Hello all,
When I left off, Chad had just found
his passport and we were all greeted by the students as we exited the dock
area. At least 20 students and several staff members were there to welcome us.
The students held a sign in Chinese and another in English that said: “Warmly
we welcome the fourth group of exchange students in Zhaoqing University from
ARCC!”
They had us get on
the bus, while some of the boys took care of the luggage. The students would
have no part in allowing us to carry our bags! Once we arrived at campus, we
were again given a more formal greeting. Just inside the main gate, the
students formed two rows and they had us walk between the rows while they
applauded. It almost felt as though we were being paraded down the modeling
runway, but we were definitely not in any shape or style to be held in such
high esteem. Nevertheless, we were treated so well and again the students
grabbed our luggage.
This is really where
things seemed odd. I quickly learned that the ARCC students would be living on
the 3rd floor and I would be on the 4th. I tried to help with the luggage, but
I could only watch as two of the girls struggled with my carry-on bag. I
was seriously beginning to wonder how anyone was going to get my suitcase up
three flights of stairs. (I have since learned that rarely any buildings
in China are equipped with an elevator except for some of the larger hotels and
office buildings). By the time I reached my room, my bags were already
inside the door along with another nice surprise. It was Teacher’s Day so
the students had gone out and bought fruit and flowers. It was really a
wonderfully nice welcome.
Almost immediately
after settling in our rooms, we were brought to a small welcome lunch located
above the school canteen. Mrs. Guo, one of the faculty members from the
English department, and Mrs. Krim, an American teacher who lives on the campus,
attended. We were treated to several fine dishes, taught the proper use
of chopsticks and received a mini-orientation to campus and our new
surroundings. They obviously wanted to make our welcome especially nice
because they even served fresh lettuce. Mrs. Krim said that in the three
and a half years she has lived in China she has never been served fresh
lettuce. We have since learned that it is usual for some sort of green to
be served at whatever meal (including breakfast), but they are always cooked
and they wouldn’t be classified as lettuce. Don’t get me wrong, they are
quite delicious, but just different than what we are used to.
Later in the evening,
we were again treated to a meal and this time it was also attended by Vice
President Wei, who regretfully informed us that President Zhu was unable to
attend This time we were brought to a restaurant outside of the gate and
served even more food than at lunch. (I’ll wait for another installment
to comment on various dishes). It was what I believed to be the end of
the best welcome a person could ever imagine and we returned to our rooms to
finish settling in and then relax before heading off to bed. The
excitement however, was just underway. Just about the time, we got to our
rooms at least 20 Chinese students converged on our rooms, so we spend a couple
hours talking to them and answering their questions about our hobbies, families,
majors, etc.
Looking back,
it is hard to imagine that so much could happen in one day. We left Hong Kong,
retrieved a passport from the checked luggage, took a ferry to Zhaoqing, found
Chad’s passport, were welcomed to campus, began to settle into our rooms, ate
lunch and dinner with school officials, and spend a couple hours talking with
some of the students from the English department. Wow, what a day!
I get tired just thinking about it. Add to it the fact that we were also completely
in awe of our new, non-western surroundings and we knew we were really on our
way to a great experience here in China.
The next day, we were
taken to the bank to Exchange money, the post office to buy stamps and phone
cards (we’ll talk about the phone cards later) and then to the large
supermarket, where we bought some essential items like laundry soap, a bowl for
our lunches in the canteen and any type of food we wanted to get as snacks.
The trip to the
market was by far the most interesting. We swept across the store
searching for our items and we were watched by nearly everyone in the
store. I quickly separated from the group in search of my own items,
hoping that I would be less of a spectacle. There was no escaping the
fact that I wasn’t a regular customer and eyes turned toward me around every
corner. Another interesting feature of the store was the fact that each
aisle seemed to have about 6 attendants ready to help at a moment’s
notice. I did attempt to ask if something, which appeared to be soap, was
in fact what I had believed it to be. I decided to cross the language
barrier by performing a washing type of motion and just received giggles by the
female attendants. Finally they gave me an approving nod and I knew I had
successfully found soap. After I had walked through the entire store to
weigh my options, I finally made my way to the register. I think I spent
something like 150 Yuan, which is a little less then $20. The cashier
looked a little surprised by the amount, but a couple of the students are
smokers and they spent closer to $30 and in their case they called the manager
over to verify the amount. There were cheaper options with several of our
items, but most of us chose to go with some of the brands we knew such as:
Chips Ahoy, Nestea, Raid, and Fab laundry detergent.
We arrived at the
school on a Sunday and on Wednesday we were invited to the “Opening
Ceremonies,” where I was told I may want to say a few words. No one
explained what the opening ceremony was; I was just told when, where and
prepare a short speech. When I thought of opening ceremonies I figured it
would be some form of convocation where the whole school would attend and we
would have a small part. When we arrived, we quickly learned that we were
the program, but it was a ceremony attended by several administrators from the
school and again I noticed our friendly camera man from the local news station.
The ceremony was
attended by Mr.Zhu, the President of the college, Mr. Wei, the Vice-president
and the President from Xi Jiang University (I can’t remember his name).
