American Bubble

One of the very real limitations we're faced with is the fact that we exist in a kind of bubble. The girls and I, having only a basic skill in Chinese, speak English almost exclusively with each other and we're with each other constantly. Any ideal I had that we'd be able to improve our Chinese this year has thus far been seriously challenged. Yes, we've got an hour of "class" each day with a CUN student, but in spite of the fact that we're living in China, this is certainly not an immersion experience. We're surrounded by eleven million people, with more than 13,000 of them in a two block radius, but with no activities to be involved in, we're floating on the surface. This situation is to be expected: I'm homeschooling Devin and Merlin, so after Chinese and Tibetan classes in the morning, lunch and cleanup afterward and English-based homeschool lessons in the afternoon, that's about the extent of our day.

Maybe it would have been smarter to enroll the kids in a local school - they'd meet other kids, expand their vocabularies, increase their fluency, be active and not require me to fulfill all their social needs. But I'm cautious about making sure Devin isn't behind for having missed 7th grade in the U.S. and if Devin doesn't go to school here, Merlin has no interest in doing so. In addition, there was the expectation that we'd be able to do more traveling with the kids not enrolled. That may possibly occur in the next two months, which will at least make me feel a little better about missing the opportunity for Devin and Merlin to really jump into a good language environment.

So, we're in a bubble and I'm not sure what to do about it - it's not like I want to just go up to people and say "Hi, we need someone to talk to." Actually that's what a lot of students do when they come across foreigners; start up conversations in hopes of practicing their English. I'm not extroverted enough to want to randomly introduce myself to people solely based on the fact that they speak Chinese and I need practice, nor do I really have free time for that kind of thing. Ideally, I'd prefer to find someone with similar interests or with whom we could be engaged in some sort of activity so that conversation and relation could arise spontaneously, but at this point that's unlikely. The three of us together constitute a bubble that is pretty impermeable. Devin and Merlin haven't found any friends among our apartment building's kids - they're self contained and there are enough of them already that there seems to be no need to include two somewhat shy foreigners who can't really understand what's going on.

I was approached earlier in the week (again) about the possibility of my teaching English - something I've avoided thus far all these years, but with the addition that the prospective student would like to spend his days with our family in order to experience English immersion. I declined, politely. I'm already overstimulated with our two kids bouncing around in the house day and night.

Maybe we'll travel in late September, so the situation isn't permanent - but at that point we'll learn to converse in Tibetan (right now we're just learning the alphabet and spelling system). Hmm... maybe that'll liven things up nicely, though. :-)