mmg.com.au

Former Rochester resident Rebekah Fehring is enjoying living in China and immersing herself in a different culture.

Ms Fehring recently took time off from her busy life in Chongqing, China, to come back to Rochester to visit her grandmother, who still lives in town.

When Ms Fehring was a teenager, she went to school with a girl who was originally from Chongqing, and wanted to visit her when her friend returned to her homeland.

At age 22, Ms Fehring decided to visit her friend again and learned it was relatively easy to get a job as a teacher in China.

Ms Fehring has now been teaching in China for more than two years and is enjoying absorbing the culture—even the spicy and unusual food.

She said she was studying Mandarin quite hard and even picking up on the local dialect, which was quite different from Mandarin.

‘‘After a year, I want to study a degree in Chinese to really establish my language skills,’’ Ms Fehring said.

The teacher said she could communicate easily enough with her Chinese friends but some of them also spoke English quite well so it had become a toss-up about what language they spoke when they were together.

‘‘Generally, if we speak English at the start we continue speaking English, or if it’s Mandarin we continue with Mandarin,’’ she said.

As well as learning the language, she said she was beginning to enjoy the local cuisine.

‘‘I love the food,’’ she said.

‘‘It really takes a lot of adjusting.’’

She said she regularly ate duck’s intestines and cow’s stomach in a spicy hotpot.

Ms Fehring said she enjoyed her short trip home to Rochester but was looking forward to returning to China.