Hi, this is Tai from the TsundereStorm blog and I will be writing in Mincius for the next few months. When the owner of this blog, Nual, moved to Canada he somehow managed to meet my parents and they helped facilitated some of the issues that he had as a foreigner in Toronto. Now is my turn, I will be living in Yantai for the next few months as part of a volunteer teaching program. I’m still in Toronto and won’t arrive in Yantai until next week, but I thought I’d like to give an introduction of myself before the pre-flight madness starts.

I’m a 20-year old Canadian-born Chinese, and I have been living here all my life. You can’t really say there isn’t any exposure to Chinese culture here since Toronto is one of the most multi-cultural cities of the world, but it obviously is not as abundant as a native-Chinese city. My parents are from Hong Kong, so I know a good amount of Cantonese, but my Mandarin department is still underdeveloped so there are definitely going to be a lot of language barriers when I arrive in mainland China. It won’t be my first time in Yantai, I actually in the same program two summers ago well before Mincius was created.

My first placement is going to be in a “Practical English” holiday camp, where I will be helping tutor high school students with oral and aural English (speaking and listening) skills. Most schools in China don’t have the resources and staffing to be able to develop good practical English skills; the focus is on literacy since it’s a lot less subjective and resource-intensive in terms of teaching and grading.

Despite my Chinese background, I still consider myself a foreigner due to the language and culture differences. So now will be my turn to experience what life is like for a foreigner in Yantai. If anyone would like to get in touch with me, leave me a comment or message me on the forums. I would love to share with you additional details about my current and previous visit to Yantai. Lots to come in the upcoming months!