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Published: April 19th 2006
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New Tower in Nanjing
New architecture becomes a beacon for the progressive city in Jiangsu Province The Retirement-documents have been notarized and mailed, while Social Security has set me up with direct-benefit-deposit, after my 62nd Birthday in July. My thanks to the Soc.Sec.Office here on Miami Beach. They made the anxiety of admitting to old(er) age a painless and exceptionally informative experience. The Z-Visa, permitting me a one year stay in the Peoples Republic of China, as a Foreign Language Teacher at Taizhou Teachers College, is in my hand, and the reservations for a flight to Shanghai with American Airlines are almost finalized. American Airlines has begun a direct flight from Chicago to Shanghai for about $2,100.00, connecting from Miami, and some of that cost will be covered by my contract with the college. All is in place to begin the adventure in about 5 weeks. :-)
Staying in touch with the college has been a refreshing and gratifying experience, and their emails always conveyed encouragement, wise thought, and good council. Because of this, it has been easier to communicate and probe common concerns, and I'm more confident than ever about my adventure of a life-time. Someone from the College will meet me at Shanghai-Pudong Airport on my arrival, drive me to the college
Schatzie
I will miss my buddy Schatzie, but my sister will show my photo often (about 3hrs.) where I will settle into my apartment, and from there develop a strategy and an itenerary for summer travel within China with my good friend Arthur. It is gratifying to know, that as the Foreign Affairs Director of the College he feels a serious obligation for my safety and well-being. As before, I trust him with the success all of the arrangements. The banquet of travel-delights from the last China-visit are still very fresh in my mind, and I feel blessed to enter a culture and civilization long off-limits to a Westener.
Until a year ago, the thought of visiting and working in China had not been a notion. The internet has made it possible to contact, communicate, evaluate, and negotiate previously unknown possibilities on the other side of the world, and all in real-time. Retirement from life's vocation as a teacher can now become a catalyst for new opportunities in any part of the world. Thirty eight years of experience and older-age are now considered an asset, and are appreciated in important and exotic places of our globe.
It was only two years ago, when I first started to entertain my options after
A corner of the garden
This is one of the corners in my sister's and her husbands garden. retirement, and I visited friends in Australia and New Zealand. Two dear friends have emigrated to Greymouth on the South Island of N.Z., and on my visit there, I found a paradise often spoken and written about. I look forward to posting some of the photographs from that New Zealand visit in a future blog. My visit to Australia was also something very special, and for those interested, Australia has provisions for a retirement-visa. The details can be researched quickly on the internet through Australia's home page. Once I have scanned all of the photos, I will post the Australia pictures as well. Both countries are a pure delight for any visitor, hospitable and very friendly, and an experience not to be missed. They are countries much like any Western country, easy to navigate and offering the comforts of home, though not the challenges of living first-hand through the changes and dynamics of an emerging world power like China.
The challenges and my expectations of China are quite different from those of New Zealand and Australia. Having been born in 1944, I grew up in a parallel universe to the Far East, hearing, reading, and studying about the
my favorite fountain
A fountain in another corner of the garden historical and current events of our Western world, and trying to understand, through limited resources, the develoment on the opposite side of the globe in China. As a student in Germany and the United States, I was eager to absorb anything and everything that became known about this once closed society under Mao and the folley of the Cultural Revolution. I followed with great interest and enthusiasm the progress of the "Ping Pong Policy" under Nixon and his first meeting with the Chairman. I enjoyed the commentaries of the early visitors from the West to China under his successors, and was sadened by the live TV feeds of the events of 1989 in Beijing. But time marches on, and this week China's President Hu Jintao is meeting the President of the United States in Washington to exchange views and perspectives. When we speak to each other we will learn from each other. And when we learn from each other, we will begin to understand and share the others hopes and aspirations, and surely they will show dreams and desires not so different from each other. It will be a delight to partake in the aspirations and expectations of this hopeful
saying good bye
from left: my sister Resa, yours truly, my brothers wife Dora, and my brother Gerhard. culture.
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Arthur Lee
non-member comment
Thank you very much indeed, Hans, for all the good memories about China and all the remarks about me and our small college. Actually, face to face communication can create wonders, this, I think, is the case with common people like you and me, and it also holds true between state leaders. Chinese people are friendly and hospitable to American people and American people have been helping us all the time from the past during and even before that Anti-Japanese War during which Japanese invaders had killed too many Chinese innocent people.