As a kid, I spoke English to my Chinese immigrant parents, who     1     (reply) to me and my siblings mostly in kind. But my grandmother could communicate to us only     2     Mandarin Chinese; we’d figure out through gestures and facial expressions. A few phrases are     3     (particular) vivid to me: hulihutu, or “muddle-headed”; fa feng, or “to go crazy”; and most     4     (strike) of all, mamahuhu, which means “so-so” or “careless”. In Mandarin, ma means horse and hu means tiger; the idiom mamahuhu literally translates as “horse horse tiger tiger.”

Mamahuhu became     5     family in-joke for me and my siblings. But as we grew older, we realized mamahuhu also described our family. My parents and my grandmother could be precise when it mattered. My grandmother could make pork dumplings with grace and speed. When she packed my lunchbox, she stacked an inch of processed meat between white bread in imitation of the American     6     (sandwich) she rarely ate. My mother is a retired plant physiologist     7     research led to multiple patents related to improving plant growth. But when she helped me on an elementary-school project, she used     8     (steam) rice as an adhesive(黏合剂), instead of buying a glue stick. My tinfoil (锡纸) crown fell apart in class.

Neither my grandmother nor my mother     9     (school) in American norms before; they had to fake it to make it. When I was a child, the mamahuhu attitude sometimes embarrassed me. But it also taught me not to get hung up on mainstream ideals of perfection but     10     (embrace) originality.

“The Chinese language     1     (become) popular among Lebanese students over the past five years,” says Antoine Hokayem, a professor and local director of the Confucius Institute (孔子学院) at the University of Saint Joseph (USJ).

“In the past, Lebanese students used to register for Chinese language as an optional course (选修课). Today, we receive students from the USJ and other universities who aim     2     ( learn) the language to either work in China     3     continue their education in the East Asian countries,” Hokayem said on the 15th anniversary (周年纪念日) for setting up the institute.

Engineering and telecommunication students are most interested     4     the language, because they plan to continue their higher education in China. Other students attend the institute's courses with the intention of     5     (support) their parents who work on trade activities with Chinese partners.

“We have children     6     learn the language and speak with their Chinese teachers     7     (fluent). More than half of our students now come from outside our university. ”

The Confucius Institute     8     (establish) in 2006 at USJ and was chosen as one of the     9    (good) Confucius Institutes in the world for its cultural and social activities. The institute has held lectures covering     10     (topic) including China's economy and cultural values as well as Peking Opera and the Belt and Road Initiative (倡议).