I was searching my backup flash drive for unpublished stories, and I found this story about my trip to China. Except for a minor editing I will share this story today with you.
A Trip to China, where everything is “fair” and “normal”
I have been teaching Computer Science in North Georgia College & State University, now known as University of North Georgia from over sixteen years. Last year, when I was just browsing the campus website, I came across a link Teach Abroad, that made me curious to discover more details. When I logged in as a faculty, I filled in an on-line application and submitted my proposal to teach an introductory course of programming in Java, and was trying to complete the paperwork, there was a hitch. My USA passport was expiring before the trip was supposed to happen, so I renewed my passport and then attached details to complete the on-line requirements and then submitted the paper work to the Director of Global Engagement to forward my application to Liaocheng University, in the Shandong Province, China. The last date was the end of November, 2012.
After submitting my application, I waited for the decision, and when even after a week of the scheduled date of decision, I did not receive any intimation, I almost gave up hope. A few days later, there was a comment posted on my application, that no decision has been made on my application as yet, but it does not mean, that it has been rejected. So I thought, that there is some hope, and I may see a light at the end of the tunnel. And I did. After about a fortnight later, I got an email from the Director of Global Engagement, congratulating me for being accepted to teach in China next summer, and that I have to wait for more details and an official letter of “appointment” for this program.
A few weeks later more details were communicated through emails and finally the letter of “appointment” was delivered on the date of a two hours of “orientation” in the office of the Director of Global Engagement.
As my daughter with her husband and two kids was living in Geneva, Switzerland, I wanted to route my trip in such a way that I could spend a few days with them. I was allowed to do that. So I booked my flight a few days before my scheduled arrival in Jinan, a city about 500 KM from Beijing, and about 120 KM from Liaocheng.
After spending two days at my daughter’s house, I boarded a Brussels Air Lines flight for the first time from Geneva on Friday around 6:30 AM and reached Brussels Airport after about an hour’s flight. I was expecting it to be a small airport, but it turned out to be a huge airport, similar to Paris or London Heathrow Airport. After walking about a mile and changing terminals, I finally reached the gate to take the next flight of Hainan Air Lines (a Chinese owned company), again the first time for me. The flight from Geneva was only 55 minutes, but the layover was over 5 hours. The flight to Beijing International Airport took off at 1:40 PM and took about 10 hours, and landed at Beijing Airport at 5:00 AM local time.
Beijing Airport is a very impressive and huge, and we had to use the Bus to get to the terminal building. After a long wait at the Passport Control, I got my baggage. I was very thirsty so I tried to find a water fountain, but as I was trying to get some water out I was cautioned by a local employee of the airport toilet that the water may be hot from one button. So I used the other button that changed the water to normal temperature. To drink from this special water dispensing machine a cone type of paper cups are provided. This was my first experience of a different Chinese culture. After drinking the water I tried to find the shuttle bus to get to the Terminal 2 from Terminal 1 to get the next domestic flight for Jinan. I reached the Terminal 2, which seemed somewhat bigger than the International Terminal and waited in line to get my boarding pass for my flight on Shandong Air Lines that was scheduled to depart at around 9:35 AM. It was delayed by about 15 minutes, and as the flight time was only 45 minutes, we only got a bottle of water.
At Jinan Airport I met with some of other colleagues who were also going to the same university to teach, so we had lunch in the cafeteria of the airport and whiled away the time. Our pick up was scheduled to pick us at 4:00 PM. So we had a long wait.
The drive from the Airport was about two hours and 25 minutes. When we reached the Liaocheng University campus, we were greeted by the Director Ms. Song and two other officials of the university. After a brief introduction we were taken to our respective apartments. I was assigned a one-roomed apartment # 201 on the 1st floor of the Experts Apartment Building #8. It had a fully furnished bedroom, a living room-cum-dining room, an office, and a kitchen an attached bathroom. There was a microwave, a gas stove and a refrigerator and split type air-conditioners in the bed-room, living room and in the office. The university had provided 20 gallon filtered water with a heating facility (as in China it is traditional to drink only hot water), and some initial toiletries and towels. We were given ten minutes to get fresh up and meet outside our apartments for a dinner at 7:00 PM in the dining hall of an adjacent hotel.
I have never eaten such a dinner in my life time. The dinner was served on a round table made of glass on which another round glass can be rotated to make the dishes “served” to each guest, without being in anybody’s way and the guests could help with any dishes as many times they want. The cutlery consisted of a plate, bowl, two glasses for wine/beer, one long glass in which hot water was served for drinking and a pair of chopsticks and a spoon for the soup. There was no eating spoon, fork or knife. Before leaving Atlanta for this trip, we were warned that we should not expect to see any of such eating “aids”, and that we should get some practice with chop sticks. As most of us has never used chop sticks, so our host gave us a demo for using the chopsticks.
Here is the link to the university: http://lcu.admissions.cn/info/Liaocheng%20University
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