Our twenty-four hour train ride from Shanghai to Kaili went a lot quicker than expected. After hours of reading, telling jokes, playing games, meeting Chinese babies, and bonding throughout this journey, I came to various realizations about my weeks to come in China.

After meeting our first friend, Zhoun Zhoun (spelling?), the two year old boy who was traveling with his family next to our beds, I learned that Miryam is kind of hard to pronounce. After trying to get him to say my name, I settled on changing it. My new Chinese name is Mimi: short for Miryam, yet easy to pronounce.

After playing with Zhoun Zhoun and teaching him how to count in English, he taught me how to count in Chinese. Through the repeated motions of counting our with our fingers up to five and repeating what we each said, we shared our languages. Truth be told, I only remember how to say one (yi) and five (wooga), even after going it over and over again.

From this experience I learned two things. First of all, my quest to pick up some basic Chinese will be a slow one. I will just have to take it one word at a time will do. So far I can say hello, goodbye, thank you, one, and five (making progress!). Secondly, teaching English will be, as our TEFL teachers emphasized, a slow and patient process. Despite how many times I went over counting up to 5 with Zhoun Zhoun or how many times he taught me, we both had trouble remembering.

I also learned the trick to befriending Chinese people, from children to adults: smiling and making funny faces. After waving at a child who kept sticking his face out and staring at us Americans multiple times, he finally responded. Then we engaged in a competition of making funny faces at each other. He then proceeded to use his water bottle as a gun and pretend to shoot us – a little worrisome. But finally he came over to us, and again we taught each other how to count and learned his name and age. In our homestay in Wugao, my communication with my Miao host mother consisted of pointing, laughter and “oohs”. In the end, we all somehow are able to understand each other.

Zai jien!

Mimi

*Correction: After speaking to our Wild China tour guide about Chinese names, I learned that Mimi has two meanings: secret and another, more vulgar meaning. Therefore, he gave me a Chinese name: Mi Li An, which means luck. So I will now go by Mi Li An.