Simon and I were able to meet again on September 17th at the TCU bookstore. This time Simon also came alone and I just figured that Harry would not be meeting with us anymore but that was OK because originally Simon was the only student I was supposed to be meeting with. I mentioned in my last blog that last time we had talked about school way too much so I was hoping that this meeting would consist of content that we both actually found interesting.
Basketball was an easy topic to start out with because he had already mentioned that basketball was his favortie sport. We talked about the best players in NBA for a while and I could see in his eyes that he had such a child like view of those stars. I think that if he were to meet a Lebron James or Kobe Bryant in person he would immediately faint. He was as excited about basketball legends as I was when I was six years old. I thought this was very interesting and I guess China has never had a ton of iconic sports or movie figures for him to look up to. Everyone in the world seems to know celebrities from the United States but I don't think I could name a celebrity or sports hero from China right now besides Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee but they both now live in the US.
Because Thanksgiving was only a week away I asked him what his plans were for the break and we talked a little about Thanksgiving traditions. Simon said that only a couple of people in the big cities of Hong Kong and Shanghai celebrated Thanksgiving but it was very rare. He had also never seen a turkey or even knowingly tasted turkey in his lifetime. I was very surprised however when he said that one of their professors had invited some students over to have Thanksgiving with his family. That is such a great thing to do especially for a lot of students who would not be able to see their families over the break. It also can be a great learning experience where the students would be able to learn about American holidays and customs by actually partaking in one. Hopefully they enjoy it because Simon said that he and his friends mostly order Chinese food because they can't stand American food, more specifically, hamburgers. Anyways I hope he had a great Thanksgiving and if all goes to plan we should be meeting this Thursday where I can find out all about what Christmas is like in China.
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