Having paid his respects(?) to Shanghai, Tintin is hungry for further socialization. Does anyone else nearby look interesting and Mandarin-speaking?
"Yes." Tintin sighs. "I sometimes wish - I know it is fraught, but - sometimes I wish that the Anglosphere had played hardball during the renovations and the Sinosphere had truly built our own Scholomance. Tensions would be higher, I'm sure, but - more children would be alive."
"That is very good, then."
Happier topics, or at least more useful topics - affinities discussed and mildly depressing, tracks discussed and very depressing, siblings discussed and aaaaa -
"What languages do you speak? I have been hoping to improve my English and Tamil."
"I do not speak either of those, although I have become familiar with the numbers and letters of English so that I could learn room numbers. I speak Tianjin, and putonghua. I have not decided for certain what other languages to learn. Possibly I will do maintenance in pairs with someone who is willing to talk in a new language with me."
"Yes, that sounds like a good way to acquire a language - immersion is how I learned Mandarin, my parents did not speak it well but they sent me to a school for it when I was young. I believe they thought English would be easier for me to learn, since my cradle tongue was French. Unfortunately it is a terrible language."
"Ah, I am sorry to have troubled you with it! I know it well enough for the school's purposes, even if I will not be making friends among the Anglos any time soon. Fortunately I should not need to - it seems I am not immediately rejected by the Mandarin contingent after all."
"I have been told to befriend other children who will be doing maintenance assignments for their immediate practical assistance, and to cement my connections to Tianjin, and to attempt to make friends farther afield, and to focus on competence to the exclusion of all else in seeking allies, and to focus on loyalty to the exclusion of all else in deciding who I will even be in a room with."
"Perhaps not! It certainly suited their leader to be warm - he was the one cradling the crying freshman. I thought it was so strange but I think I respect it now, compassion can strengthen interpersonal bonds and that seems to be their strategy, to be a sort of family."