Mar 28, 2009

Visiting an elementary school in Kentucky


Last Tuesday, my friend Kim invited me to do a presentation about Hong Kong and Seattle at the elementary school where she teaches in Kentucky. We did the presentation in three different classrooms, and they were all 1st graders and 2nd graders. It was interesting to see how the kids' knowledges about another country varies even within the same grade.

I also found it strange to see that the kids had not seen seafood before as I showed them a photo of seafood taken at the Pike Place Market. Moreover, I had a hard time understanding some kids' questions as some of them had strong Southern accents. The most interesting one was that if there are semis over in Hong Kong. One kid was surprised that Chinese people wear the same clothing.

I also showed them a photo of Chinatown that I took in Seattle. Not many of them knew about Chinatown and thought that it was taken in Hong Kong.

It was overall a great experience. I taught the kids how to say and write their favorite animals in Chinese. They were all very excited.

At the end, one of the teachers asked me to teach them the Chinese alphabet. But the thing is, there is no such a thing! Every word is a different character, and as a kid, I needed to memorize the writing of every character by heart.