With purple-framed spectacles and a head of fluffy hair, Yeqing H. sat before me with little physical evidence showing he was in fact an O’Donnell eighth grader. When he arrived in America from China last September, Yeging was placed in eighth grade even though he is 15 due his underdeveloped English. His math skills, however, landed him at Kerr.

In order to capture the essence of his answers and to fully understand Yeging, this interview was conducted in his native language: Shanghainese and a bit of Mandarin.

“I’m from Shanghai,” Yeging said. I replied that I too, was a Shanghai native, and we proceeded to carry out the rest of our conversation in Shanghainese. Until of course, a few minutes into the exchange, he blatantly stated, “Your Chinese isn’t accurate [biah zhen]. You have an accent.”

Self-conscious from that point on, Yeging decided to do no more damage towards my Asian-American pride. Instead, he questioned why he was being interviewed. The response was simple: he was an eighth grader allowed on the sacred grounds of high schoolers, to study and learn amongst them. Yeging takes Algebra II, a class oftentimes designated for sophomores and juniors.

“Math here isn’t hard,” Yeging said. “Right now science and English are a little difficult, but the rest is pretty good. English names and places—I can’t remember them. I find it really hard, and I can’t pronounce them correctly.”

Ah, so my fellow Shanghai native has a problem with dialect as well. Yet Yeging embraces the fact that his English is not up to par. However, improving his language skills is one of the top things on the list he wishes to accomplish, along with attending Kerr.

“I came to one of the parent-student meetings Kerr held and filled out an application,” Yeging said, “but I have yet to hear a response.”

Deciding to brace him for the worst, I told him the fact that Kerr did not have an ESL program, and it was most likely going to hinder his chances of coming here.

“I think not having any ESL classes would help me,” Yeging said. “I already took English classes in China. I know all about grammar, the only problem is speaking. If I came to an environment like Kerr, I’d be forced to speak English. I definitely need practice because that is the only way I will be able to learn this language fluently.”

Yeging’s math teacher, Katie Miller, said she has seen improvement in his English speaking skills. She believes there has been a huge difference already in the amount of interaction between her and Yeging since the beginning of the semester.

“[Yeging] is an excellent math student,” Miller said. “He is very conscientious; he wants to understand everything, so he will not move on until he understands everything. He’s talking to me a lot more than when he first arrived, so his English has improved even since he’s been here. He’s ahead of the class.”

Yeging said one of his goals is to get into his dream college.

“I want to get into Harvard,” Yeging said with a laugh. “If I learn English well, I want to get into business because businessmen make a lot of money.”

Yeging also has a more practical set of ambitions as well, one that most teenagers his age crave.

“I don’t have a license yet, “Yeging said. “The earlier I can get it the better. I just want to take pictures of me with my car and show it off to my family in China, because in China, not a lot of people drive. Only those rich enough do. Plus, I can get somewhere faster by walking than driving. Shanghai’s traffic is crazy. During hot summer days, it’s scorching hot because of the heat emission from all the cars.”

Another attribute Yeging enjoys about America is the clean air. Although Houston is deemed one of the most polluted cities in the United States, Yeging finds it incomparable with the air quality of China.

“The air here is really nice here compared to Shanghai,” Yeging said. “Back [home], my mom had to breathe from an oxygen tank. After we came to America, she can breathe and go, ‘Ahh! [deep inhale and exhale] Nice… nice….’ You can’t compare the air here to China.”

After being here for several months, Yeging says his biggest adjustment has not been the food or the language. It was one of the unspoken things that he discovered quite by accident one day.

“There are some things that are really strange in America,” Yeging said. “In China, when you put your arm around a guy friend, it expresses brotherhood. But here, people think you’re… homosexual. I put my arm around my friend here in America once and he told me ‘You can’t do that that! People will think we’re gay!’”

Adjusting to the obvious change in culture, Yeging fits in naturally with the other students and into Kerr, according to Miller.

“I think he fits in quite well,” Miller said. “I think he’s quite happy here. I think he enjoys coming here and I enjoy having him here. It’s been quite an experience.”

When I told him that he would not be able to attend Kerr on March 3 and 4 due to finals, Yeging immediately leapt out of his seat to verify this with Miller. Upon returning, a certain dread loomed in his face as we continued our conversation.

“I hate eating lunch at O’Donnell,” Yeging said. “They have really bad food. I also sit alone when I eat there. Lunch is more fun here because I have people to talk to.”

It will only be a few more months before Yeging will be in high school, and Miller believes, “he’s a happy kid, and he’s really happy to be here [at Kerr].” Miller also feels that he enjoys the math class because he is being exposed to methods of learning that he has never experienced before, such as using a calculator. Mathematical learning methods in China required students to do most of the math mentally or on paper.

“I don’t think he had ever really used a calculator before,” Miller said, “so that’s one thing that we really tried to get him to feel comfortable with. So I really think he enjoys that stuff because that was a new thing. He can do most everything in his head, but then we do things like logarithms and things like that where you must use a calculator. But he picked it up extremely fast.”

By the end of our conversation, Yeging asked me if his photo was going to go in with the article. I told him that yes, it was a possibility. He only humbly replied with, “Can you take my photo after I get a haircut?”