Sichuan University

Water lily pond close to the Foreign Languages Building where my office is.

I'm teaching at Sichuan University which has 40,000 undergraduates and 20,000 graduate students.  There are 3 campuses - the oldest one where I live is in the center of Chengdu and the brand new one where I teach 3 days a week is a 45-minute bus ride away. I don't have anything to do with the Medical School campus!

Chairman Mao is located by the East Gate.  

The main campus is surrounded by an 8 foot wall, so it is a self-contained entity.  It takes about 30 minutes to walk from the north gate to the south gate and 20 minutes from the east gate to the west gate which gives you a rough idea of how huge this campus is.  Driving is discouraged on campus because the streets are narrow and full of students, bicycles and motorbikes.  However, there are still cars zipping about which makes riding my bike an adventure!  I still haven't quite figured out the choreography of the transportation dance in China.

Water lily on the pond near my office

There are enormous shade trees on campus as well as parks with palm trees and banana trees and lotus and waterlily ponds.  I've tried to take capture the beauty in my photos but Ansel Adams I am not. There are park benches around the large ponds and people hang out and read and talk.

There is a supermarket about 2 blocks from my guesthouse and bicycle repair shops set up on the sidewalk every block or so.  Most of the food stands are located just outside the campus at each of the gates.  My students have taken me to eat at some of these stands which I'll describe in a later posting.  Retired teachers are allowed to live on campus so there is a wonderful mix of ages in the high rise apt buildings all around campus. There are 2 primary schools on campus and one middle school and one high school, so I see children all the time which makes me miss my own.

Foreign Language Building.  My office is on the 3rd floor.

Today I was invited to watch a group of retired women who are taking a singing class in which they sing English songs.  I walked in on 25 women singing "Way Down Upon the Swanee River".

Surreal doesn't begin to explain this day.

The singing instructor was a tiny woman about 30 years old who belted out an operatic version of Swanee River that almost made me cry.  She is a voice teacher at the Sichuan Music Conservatory which is near my university.  She invited me to see a performance on her campus tonight of a violin, cello, and piano trio visiting from Vienna.  I'm still speechless.  What a musical adventure I had today.

I hope you enjoy the photos of my lovely campus.

This is the Main Administration Building located at the North Gate

Do you notice how people ride their bikes and motorbikes on the sidewalks?  Also the map in the background has north on the bottom and south on the top...  Each map around campus seems to have a different orientation...

This kitty lives by the South Gate.  I don't think he looks particularly happy to be on a leash.  I know my look-alike cat Sylvester would not be thrilled to be leashed to the front door!

This is the outside of the Foreign Experts Building where I live.  My room is on the second floor and faces south.  You are looking east at the front of the building.

This is the plaza I walk across to get to my house which you can barely see between the pillars on the right.  Between classes this plaza is filled with undergraduates since these buildings here are full of undergraduate classrooms.  You can see a couple of tiny people in the picture to give you some idea of the scale of this massive building!