Each of the men gave speeches of welcome and they all were proud off their
merger between the Zhoaqing Institute of Education and Xi Jiang University (the
larger campus a few miles away). They distributed pins to each of us
which said the new name of the combined schools: Zhaoqing University. I
quickly learned that I was the first person ever to wear the pin and I felt
deeply honored. There was a sense of progress that the schools were moving
forward with a sense of cooperation. There was also a sense of progress
as they mentioned the importance of the upcoming signing of the sister city
agreement with Coon Rapids this coming November.
After the ceremony I
learned from Mrs Guo that several of the administrators on this campus would
probably be losing their positions as a result of the merger. President
Zhu will most likely retire but not until after the finalization of the merger
process. Apparently, he is heading up the effort. Vice-president
Wei will most likely return to the classroom as a math teacher. As most
things here in China, it seemed that these plans could be subject to change,
but for now this is what is anticipated.
Gabe and I were
talking later in the day and we both felt awkward receiving the pins.
Here we are, new to this country and this University and we haven’t yet
attended a single class and we were given this special badge. The Chinese
students immediately noticed the pins as we wore them around campus. I
asked them if they too would get one, but they bowed their heads and said
“No.” At that point I really began to ask myself: “What have I done
to deserve this?” and the answer was a resounding - NOTHING!
Just days before we waltzed onto this campus as visitors and we all receiving
this badge of honor that the students only hope to receive after their
graduation. I felt both honored by the gesture yet very unworthy.
Before I left for
China, I kept hearing how the Chinese students where the real treasure of this
experience and that really became clear the day before Mid-Autumn
Festival. In preparation, the students had organized a small carnival or
festival of sorts. When I arrived, I was given a glow stick and then
brought to several of the booths where they were hosting various games. I
played a game with Jon and Watson, (a Chinese student) where the object was to
take a straw and suck water out of one cup and then walk a few feet and then
fill the other cup with the water from the straw. When the water level
reached close to the top the objective was to blow the Ping-Pong ball out of
the cup. The task seemed simple enough, but experience obviously paid off
and Watson easily beat both Jon and me. The task looked simple enough,
but it was actually quite difficult to get that darn Ping-Pong ball out of the
cup.
There were also
several other games organized by the English department and their objective was
to practice more English and have fun with it at the same time. For
example someone picked an English word like Flower and then the next person
would have to come up with another word which started with the last letter of
the flower. Since flower ends with an “r” my opponent would choose a word
like run or rain. It sounds easy enough until you have to repeat the
words from the beginning of the list. I believe our list was about 15
words long, but my memory gave out first and I lost.
There were several
other games that we all participated in throughout the evening. We also
received several small prizes for our participation – not for our
victories. Later in the evening, I was speaking with the group of the
American students (that’s what our group is known as) and we were reflecting on
the evening. Several of the students commented on how innocent they felt
the Chinese students were and how much fun they had playing games they might
not even have participated in during high school. I totally agreed.
Here I was holding a glow-stick in my hand running around to all these
different booths playing silly games and having just a wonderful time.
The activities were
actually held the day before Mid-Autumn festival. My understanding of the
Mid-Autumn Festival is that it is a day reserved for the family and families
will get together to celebrate by eating mooncakes and a local fruit which
reminds me of an orange/grapefruit combination but it is much bigger. The
school gave us each a mooncake and a pear to celebrate the occasion. At
dinner, I had my first taste of a mooncake. It’s sweet and pretty rich so
several of us shared one. They are good, but you can only eat so much in
one sitting.
After dinner some of
the students from the ’98 class took us to downtown to see the musical fountain
in town. (The students who started at the college in 1998 are the ’98
cohort. They take all of their classes together and the odd thing is that
they feel uncomfortable around the students from a different cohort. The
’99 class is separated into ‘99-1 and ‘99-2 and those students rarely interact
or even know one another’s names). Apparently the fountain is one of the
largest in all of Asia. Each night, the fountain goes off for something
like 15 minutes, but in honor of the holiday it ran for close to a half an
hour. It was very impressive how they coordinated the lights, music and
various water spouts.
Once the show was
over, we quickly learned that there was another show in town – it was us!
We were all gathering up to go off around town with the Chinese students and as
we were standing there the crowd just converged on us. So many people
were saying hello and trying out the simple English phrases they had
learned. They all just couldn’t take their eyes off of us and they kept
moving closer. Just about the time we were going to be completely engulfed
by the crowd, the Chinese students broke open a path and we quickly
followed. In the hustle, I noticed the local news camera covering the
event had turned our way. Later, I learned from Mr. Wei that he had seen
Andy on the news as he waived to the camera and said “Ni hao” (hello).
Once we started walking around town, we
continued to be a spectacle with such a large group so it was decided to split
us up into smaller groups. My group walked through the market and then
took a bus ride to the opposite end of town where we went to a small
park. One of the students was supposed to meet a friend there, but it
didn’t work out and she was concerned that she hadn’t shown us a nice enough
time. I tried to explain to her that part of the fun for me is just going
new places and seeing new things, like the people barbecuing in the park and
walking by the roller rink. I believe she understood, but I got the
impression that she wanted to make it a spectacular experience. Little did she
know, that it really was and amazing day!