Meeting the Teachers

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Today we met with several teachers who will be attending the program, some of whom will serve as assistants and/or advisers to our teaching team -- perhaps they will be able to alert us if what we are doing does not really serve the needs of the teachers. Most of them teach in classes of 55-90 students...this is a real challenge for them and for us.

We had a really nice lunch today at the hotel restaurant --- I wish that I knew the names of the dishes but of coruse I don't. Everything here is soaked in a sauce and most of the sauces are full of sodium -- part of the reason the dishes are so tasty. We went to a tea house yesterday and I bought the pu'ar tea and have been drinking that for the last 24 hours -- I'll probably find it impossible to go to sleep tonight -- but it is a good diuretic and like a lot of teas I hope it will neutralize all that salt in my system. We walked to a beauty shop with the help of Sunny one of our local teaching assistants and the woman who owns the shop was able to glue my fingernail -- and then Liulei had a massage...it was a deep tissue massage and then the young woman used something that looked like comb to scrape the skin. Then I had the same thing done...now we're both raw -- and hoping that we don't get an infection but we put neosporin all over our backs, hoping that that does the trick. We were warned not to get the area wet to avoid infection...not sure about the effects but I have to say that my back does feel better.

I wish I had more to report but this day has been rather mundane...not very much happening...I did manage to take a pile of clothes to a laundry -- not cheap -- they charged me 56 yuan for about 5 pairs of pants and 3 T-shirts. I don't think that that is so cheap, not such a good deal. I'm going to see if I can get one of the teachers to recommend a private individual...surely it will be cheaper.

I am enjoying my coffee each morning using the French press and occasionally the instant coffee...I've stuck with the coffeemate, which I normally loathe but it's not too sweet so it's been good. I'm reading a book about China on my iPad, working on my online course every day several times a day and trying to keep up with my email. I'm also trying to think about what I'm doing here and how I could come up with an article about it.

I finished revising my article for a journal before I left the states and now I'm waiting to hear from several places regarding 3 articles. I hope that I will be able to get at least one of them published.

This city is devleoping quite rapidly. We walked along the river this afternoon and it looks as if this is manmade to a certain extent. The teachers this afternoon said the river is polluted and that there will be a reservoir. The local government is trying to clean it up somewhat...as I mentioned earlier they are buildibg a promenade along the river ...

The teachers said that the traffic is not as bad as it used to be...they said that the city had hired more police officers to regulate the traffic and that it had worked. I was quite surprised since the traffic is a mess..there are people walking everywhere on all sides of the street -- coming and going...there are mopeds and bicycles and cars and trucks...it's complete chaos. