Offical Welcome

This week we were officially welcomed by the Guangdong Province as foreign experts.  An engraved invitation arrived by hand delivery with the official seal to invite us to a reception.  On the English side of the invitation it reads:
" On the occasion of the 64th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the People's Government of Guangdong Province cordially requests the pleasure of your company at a reception in the Convention Hall, 1st floor, Garden Hotel, Guangzhou at 6:30 p.m. Friday, September 27, 2012.  Dress Code: Lounge suit, Traditional Dress"

The lounge suit we were not able to explain, however we were told it would be fancy dress, so fancy as fancy does we arrived at the Official event by motor coach.  Lots of speeches in Mandarin Chinese and many toasts later the buffet dinner would begin. 

The Garden Hotel is a beautiful 5 star hotel in the center of the City of Guangzhou and very fitting for this event.  There were representatives from countries all over the world who are "foreign teachers" in Guangzhou.  It was very interesting to meet and talk to people about their choice and assignment to teach in China.  Probably the most interesting was a women in traditional dress from Kenya, and a Chinese woman who had been raised in Costa Rica but had returned to Guangzhou, China to get her teaching degree so she could teach Mandarin Chinese in Costa Rica schools.  I love learning about other cultures and how they educate their students.  It was a very interesting evening. The food by the way, was amazing.

Typhoon Usagi

Typhoon Usagi jumped into the mix in Guangzhou this week.  This was my first typhoon experience, tornados in the midwest, hurricanes in the south, earthquakes in UT, I can now add typhoons to my list of natural disasters survived. She moved across Taiwan over the weekend and arrived in Guangzhou on Sunday.  She carried 123 mph winds across the water but calmed down by the time she reached us.  There were trees down, branches all over the streets and sidewalks, small rivers of water, a real downpour to say the least.  Church was canceled on Sunday but school was business as usual on Monday morning.  Usagi had moved on to Hong Kong by the time we started classes.

Our first day of class was a very interesting experience.  We are assigned to Graduate Teaching Bldg. #1  fourth floor, right under the guise of Sun Yat Sen at the main gate of the university. My classes are predominately Engineering majors working on their Master's Degree.  I have seven classes, 230 students, a larger load than I expected.  The class gender is very tilted, 25 boys 2 girls, 20 boys 5 girls, 24 boys and  5 girls.  All students seems to have an exceptional vocabulary, lots of memorized dialogue, however they struggle with sentence structure and impromptu conversation and questions.  I really have my work cut out for me. Students are very respectful, prompt and anxious to learn.  I am looking forward to a great experience.

 Thursday, September 19 was the Moon Festival in Guangzhou, I think we might call that fall break.  We took advantage of two days off to see the sights in Guangzhou. I am very impressed with the Guangzhou Metro.  It is easy to understand even if you don't speak Mandarin, clean, fast and very efficient.  We are able to zip around town like veterans.

Tiyu Xilu  Shopping Center eight story mall. The food venues are all on the top floor!

Canton Tower

The Chen Ancestral Hall (check out that roof)

Chinese lessons to be learned

Contrary to the title of this blog, this will not be about learning to speak Chinese, but how to live Chinese. Our flight left Salt Lake City at 9:10 PM on Friday the 13th of September.  It is a good thing we are not superstitious about that day or we may not have made that flight.  Inspite of that, all things were uneventful. We arrived in Las Vegas just before midnight to board Korean Air for Seoul Korea.  We planned it that way so we would be able to sleep on the long flight over the Pacific.  Tylenol PM is my new best friend, I did self medicate and I am glad to say that I arrived on a Boeing 777 well rested at 5:00 AM on Sunday, September 15th.  The Seoul Airport is a modern masterpiece with all the conveniences you could imagine, unfortunately our connecting  Korean Air flight left at 9:00 AM before the designer  shops opened. We landed in Guangzhou on Sunday morning, September 15 at 11:58.  Immigration services stop was first, then to luggage claim, ( all four bags arrived with us, small miracle all by itself) on to customs and walaa we are on our way to Sunday morning in China. 

There are some very obvious advantages in being a "foreigner."  This first one being our official student escort William.  I haven't been greeted at the airport with my name printed on a sign very many times, so seeing William with "Kathy  Anderson " on a small card board sign was exhilarating after a 22 hour flight.  Our four designer( green military B4 bags) luggage were quickly loaded and we were on our way to South China University of Technology. 

As the week has developed it has become clear why we were told to arrive a week prior to classes starting.  Everything takes longer than expected to structure.  Our first adventure took three days; the task of internet access.  It took three different IT specialist from the university to connect my Mac.  Not very any students use Mac computers or are familiar with connections for a Mac to the Chinese internet, very stressful.  Cell phones on a Chinese plan proved to be yet another hurdle, lots of SIM card mysteries or possibly miscommunications.  We now have two new Chinese SIM cards in our phones that say invalid SIM card no service.  Not sure how that will turn out. We have been waiting to open a Chinese bank account because they require a phone number for contact on the bank application. That will have to be another adventure on yet another day.

On a positive side, grocery shopping proved to be very interesting, we were able to discover fruit and vegetables we didn't know about.  Eating out has been so much fun, not sure we will need those fruits and vegetables.  Very interesting and tasty food has arrived at our table!

Best of all are the other English teachers that are working with us in our endeavors to cultivate English speakers here.  There are two other couples living in our building teaching post-graduate students English.  We are having a great time sharing "war stories" in adapting to our new lifestyles.  It will indeed be an adventure. Next Monday, Meet the Students!