2002 - Alice Song Weekly 宋 旻 潔 週 記

Issue:610 Date: 05/02/2002

文化交流是這麼的親切與實在
南京交換學生宋旻潔接待家庭經驗談
The Experience of Hosting a Chinese Foreign Exchange Student
by Zach Hemenway

By Zach Hemenway
St. Louis University High School

I had the distinct privilege of hosting Alice Song for a month. She was an absolute joy. Alice, among many other things, was always in a great mood. Her presence in our household made a great difference in all of our lives.

For me, the best thing about hosting Alice was the drive to and from school. These really gave me a great chance to get to know Alice well. She told me a lot of things about her home and what Chinese teenagers do. Hopefully, during these times she was able to learn as much from me as I did from her. It was very interesting to meet and observe someone from an entirely different culture.

I was extremely impressed with how hard she worked. I had never seen anyone so dedicated to hard work and study as she is. In this way, she definitely kept herself busy. She studied very hard, and did some fantastic paintings in her free time. Alice is an incredibly talented artist as well as an extremely bright person. She also played with my dog, Bogey, quite a lot. She really did love him. I'm sure that Bogey misses Alice as well.

Hosting Alice was extremely easy to live with. Not once did she ever complain about anything. She didn't really need much and seemed to be satisfied with whatever we were able to give her, even though we always tried to offer her the best. I especially enjoyed having her around the house over spring break. During spring break, she wasn't as busy, and she had a lot more time to talk and relax with the rest of the family. I know my family enjoyed talking with her also.

My mother was so excited to have another female in our house full of men (even our dog is a male). Alice enjoyed watching and helping her cook and mom liked having an extra hand in the kitchen. What Mom loved most was sightseeing with Alice and revisiting places that she hadn't been to in a long time. She loved seeing St. Louis through Alice's eyes. She brought a whole new perspective to a place we've lived our whole life. Mom felt she learned so much about Asian art during their visit to the Art Museum. Alice shared so much of her culture and appreciation of the arts with us. Mom misses the walks that she and Alice often took in the afternoon. Alice was so eager to share stories about her family and growing up. Mom thought Alice was such a "joy" and that she was friendly, sweet and so very, very intelligent. For a short time, Mom had a daughter.

Dad was also especially excited to have our guest for several reasons. He loves the Chinese culture and wanted his sons to experience part of it. He says someday China will be a good friend of our country and travel and business will be commonplace. Dinner was his favorite time, as everyone sat and talked. Alice is so bright, cheerful, and fun to be around. We all learned so much about her home and some of our day-to-day differences, but also that we really are the same in so many ways. I know that Dad misses Alice and the joy she brought to our house.

My little brother Drew also really enjoyed having Alice at our house. He thought that she was a real pleasure to have around and she was fun to talk to. He also liked to hear a lot about China and how much different it is over there as opposed to here. After talking to her a lot he feels that he knows much more about China than he did before. He said that talking to her was such a joy and it put him in a good mood because she was always so up beat and optimistic. Drew feels the same way about Alice as the rest of the family; she was a lovely person and will be missed a lot.

The rest of my family loved getting to know Alice as well. While Alice was with us, we celebrated my grandfather's 85th birthday and, of coarse, Easter. During these times, they treated Alice like one of the family. They all have great things to say about her. Obviously we all miss having her around. Immediately after she left, the house felt empty and we felt like we were missing someone that we considered to be a very important part of our lives: like a true member of our family.