| "Dear Pen Pal, It is kind of weird to write a letter to someone when you don't even know what his or her name is. Do you have any brothers or sisters? I heard that in China you can only have one child per family. Do you believe in God and Jesus? I do. Do you have the Internet at your school or home? How old are you? Are you a boy or a girl? I am 10 and I am a boy. I have a dog named Mickey. Is it true that you eat cats and dogs? I also play soccer. We had a game last night, and we won by one point. I scored a goal. Do you play any sports?" Tad Allen, a student of the Cater Elementary School, Temple City, Texas, wrote this letter to his new Chinese pen pal at the Zhenjiang No. 1 Elementary School in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province. Chinese students at Zhenjiang began exchanging pen pal letters with foreign students in 1995. Since then, the children have been exchanging letters and ideas with three different foreign elementary schools: the American School Foundation of Monterrey in Mexico, the Cater Elementary School in Temple City, and the Shields Elementary School in Victoria City, Texas. Like Tad, Chinese pupils fill their letters with all manner of questions. To illustrate, Ling Jie, a girl in the Zhenjiang No. 1 Elementary School, wrote to her American pen pal, Brittany, "We've been pen pals for some time, but I still don't know when is your birthday and what is your favorite color. I like green. What are your hobbies? Do you like to sing, or play basketball, or play electronic games? I do. Do you have to take tests and exams in your schooldays? We have countless tests. By the way I like the Backstreet Boys combination very much, especially Nick Carter, he is so handsome, what do you think?" Although Ling has already graduated from Zhenjiang No. 1, she still keeps in touch with three of her American pen pals. Chen Siya, another Zhenjiang student, wrote to her American pen pal, Cene Navarro, "I have a lot of questions to ask you, I hope you don't mind. How do you celebrate the Halloween and Easter festivals? Do you have China Town, Wall Street, MacDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken in you city? It's such a pity that we don't have these things in Shaoguan, maybe because our city doesn't have an airport. Have you ever been to Houston? It is a petroleum city and I hear that people will feel dizzy when they first go there. Is it true? I do want to know what you look like; can you give me one of your photos? By the way, do you have daydreams? I do. And I even suffered from insomnia these days and I don't know why. You are my only girl pen pal in the US and I hope our friendship will last forever." First with Mexican pupils, then with American pupils, children in Shaoguan No. 1 Elementary School have been exchanging letters with their foreign pen pals for more than five years. Mr. Wu Bingjian and three American elementary school teachers, Miss Rhonda Rolf, Mrs. Karen Jackson, and Mrs. Natalie Fikac, are responsible for the Sino- Mexican and Sino-American pen-pal programs' success. 
--- Rhonda Rolf --- |
| In the summer of 1994, Wu Bingjian, a 22-year-old English teacher at the Shaoguan No. 1 Elementary School, participated in an English Seminar sponsored by Shaoguan University. At the seminar, he met Rhonda Rolf, an elementary school teacher from Temple City. Both were enthusiastic about their work, and they had many experiences to share. After Rolf returned to the States, the two teachers kept in touch, even when Rolf moved to Mexico in 1995 to teach at the American School Foundation of Monterrey. In one of her letters to Wu, Rolf described her students, saying that although their native language was Spanish, they spoke English fluently. Apparently, the school sought to prepare students for study in the US. Mr. Wu's students grew very curious about the Mexican children and asked Wu if he could help them become the Mexicans' pen pals. Wu then contacted Rolf, and soon the two worked out a feasible pen pal program. Wu put much extra effort into the program, because unlike the students in Mexico, his students had difficulty writing in English. He had to help nearly every student translate his or her letters. Wu does admit though, "It was a very good beginning because not only did my students make precious childhood friendships with Mexican students, but also their imaginations grew." In 1997, Rolf returned to Temple City. To help Wu's students contact American children, she introduced him to her former teaching colleague, Mrs. Jackson. Later, Jackson introduced a colleague of hers who worked at another school, Mrs. Fikac. Mostly, the children's letters have been about their school days, birthday parties, pets, family members, hobbies, festivals, favorite pop stars, religion, and current events they had seen on news broadcasts. Coming from two entirely different cultures, the children are very curious about each other. Sometimes with their letters, the children enclose small gifts such as photographs of themselves and their families, postcards, maps, paintings created by themselves, handicrafts, and reading materials that depict life in their countries. Of the gifts exchanged between the pen pals, photos account for the largest number, because photos most vividly illustrate their lives. Many Chinese children were amazed when they saw their American friends look so leisurely in their comfortable classrooms. The classrooms, elaborately decorated with colorful posters, writing samples, and maps were foreign to the Chinese students. The Chinese students were very excited when a Chinese map and Hong Kong emblem had been put up in an American elementary classroom. The American students may have also felt a degree of admiration for their Chinese friends' strict and well-disciplined behavior in classes, as reflected by the photos. "It's wonderful that by writing pen pal letters, my students have improved their English skills and have gotten to see a side of other countries that they cannot learn from books. Also, I am happy to see that the children genuinely care about each other. In 1997, my students knew from television news that, because of El Nino, tornadoes and hurricanes had hit central Texas. They immediately wrote to their pen pals, expressing their deepest concerns. The next year, China was stricken by unprecedented flooding. As the Chinese had done a year earlier, the American students wrote to see how we were doing. I believe this is real friendship." "I think it's good for these kids to reach beyond their own culture," said Mrs. Fikac in an e-mail to Wu. Indeed, although the world is becoming smaller with improved communications and transportation technologies, different cultures that have evolved over hundreds or thousands of years still stand as barriers to mutual understanding and friendship. The questions exchanged between students may seem simple and naive, but they reflect the children's true, earnest and unprejudiced desire to know about worlds outside of their own. Whether the students continue their pen pal friendships or not doesn't really matter. The students will always remember the positive experience. Hopefully, when the students are adults, they will have an easier time to adjusting to our increasingly global society. |
