by Clotilde Dusoulier
In our last issue you read about how an NTU student built a friendship halfway around the world through pen and ink. Louisa Lin’s French pen friend, Clotilde Dusoulier, read about it, too, and felt anxious to share with Louisa’s NTU friends her side of this inspiring story of successful cross-cultural communication. Here is her response to Louisa’s article: This is a true story. I can tell you, it happened to me. The amazing adventure began when I received one of the thousands “friendship booklets” pen-friends pass on one to another, writing down their address, so that more and more people will write to them. I noticed in that one the address of a Taiwanese girl, Louisa. As I was at that time trying to diversify the origin of my pen-friends, and as it is far more exciting for a French girl like me to write to someone from Taiwan than from Belgium, I decided to write to her. That’s when it all began. A few days later, I received an answer of about 10 pages. This letter, just like every single other one I would afterwards receive from Louisa, was lively, interesting, very well-written, and most of all, in a perfect English. I say “most of all” because I was really stricken by how she harnessed that language even though Chinese is such a different one. So we wrote to each other regularly. And one day, my dad asked if I didn’t mind joining to my letter a little note he had written, since he was studying Chinese and felt like experiencing it on someone capable of judging if it was right or wrong. (These people are, as you can imagine, very rare in France. Most of the people you show anything written in Chinese would first say: “Oh! That is very nice!” and then ask: “huh…what language is that? Japanese?”) So of course, I did send it to her. That’s when my dad officially became “Uncle Patrick”. He was very excited when he received a whole letter written in Chinese. And Louisa and him went on writing to each other since then. One day, she sent a letter explaining she was planning to come to France during summer 1996. It was really an amazing trip. We suggested a few places of interest, and asked them to come and visit us at our house in Les Vosges and in our flat in Paris, which they happily accepted. When the time came to meet her and her friend Stacy, I was ecstatic! And it was really an extraordinary experience to speak to a person whose voice you had never heard before, but whom you felt you knew personally! Once again, I was incredibly impressed that they both spoke such great French, only from having taken courses during a year or so! We separated promising we would soon meet again. And now, a few months later, I still haven’t forgotten the pleasure it was to spend a few days with them. She wrote an article about it, so I thought I would too. I hope it won’t get censored because the compliments I make about the special person she is shock her Chinese modesty! Anyway, always remember how great an pen-and-letter friendship can be if it lasts more than two letters (which unfortunately often happens!). a
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
|