Jeff's Birthday

By pure chance, I met the mother of one of my students at lunch a few days ago. We ate together and exchanged email addresses, and she told me that her brother had a son in another one of my classes. Saturday was her brother’s birthday party, and since the family was getting together they decided to invite me as well. I figured it would be a little awkward because of the communication barrier, but didn’t let that stop me. I met the whole extended family and went out to a fancy dinner. They even paid for me! It was fun and, somewhat surprisingly, not awkward at all.

Photos:

This is a Chinese stringed instrument called a 古筝. It sounds really cool. This is one of my students. She played a few songs for me and is pretty impressive. Jeff is teaching me the standard Chinese hand symbols for numbers 1-10 Jeff just after his son Jerry wiped birthday cake icing on his face :)

The two in the back are in my classes, and the young one up front is only two years old, but surprisingly good at english. My students on either side, and the birthday boy on the right Now Zhu joins us.