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!

My Housing at Sichuan University

View front my front window into the courtyard
 with the koi/lily pond

For my flight to Chengdu which is about 1000 miles west of Beijing, I was driven to the airport in an embassy vehicle by the same driver who drove Vice President Biden around Beijing.  The driver was delighted that Mr. Biden chose to eat at a local noodle shop during his visit in August.  There was a picture of Biden eating in the restaurant on the front page of the national newspaper in China.  It’s interesting how seemingly inconsequential actions can have a significant impact on how people view Americans.

 Unlike domestic flights in the USA, China Air is still serving meals domestically.  I had a cunning tray of “oriental chicken”, canned pears, a cookie, and what I thought was a dinner roll until I discovered the bean paste inside.  When we landed in Chengdu, we had to walk down the stairs from the plane and board a bus to get to the terminal.  I fought the urge to grandly wave at the top of the stairs a la the President in the Airforce One photo ops.

Bedroom/office. (Pink bedding has been subsequently
replaced thanks to China Ikea!)

I was met by a Sichuan University contact who escorted me to my home for the next 4 months which is centrally located on campus in the Foreign Experts Building.  I have a living room, a small kitchen and bathroom, a huge bedroom/office and an enclosed balcony where I hang my clothes to dry.  This building is a hotel for visiting foreigners on campus.  One of my graduate students, who came over to show me how to operate the Chinese washing machine, said students affectionately refer to this building as the “panda building” because students cherish foreign teachers like foreign teachers cherish pandas.  As you can imagine, I adore my students!

I’ve spent the week at my new office at the Center for American Culture.  I will be teaching one graduate level class in ESL methodologies that meets once a week, and 3 classes in Freshman College English that meet twice a week.  I was told there would be 15-20 students in my graduate class.  52 showed up!  My freshman classes are at the new Sichuan University campus that is a 30 minute bus ride away.  My freshman students all have military training the first two weeks of the term, so I will meet them next week.  I heard the class size has been limited to 30 students.  We’ll see! 

Living room (Walk straight ahead into the kitchen or go right
into office/bedroom/enclosed balcony

The living room to the left is crying for some artwork.  I hope to get some pictures when I visit some of the touristy temples soon...  In the meantime, it is a bit bleak.  I would love to slap a coat of paint up... There are hooks all over the apt that have little cartoon characters on them.  Nails are not used I suppose because they would crack the plaster.  I can't explain the cutesy hooks.  

Kitchen with the bathroom to the left. It has a western style toilet.  Ahhhh.

Every morning I head up to the 3rd floor to fill my hot water thermos from the hotel boiler.  Then, I trot back downstairs for my cup of instant coffee before I switch to green tea.  The picture below shows the view from my kitchen window which also looks out on a courtyard where a pesky rooster welcomes me each morning. He crows in Engish.

After I have my hot drinks, I pour the boiling water into a pitcher to cool it down before I put it in my Barbie sized fridge.

Picture of the boiler with my trusty thermos.  All of the teacher lounges on campus have hot water thermoses for the teachers.  

Beijing Orientation

Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues,

Swanky hotel room in Beijing

I arrived in Beijing on August 28 for my English Language Fellow (ELF) Training.  I was delighted by all of the trees, rose buses, and canna lilies that were planted on the major thoroughfare from the airport to downtown.  Apparently this beautification was done for the 2008 Olympics.  Visibility was low because of the pollution but my spirits were high to be in China.

I met the other 5 ELFs none of whom wore pointy green shoes.  4 of the 5 had lived in China for at least a year or more and were positive about their experiences which was a great comfort to me.  We are at universities all around China, so we had our in-country orientation together in Beijing. 

View of Beijing from my hotel room

On our first day of orientation we met with the Fulbright scholars in China.  Gary Locke, our new Ambassador to China, welcomed us to China and talked about the US/China relationship which he stressed was so very important right now given our economic state.  He mentioned there are always misunderstandings between cultures that can be overcome by mutual understanding which is why we are all serving as goodwill ambassadors for the United States. 

Before Ambassador Locke’s presentation, I was in the coffee room loading up on coffee to combat jet lag when I whirled around and almost bumped into him.  My first close encounter with an ambassador almost ended in a coffee disaster.  Whew.  My parents didn’t name me “Grace” for a reason.

Next, we had a briefing by the Embassy Security Officer which was basically to not break any laws because even though we are guests here, we must obey Chinese law.  He did assure us that we would get a monthly visit by a U.S. representative if we were imprisoned.  Ahh.  Now that’s a relief!

Roofline of one of many Pagodas in the Forbidden City

Our orientation also included a visit from the Press Office and the Cultural Affairs Office who filled us in on the status of journalistic freedom in China and the need for us to help promote American culture in China through workshops and lectures.  All in all it was a fascinating orientation that culminated in how to best treat diarrhea by the Embassy doctor.   That conversation puts a whole new spin on the idea of finishing a presentation by “leaving with a bang”. 

Wednesday morning, I took an extremely clean subway down to the Forbidden City to walk around before I left for Chengdu which will be my permanent home in China for the next 10 months.  More about Chengdu later.

Pillars of a Pagoda in the Forbidden City

Outside the Forbidden City