when they were supposed to go back to Hongkong, I only knew one word to tell the taxi driver--I told him "Huo Che Zhan." But, I didn't know that Beijing had more than one "Huo Che Zhan." So, so... My family is very big, so we needed to take two taxies. And so I told both drivers "Huo Che Zhan." And so it's "OK, OK, OK."

　　But then one of the taxies went to Beijing Xi Zhan, and one of the taxies went to Beijing Zhong Zhan. And it was a disaster, because my sisters were at Beijing Xi Zhan, and my parents were at Beijing Zhong Zhan.

　　And so my sisters were waiting and waiting, but my parents didn't arrive. So, finally the train just left. And they were very afraid and sad, didn't know what to do. And so they called me -I was at my university already-and they said "we are still in Beijing and the train has left, so we are coming back to you."

　　And so, I was happy, but I was afraid, because the tickets. The tickets are...were expensive and usually after the train leaves you can't get the money back. But the people at the train station were very kind and they gave back all the money and helped them buy new tickets. So, my whole family was able to go back.

　　Now I am happy that I've been able to learn more Chinese. So life is more...