Friday Night School

Friday night our friend Weiwei came over to join us for a delicious meal of sweet and sour sausages, homemade bread and burnt squash. That’s right I burnt the squash. It did however have a unique flavor to it…sort of like burnt marshmallows. I have cooked squashed many times before and thought I had become a pro at making the most delicious dry squash ever. My ego must have gotten in the way, as I did not put enough water in the bottom of the pot. The apartment went from the wonderful aroma of cooking sausages to the stench of a burning steal pot. I could hardly find my way to the stove through the heavy cloud of black smoke. It took quiet a while for me to get the 2 inches of black charcoal of the pot! Micah and Weiwei were very good about eating it though since they were late coming home from work by an hour!

After cleaning up we enjoyed a yummy dessert of homemade sticky buns. Micah said that they were better the then ones you can buy in Alma. I don’t know about that comment. I think that I will need some more opinions before I can really believe him! Micah introduced Weiwei to a Peterson tradition of putting cheese on the sticky buns. Weiwei didn’t really like it as much as Micah thought he would, but he was a good sport about trying something new.

Micah then shocked Weiwei with his ability to do card tricks. He was quiet blown away by Micah’s ability to make cards disappear and then reappear again. We then taught Weiwei how to play our favorite card game, Three’s. It didn’t take long before he figured the game out and was using strategies to beat both Micah and I.

~ As you can see from the pictures Micah has become quite good at placing the camera in weird places around the apartment to get a better shot! This week the digital made its way in the freezer to take these pictures!

After all of our fun we headed into the living room for school! Yes School on a Friday night!
Weiwei has been teaching Micah and I how to speak Chinese. It is very difficult learning the 4 different tones that are used with each word but he is very patient with both of us and is really enthusiastic about us learning his language (since Micah has been teaching him English slang). We learned how to count to 10 this week. Weiwei gave us home work for the week so Micah and I have been counting to ten daily showing our friends what we have learned! We are looking forward to our weekly teaching and hopefully will have some more words to speak by Christmas.

Chinese Numbers 1-10

Say /Write/ Pronounce

1. yī 一 (eeeeee)

2. èr 二 (rrrrrrrrrr)

3. sān 三 (san)

4. sì 四 (bumble bee sound)

5. wǔ 五 (wuuu down then up)

6. liù 六 (layo, like what I call lionel in french)

7. qī 七 (chiiiiiiiii)

8. bā 八 (baaaaaa, like a sheep)

9. jiǔ 九 (geo down and then up)

10. shí 十 (sher up)