Happy Birthday!
生日快樂！
Can you believe it?
It’s already been one full year since the establishment of our Language Exchange Club.
Back then, it was only a group of four friends meeting at EB Club Café to hangout. (Scott, Haha, Weny, and Pan).
With the idea of bringing friends together to practice different languages, the concept of the club began to unfold.
是不是很難相信，自從我們的語言交流俱樂部成立到現在，已經整整一年了！
最開始的時候，只有4個朋友在EB俱樂部Café聚會。(Scott, Haha, Weny, and Pan)
讓朋友們聚在一起並且練習不同語言的想法出現後，俱樂部的雛形也慢慢展現了。
Our group was small, yet intimate.
We couldn’t wait until we would see each other again the next weekend.
Two of our friends even met at one of the meetings and fell in love at first sight!
每次聚集的小夥伴成員不多，但很親密。
我們迫不及待地想在下個周末見面。
甚至，有兩個朋友在一次活動裡相遇，一見鍾情。
(Can you guess who?)
（能才得出是誰嗎？）
During those early days, people would often forget what language day it was in our WeChat group and red packets were sent every fifth minute.
Oh, do I miss those days!
在最開始，大家經常會忘記在我們的微信群裡是什麼語言日，每五分鐘就有紅包收。
我真想念那些日子！
The group started to grow weekly.
Friends would invite their friends which, in turn, would invite their friends.
It was starting to get busy and there were so many new faces.
隨著每周不同的活動，這個俱樂部開始慢慢的成長。
朋友會邀請他們的朋友，朋友的朋友也會邀請他們的朋友。
俱樂部開始忙起來了，越來越多的原本是陌生的人走進了我們的生命裡。
What inspired us to build the Language Exchange Club?
是什麼激勵我們建立了這個語言交流俱樂部？
There are many factors to lead us towards the development of the club. If we had to break it all down and sum it up in a few lines, here’s what we』d say:
這裡面有一些重要的人和因素，他們引導著我們去建立了這個俱樂部，可以說沒有他們就沒有這個俱樂部:
1. Hoomy (Chinese) is one of the first friends I met in China and has since been my best friend. One evening, while semi-drunk, Hoomy said to me, 「Scott, I』ve known you for so long and your Chinese is so good now. My English has worsened and I was wondering if you could help me improve it」.
Then, I realized that there are so many wonderful people that have been helping me and that I should be returning the favor.
黃明鴻（中國），他是我在中國結識的第一個朋友，也是我最好的朋友。有一個晚上，半醉半醒的時候，黃明鴻對我說:「世國，我認識你很久了，你的中文現在已經很好了。我的英語卻越來越差了，你能不能幫我提高英語？」我突然驚醒，周圍的人一直都在幫助我，我也應該回報他們。
2. Jason (Canadian), longtime friend and former colleague, would often mention that he was having difficulty learning Chinese although having lived in China for several years. We concluded that it was because everyone only wants to speak English around him.
It was different for me since I studied at Guangxi University for the first 5 years and that I’m Asian.
Jason張遜（加拿大）, 他經常提到: 雖然他已經在中國生活好幾年了，但中文還是沒有進步。我們討論了很久，結論是，因為每個人都只和他說英語。
但對於我來說是不同的，大家和我說中文是因為我在廣西大學學習了5年，而且我是亞洲面孔。
3. Haha (Chinese) and I (Canadian) had originally planned to move back to Canada last summer. For our potentially last year in China, we decided to focus less on making money and, instead, focus more on building a community that could help all of our friends.
We had hoped that this project would be able to sustain itself before we had moved back to Canada.
夏霞(中國)和我(加拿大)原本打算去年夏天就搬回加拿大了。因為決定要離開中國了，所以在最後的時刻我們希望把所有精力放在更有意義的事情上，建立一個能夠幫助我們所有朋友的社群。我們曾希望，在我們搬回加拿大之前，這個社群能夠在沒有我們的情況下也能運轉。
So, this community was built and Haha and I found passion and purpose within it. The feeling was so strong that we put our「 Canada Plan」 on hold to further develop the club.
所以，這個社群就這麼建立起來了，而且我們找到了做這件事的激情和目標。這種感覺是如此強烈，我們把「加拿大回鄉計劃」暫且擱置，以進一步發展俱樂部。
Just the other day, we sought some help in the club’s WeChat groups and was surprised to see so many people willing to help in such a short notice. Above that, it was also on a Friday morning!
就在幾天前，我們向俱樂部小夥伴們尋求幫助，看到這麼多人願意在這麼短的時間內提供幫助，我們感到很驚訝。
At the end of the day, I went to express my gratitude to everyone individually and one of the responses I got was,
「There’s no need to thank…This is our club!」
Upon hearing these touching words, it was hard for me to hold back my tears.
在那天工作結束的時候，我去向每一個人表達我的感激時，我得到了一個讓我很感動、很難忍住眼淚的回應:「謝什麼，這是我們大家的俱樂部！」
Happy first anniversary,
Language Exchange Club!
俱樂部一周年快樂！
Thank you to all the members for helping make this community a place we can comfortably be ourselves and grow together.
感謝所有的成員，是你們幫助我們把這個社群建設成一個大家可以輕鬆相處、共同成長的地方。
Home is where your heart is.
We all have our hearts in this community.
This club is home to all.
家是我們心之所及的地方，
而這個俱樂部就是我們共同的家。