Two years ago we hosted a Chinese exchange student. Her name was Seamas. Well, actually, her name was Xian but she chose Seamas as her "American" name. She had a hard time understanding (word of the day) that she chose a boys Gaelic name. My girls were 7 and 10 when she first came to live with us for the school year. We thought it would be this interesting cultural experience for our family. It was certainly interesting. I actually can't believe this is the first time I am writing about her. There are so.many.stories. I thought about her today when I was at the mall with my girls, so here we go.
Seamas, pronounced See-mus, that is what she told us she wanted to be called after we told her the correct pronunciation is actually shay-mus. Her English was quite good, but there were certainly many communication break downs. She got off the plane at JFK in an all white light-weight track suit with matching white sneakers. She came with one suit case and her laptop bag. In that suitcase she packed her school supplies, three track suits (another white and 2 black), two black t-shirts, one extra pair of sneakers (black), 3 pairs of underwear, 1 bra, 5 white pairs of sports socks, 5 black pairs of sports socks, one rain coat, one winter coat and one nightshirt. And that would be it. To live with us for 10 months. Please note the ratio of total socks to total underwear.
I quickly introduced her to two of my friends that were also hosting exchange students. Three weeks into the school year we had to take the girls Homecoming dress shopping. Seamas wanted to wear her black track suit. I told her that she had to buy an appropriate dress or she could not go. She did try on maybe 3 dresses but did not show any of them to us. She would come out of the dressing room with her arms across her chest in an X formation and shouting a very adamant "No". After 5 hours, I convinced her maybe black slacks and a top. Once I said that she seemed remotely interested. I started throwing clothes at her in the fitting room (my thought - well now she will have something to wear for Thanksgiving and Christmas) After 2 more hours she settled on flowing black pants and a top with some embellishment around the neckline and a cropped bolero style cardigan. She looked like she was a twenty-something going to a dinner party, not a 16 year old, but I was exhausted and frankly did not care, I was about to just let her wear the track suit. A pair of black wedges from DSW and she was set. She was definitely the only girl in pants at Homecoming but her friends put some make-up on her and she looked quite attractive, especially for a girl who thinks she is a boy.
Fast forward many, many months. I was speaking to a host mom of a boy. She knew some of the struggles we had throughout the year and she knew about Seamas' preferred wardrobe. She then said, "Well, I know you have tried hard to get Seamas to the mall without a lot of success, I heard a story about a crazy host mom that didn't even take her student shopping for Homecoming that she just grabbed some clothes out of her own closet and made her student wear those to the dance." I was like, "You've got to be kidding me?" She says, "No, she was the girl that wore pants to Homecoming." I had to walk out of the room. I know for a fact, Seamas was the only girl in pants at Homecoming, so apparently everyone else (other than the two others that actually went shopping with us) thought I (crazy host mom) had dressed Seamas from my own closet. #priceless. #iwouldhaveificouldhave
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