Conversations Round Two

I don't know what happened today but Cheng was super talkative! We talked for almost 45 minutes straight! He also opened up a ton about his family life and personal life. I learned a LOT about how China functions as a society. Cheng comes from a "normal family" (similar to an upper middle class family in America). Because of this, he is able to spend money and do what he wants when he wants without much trouble. He also told me when he lives in China he didn't care about his family at all, he just saw them as a money bank. The coolest part of our whole conversation was that he told me ever since coming to America and studying here, he's come to realize how hard his parents work to give him the life he has and he knows it's his "duty" to care about them now and call them every once in a while. I couldn't stop smiling cause I thought that was SO cool that he found that here! He told me he feels like he's grown up a lot here and finally become an adult, and that he thinks he could handle situations by himself now. I was so excited! I asked if he was happy about all these realizations and he laughed and said "No! Now I am so guilty!". According to Cheng most kids in China, if they go to college there, don't learn anything in college and just party and spend money. "We learn too much in high school", Cheng said as the reason no one learns anything in China. Apparently, kids go not ever go to class and the college will just give you a degree because they don't care. I thought that was insane because that would never pass at most colleges in America.

We also talked about society from the standpoint of China's government, if you are a governor, you can just put your son into a position as head of a company. Apparently this is the only way to become a CEO in China, and since the change from communism to a more Americanized economy, the richest people are the CEOs and the government workers. The government recognizes this, however, and is trying to change that. I asked him if he thought that was the case here, and he said that here it's much easier to escape from the class you're born into, but in China you're basically stuck.

After all this serious talk about classes and government we decided to talk about a less serious subject and I asked him about his favorite sports and games. He was on the basketball team in high school and really misses the team and the game, he plays in the rec a lot but he's really excited to go home over summer and play basketball with his teammates again! He also informed me that in high school he lived with his team in one dorm room, 6 people in one room! I also asked about the classic Chinese game Mahjong. At first he didn't quite understand what I was asking (apparently I was pronouncing it wrong) but once we were on the same page he told me he hates mahjong because when he was a child and he was at his grandma's house, she would just play mahjong all day and not take care of him! I felt so bad! He told me he had to cook his own meals as a kid cause his grandma was too obsessed with Mahjong, after that we left Mahjong as a taboo topic. However, he loves poker! Apparently poker is way more popular in China than mahjong, but there are certain limits to how much you can bet and gamble.

Our conversation ended on a really good note when we talked about how excited he is to go home for the summer and he listed off all the things he's going to do when he gets home. He said he never realized what he had until he left China and now he's really appreciative of what he has back home, especially his cat!