Not only am I learning a lot about the Chinese culture, but I am also learning about many other cultures through the interactions with my children and families. Like I have said before, I have children that are German, French, Hispanic, American, and Japanese in addition to Chinese. I absolutely love the diversity and the contrast between children in my classroom and their families. I have become close with several of my families in the last couple of months, mostly expat families (we have more of a connection and the communication is easier), but I have become exceptionally close with the Ferrere’s. Both parents are from Venezuela, but their three children were raised in Belgium, France – the youngest is my student.
I had kind of a rocky start with this family because they were exceptionally fond of the former teacher. They also had many issues with Morgan, and eventually they began to trust me and the plans that I had for their daughter. It wasn’t too long before the mother, Yuri, was calling me often to have discussions regarding her daughter and just to chat. Then they invited me to their daughter’s birthday party and I attended. The birthday party was rather interesting because I spent the day with a lot of my families, meeting many of them for the first time.
One day, Yuri called me to ask me about her daughter’s Chinese homework, and even though I couldn’t answer her questions, we ended up just chatting and she asked me when I was free to go out with her for a ladies night. Now normally in America, I would have politely declined to keep the appropriate boundaries between parent and teacher, but what the heck, I thought, they were European. In the European culture, it is just about an insult to deny an invitation to a family’s home or out for food and drinks. In fact, it is rather customary for professionals.
One night, Yuri called and invited me and Courtney L out for dinner with her. She said that her husband was out of town and she had been having a rough day so she needed to get out of the house and have a drink. Yuri and her driver came and picked us up and took us to a Mexican restaurant not far from our apartment (side note: the Mexican restaurant was actually the rival of our beloved Pistolera’s but was not nearly as good). While we were still in the van, Yuri began telling us a story of how she had recently gotten a massage and that the guy tried to “finger” her. Then when she went home and told her husband, Miguel, he asked, “Well did you at least cum?” (direct quote) And that set the tone for the rest of the night… That conversation was PG compared to the rest of the evening. The whole time, I kept thinking to myself, I cannot imagine having this conversation with a parent back in America, but for some reason it was acceptable with a European. At first, I must admit that I was a bit uncomfortable, but I warmed up as the night wore on.
At dinner, she insisted that we have a margarita with her. Ok, one drink wouldn’t hurt anything. Well after the first, she ordered me a second. Then once we were finished with our meals, she insisted that he have just one Corona to end the night. Well once that Corona was finished, we had just one more… Every time she would order me another drink, I kept reminding her, “You know I have to teach your daughter in the morning?” and she would say, “She is a bright girl.” Well anyways, we laughed and we drank and we talked a lot about Belgium and the girls. Yuri has asked me to go with her to Belgium in October so I am really excited! Courtney was pretty drunk by the end of the night, and I must admit that even I was tipsy.
When we left the restaurant, her driver picked us up and took us back to our apartments. The next morning, we went into work pretty tired (but not hung over), but to our surprise, Yuri’s daughter showed up with a box of Belgian ‘Marc De Champagne Chocolatier Truffles’ and a note from Yuri that said, “Dear Melissa and Courtney, I hope the mix margarita and beer has not become a big headache today. Here some Belgian chocolates to make your morning better.” Yummm : ] Got to love Europeans!
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