And yet more Pictures, and a short story (7/14)

I am getting caught up with pictures, i think these, with a little description will give you a good flavor of what we are seeing and doing in China.

There will be stories, because there are stories to tell, but first the pictures!

And so, on with the show!

On Sunday morning, we had faculty orientation at the campus where we will be teaching, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics (DUFE). More specifically, their International Business College.

Arriving in the school’s lobby, I was greeted with not one, but two pictures of myself on posters advertising the summer program. The others with us kidded me about this, as you would expect.

LION Education is the organization for which I am teaching, through an agreement between them and DUFE.

This was the first time we had met our fellow LION people, both the other faculty and their families/friends and the rest of the LION staff. Remember, we arrived in Dalian about 7 pm on Thursday, thoroughly jet lagged, and were here Friday (moving day) and Saturday (with Ying), so we had not had much time to meet anyone. And, not everyone was here at the same time we were, people were coming in over a few days, with all of us present by Sunday morning.

Our group is a very convivial one, with people from many different universities and disciplines. The LION staff are outstanding in their consideration for us. Overall, so far, it has been great. I say this while typing after having gotten over the worst of the jet lag.

So Sunday was Orientation Day, and we got to see our classrooms, see if our technology would work (it does), and meet our hosts, the faculty and administration of DUFE.

Our first meeting was just the LION staff and our faculty, and we discussed academic issues mostly. It really was great to meet all the people I will be working with over the next four (okay, three at this point) weeks.

The second meeting was with the administration of DUFE, the Dean and others. We were welcomed warmly by all of them.

After the meeting there was a group photo with all the faculty from both organizations.

After the group photo, we all went to lunch at the hotel attached to the university. The idea of a hotel attached to and owned by the university is apparently common in China, and seems like a good idea. Instead of putting up visitors in hotels near campus, put them up in one that you own, and where you control the costs.

The lunch was excellent, we had a large number of Chinese dishes presented to us. We sat around a round table, with a rotating disk in front of us on which all the dishes were placed. You just grabbed food (with chopsticks) as it came around, a truly interesting way to have lunch. The food was good, varied, and interesting. I had some things i really enjoyed, and some that i did not enjoy as much. Not surprising.

Immediately after lunch I had to hurry back to the hotel, separately from everyone else, after giving Pam a hug and saying goodbye. Tune in to the next episode to find out what was going on…