Give Directions, Gain Friends

A couple of months ago, I was walking back to my office and a young Chinese student asked me for directions to Payroll. Instead of trying to explain the quirky way to get there I told her I would take her there. Her name is Yeheng and she is a doctoral student in Political Science. She had only been in Knoxville for 2 weeks. Since that "coincidental" meeting I have helped Yeheng by arranging for her to borrow bedroom furniture and a desk (she had none) for her apartment, taking her to get her social security card, explaining U.S. income taxes, and even the meaning of crazy word usages such as "going Dutch" and what it means to "drop the ball." Yeheng has told me over and over again how very lucky for her to have met me. The pleasure is all mine, I keep telling her. After all, I’m only doing for her what I would hope someone might do for me if I were a young doctoral student studying in China for the first time. Since that meeting, however, it is clear to me that I am the lucky one. Because of meeting Yeheng and helping her out, I now have a circle of friends I call the "Internationals." They are Liyin, who is from Taiwan. She is a doctoral student in microbiology. Ruihe is also from Taiwan. He is also a doctoral student in an area of biology. Nana (pronounced like the word "knock" without the "ck" at the end) is from Georgia (as in the former "Republic of Georgia") and she is a master’s student in business marketing. Yeheng, Liyin and Ruihe are in their later 20's. Nana is in her mid 30's. Already, we have had great times together and my world perception has been broadened. Yeheng came to my house one evening with dumplings she had made. I loved them! A few weeks later, all the Internationals came to my house and the five of us made Chinese dumplings with Yeheng "directing" the cooking show. After she put the pork into the bowl, along with oil, ginger, bok choy, seasonings, etc., she explained that you must only stir the mixture in one direction. I thought this unusual. She was very stern when she again said, "only one direction." I asked "why" but I never received an answer and I assumed it was perhaps because she had just been brought up to believe it was better luck to only stir in one direction or something. :) Lo and behold, however, after some research on the internet, I have learned that stirring the mixture in one direction helps the meat fibers stay together so that when you form you small mounds to go inside the dumplings, everything sticks and stays together much better. Ahhhh.
The Internationals and I have already had many good times together. I have learned several words in Mandarin, along with the proper way to pronounce them (something that is not easy given the many different "tones" that are used in the Chinese language) and also a few words in Georgian (and I don’t mean words like "ya’ll" but words like madloba which means "thank you" and is pronounced "ma-da-low-ba").
From a chance meeting.....a new circle of friends. Lucky? Indeed.