One of L's students from last year bought a space behind our campus and turned it into a coffee shop. However, business has been floundering since most Chinese don't believe in having coffee at night, so most of the students are eager for alcohol rather than coffee. L. believes it's a great place for folks to study as well as hang out, especially since there is absolutely nothing around here by way of recreational activity for these students. She was hoping to do something like that this year, and after hearing about E's cafe, was ecstatic. We've agreed to help him by basically being his PR. Folks will come in droves if that gives them an opportunity to speak to a native English speaker in order to improve their English. Today was the first "English Corner" to see how we'd do. L. agreed to make a few "western" snacks to give them the idea of how a coffee house in America is set up. It was actually for yesterday, but there was a conflicting event and we decided to move it to "Thursday" from "Wednesday"
So, this afternoon E. called and said he advertised an English corner for tonight. For tonight! We ended up scrambling to fix snacks to sell at the café. E. came by to help, as well as get more food. We made some quesadillas, Indian cookies, chips, sandwiches, and French toast strips.
We walked there around 6 pm. Not more than 5 minutes after we arrived, college students started arriving. As the evening drew on, the café was bustling with over 25 students! We talked about everything from how we met, getting citizenship in different countries, marriage, romance, our backgrounds, reasons for going to school, differences between life in America and China, NBA basketball, importance/unimportance of money, meaning of being content, and "Fahrenheit 9/11". After a break for drinks and snacks, Lima and I found ourselves split into separate groups talking. The group of girls I talked with asked me about my thoughts on China and Taiwan. Even though I shared with them some of my hesitation discussing politically sensitive topics, they welcomed it. We had a good time talking about it.
We talked until 10 pm. After the students left, E. talked with us about ideas for the future. Few people bought the snacks or had drinks, which presents a problem business-wise. L. and I talked about possibly renting the place for him just to keep it open so we can do more English corners and sell some food there. Our presence as foreigners are a BIG attraction. We definitely see opportunities here. The café suffers from being remote from the campus. We'll see things work themselves out. I talked with one guy who used to be L's student from last year. He mentioned that he was a fish. I told him that we were fishes as well and he said "that makes us brothers and sisters".
