August 28th, 2006

Finally, access to the internet! Here's a quick catch-up of the past five days. I arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, August 23rd in the evening. Dasen, a liason from PU (Petroleum University, where I will be teaching) met us at the airport and brought us to an apartment building affiliated with the school. The next day he brought us to see the wall of China and the Summer Palace. Both were quite stunning despite the hazy weather. Friday we took a bus to Dongying with 30 PU teachers who had just returned from a month in Australia. I was expecting a scenic trip, but the landscape was pretty bleak. Basically oil fields the whole ride down. (Here's a link to what I was looking at, can't post it here without copyright, I'm afraid.) The teachers were great though, incredibly energetic and full of questions about American life. Dongying is a city of about 2 million people in the Shandong province, just across the Yellow Sea from North Korea. It sits on an oil field, thus Petroleum University. There are oil drills all over the place, including on campus. I still have a lot of exploring to do of the city. We've been out a few times, mainly to go to the supermarket to stock up on hangers, cleaning supplies, food, etc. The city is very modern, looking at it out of context you wouldn't even know it's Chinese. Walking through the streets was a bit overwhelming. A lot of stares and "halloooo!" But it's clear that people mean well. All the international teachers live in apartments in the hotel on campus. Besides Richard and Greg (those of us affiliated with Skidmore) I've only met one other teacher, Anatoli from Russia, who looks to be in his fifties. The apartments are pretty nice, a living room, bed room, bathroom and porch. And a nice big double bed. Yay! There are about nine restaurants on campus, so we've been eating out for all meals. Each meal costs about 1-2$. Everything's been pretty yummy so far. I've got some work to do on my chopsticks though. I've dropped food in my tea about 10 times so far. It's hard when everyone's eating from one plate in the middle of the table! Last night was my first food adventure, though. We met our waiban (basically the man assigned to watch over us) Mr. Luan last night and he took us out to a fancy restaurant at a hotel. I ate fish lips and a slug. (ok, it was a sea cucumber, but do any of you actually know what a sea cucumber is? It's a slug, but lives in the sea and has edible spikes.) It's a good thing Mr. Luan kept the Qingdao beer flowing. (Qingdao is a city slightly larger than Donying and is about three hours from here.) We also had a tasty hard alcohol, but I can't recall the name. Man, it was toast after toast after toast. By the end of the meal everyone was struggling to find things to toast to. Everyone here is very nice and very helpful, despite the language barrier. I'm a little lonely and homesick, but adjusting and doing well. More to come soon.