Senior Yufei Zhang lives with Tammy Kettenhoven and her daughters Abbie and Ariel. In their free time, they all enjoy playing Wii and tennis.
A foreign exchange student from Beijing, China arrived in the states on July 22 and will be staying until the end of the school year.
Senior Yufei Zhang is currently living with Tammy Kettenhoven and her daughters Abbie and Ariel. In their free time together they all enjoy playing Wii and tennis. They also go kayaking together when they get the chance. Zhang loves to watch Grey’s Anatomy, as she has not seen it before. She enjoys it because she dreams of being a surgeon.
At home in Beijing, Zhang would spend her days at school from 8 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. with only a 20 minute lunch with three restaurants from which to choose. After that, she would go home to do four hours of homework. Zhang enjoys being here where she feels more “peaceful and relaxed.”
When sharing her favorite things about NHS, she gets a big smile and her eyes open wide and she says, “I like everything. The teachers are really crazy.” She loves her creative writing class and that she can wear sweatpants and baggie sweatshirts to school because in her school back home they had a uniform of a skirt and large white shirt.
In Zhang’s school, no one was allowed to wear makeup, nail polish or fake nails and their hair had to be cut short. Everyone wore a uniform which Zhang finds “awkward.” The classes are “harder than Neenah classes” and “tougher to pass.”
Zhang wanted to be a foreign exchange student to have new experiences. “I wanted to see more about the world,” she said. It scares her in a cultural way because her host sister has boyfriend and in China dating is prohibited until the age of 18.
Also, the weather concerns her because it is too cold for her already. Although there are some downfalls, the great things overshadow them. She tried tacos for the first time and she loves them and Taco Bell is her new favorite place to eat. She does still miss her food back home, but she is excited about trying new foods here.
So far, Zhang has only visited Neenah and Madison with her host family. She loves them both and hopes to see more while she is still in the states.
Tennis is Zhang’s favorite activity and pass time. She shared that she has been playing for four to five years now and will continue to keep playing. She has even gotten her host family to play it with her at the NHS tennis courts in their spare time.
Another pass time for Zhang is reading books or magazines. Listening to music is also something that interests her. “I like rock music and country music,” she said. She is starting to learn how to play the guitar as well.
From time-to-time she goes on Facetime to video chat her parents, Xiaomei and Linjie to keep in contact with them.
