There are two young ladies from Tsinghua University

They meet in front of the department

Hello everyone my name is He Yi

You can call me Lily

I'm a student in Tsinghua University

I like go traveling

When I was in high school

I went to Europe with my parents

It's been a great experience to meet different people to experience different culture and to have different kinds of food

I like the pizza in Italy the beer in Germany and also dessert in France and when I was a Junior

I went to America to attend an exchange program

At that time I experienced the difference between American colleges and university in China 

The students and faculty relationship is different and we have different courses

When I was an undergraduate student

My major was English

I changed my major to Education for graduate study cause I'm very interested in what's going on in Chinese universities and what's the difference between

China and America

My name is Zhang Zhiwei

I'm from Myanmar

I've been to China for two years

I major in Chinese literatures

There are five people in the families

My grandparents my dad my sister and I

My grandparents are very healthy they go for walk together every morning

They all love me so much

My grandpa usually shares his story with me

And my grandma usually gets me much delicious food

My father is the person who loves me most in this world

I like my families

I feel happy to be a member of them

Thank you  Professor Yang

I know how to introduce myself

But what can I talk about after simple greeting

Could you give me some topics

For the general topics

The general topics can be like you introduce your family  introduce your hobbies

Let's look at the two videos

Hi

Hi  How are you

I'm fine and you

I'm great

Do you have brothers or sisters

How many

Two

How old are they

One fifteen and one twelve

Are they boys or girls

Where are they right now

All in Myanmar

In Myanmar

Do you miss them when you are in Beijing

Of course

And then how do you contact with them

WeChat

You notice in this conversation one of them asked questions the other one gave the very brief answer

If you give brief answers you are telling people you don't want to continue the conversation

So if you greet each other after that you answer very briefly it is both rude and also you're not sociable so my suggestion is you give people a little bit more about the information you're talking about

For example you will say there are four people in my family

Then will say… My father is a teacher

And he taught history in the middle school but now he's retired

You gave two more information about your daddy and that conversation can go on and on

Yeah I read Jin Yong's novel He said you should give questions that our conversation can be continued

So not just answer others but give those questions make the conversations continue right

You are absolutely right

Let's look at another example

Hi

Hi how are you

I'm fine and you

I'm great

Do you have any brothers or sisters

Yes I have one younger sister

How old is she

She's fifteen

Where is she right now

She is in Myanmar now

Is she still in school

Yes she's in high school

What grade

Grade 3

Grade 3 Yeah

Will she go to China when she graduates

I think she will

Because our parents want

both of us to China for study

Then what major will she probably choose

She likes paintings

maybe she'll go the art of school

The art of school The school of Art right

I heard that

the School of Art in Tsinghua is very famous

So I really hope she will make it

to come to China and go to Tsinghua

Yeah I hope she will

When you meet your friend from other cultures you'd better know how you address each other

For example if his name is Tony Wright you will say Mr Wright

Then you check with him Can I call you Tony

If he said No no Tony

Just call me Professor Wright

It means he wants you to respect him a lot

Of course you can respect somebody because of their age their titles but just to be friendly

And among family members you don't have to say… address people formally

So if I meet a foreign friend for the first time

I just say call me Chrystal

That means we're so close

Our relationship is close right

Yeah you can say call me Chrystal but it really depends when you're talking to people

For the same person if in the dining hall you can say call me Chrystal

But on formal occasions maybe he wants you to talk like you will say call me Miss Wang

Depends on who you're talking to and when you're talking to him

OK thank you You just mentioned age

I've heard that in some countries age is not that… not that free to talk about

Could you tell me some topics that we

I shouldn't mention about

You're absolutely right

No one wants to know people's age

Even you know people's age you don't want to show it

For example when you talk with me you found this is a middle-aged woman but you still use Miss Yang because you want to make me happy

I ask all my students to call me Miss Yang

They forget about my age

We are just friends

So what should I call others on the street if I meet him for the first time

On the street it's very strange to call each other because you just say Hello

But if you want to make a new friend you do need to know their name and also some other information like their family

You can choose some very safe topic like you can ask about talk about the weather

Weather is ok I've read the literature the Chinese literature

Some of the literature said they would call each other Tongzhi on the street

I think it's not similar with now

It's quite true 30 years ago

people called each other Tongzhi

But since Tongzhi has some other meaning now

I can tell you it's in Beijing we used to call each other

Tongzhi and Shifu

But in my university the same expression is

Laoshi means a teacher

People like my age or even senior we want people address us as Laoshi

It doesn't really… you don't have to be a Laoshi but you just want people to say I look like a teacher 

Now a teacher is getting so popular

A lot of people they are not university teachers they are not high school teachers but they're still called teacher

So teacher is getting almost too popular

It's not related to what you're doing

You can ask your tutor say

He's my Shifu many years ago

Now you can say He's my Laoshi

So … if I talk with someone my age

I just say Tongxue

Yeah Tongxue is OK But in some cities like in Guangzhou and Hangzhou you can say Miss

Miss means people look young People are very very...

They will love this expression but in Tsinghua in my university, if a student calls me Miss it means they want to forget about my age

It is a funny phenomenon because in China we want to say

Lao Zhang Lao Wang to show people I…

You want to respect me by calling people… respect people's age

But in other countries everybody wants to forget about their age

So you can never say Lao Zhang Lao Wang

You always say… call each other's real name

like if his name's Tony Wright you'll say Hi Tony He'll be happy

If he says Mr. Wright Professor Wright this kind of conversation is only limited to

office

You go to a teacher's office You call him Professor Wright

But on the street you call him Hi Tony

That will be fine

Chrystal  I got a question for you

When my student asked me Qin

I feel it's too intimate

So what does Qin mean

OK Qin actually is short for Qin'aide

It's short for Dear

It's from the cyber world

Cuz in the cyber world people when they're talking to each other

they really don't know whom

they are talking to but they want to present that their relationship is so close

So they said Qin bla-bla

This is from Taobao the net Taobao

It's called Taobao style

That's very very new to me

but similarly about 20 years ago in London

People in the supermarket

call each other love

So it's similar to Qin

In the little town I lived they call each other Dear

It is nothing to do with your age and your…

People just want to be friendly

Thank you Professor Yang

Today I've learned how to introduce myself when I meet someone at the first time

I learned what I can talk about after simple greeting and I also learned what I shouldn't mention when I talk with someone

Really thank you today

If I have some other questions can I ask you

Yes My office hour is every Friday afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00

You can also write e-mail to me if you want

OK thank you very much

Bye

9. Summary

Today we learn some very useful information

We talked about how to meet new people

This is something that everyone does very often

We learned lots of phrases and vocabulary

about introducing yourself

and some phrases to talk to new people

We saw lots of videos as well

In some videos

we saw people who met

each other for the first time

and we also saw lots of videos of people

who hadn’t seen each other for a long time

It’s fun to catch up

with old friends and family

It’s very important to

be able to introduce friends and family

So make sure to watch these videos again

if you don’t remember

what you saw the first time

In today’s Cultural Focus

we talked about Western names

Remember that if you’re not sure

how to call someone

you can always say

How should I call you

We also talked about some topics

to avoid

when you speak to someone new

Please try out these new phrases and vocabulary

I think they will be very useful in your daily life

See you next time on

“Oral Communication for EFL Learners”