Well, I found out this week about the "speech" I am being encouraged by my Chinese conversation teacher to give.  It should be a real doozy!  If I didn’t already have a good relationship with this teacher I definitely would have declined the offer.  But since relationships are so important and recipricol (the term is guanxi) here in China I decided I had to relent.

On April 22nd at the Xining Public Library, I will be giving a 1.5 – 2 hour speech on American Customs / Traditions.  This is the topic they suggested.  I am allowed to speak in English (praise Him!) but I have been advised to speak slowly since most of the audience are Chinese college students who are majoring in English.

This speech is open to the public.

With great fear in my heart, I asked my teacher roughly how many people would be in attendance.  She told me (without hesitation) there could be 100 to 200 people.

Luckily, I am allowed to use Powerpoint…my favorite crutch.  I also can do a Q and A time at the end, but that scares me more than filling the time with what I call cowboy/indian speech.  (HOW!  ME AMERICAN!  YOU CHINESE!  I LIKE’M YOUR CULTURE.  YOU LIKE’M MINE?)  The humiliating thing is that were I to give this speech in Chinese, I doubt it would sound this fluent!

We’ll take some pictures of this fiasco.  With the money I earn from giving this speech, I’ll probably be able to take my family to KFC three or four times…wow.

I have to be very careful how good I make this speech.  If it’s too good I’m fearful there might be a Chinese lecture circuit in my future.  I’m aiming for a touch better than mediocre… These things are touch and go.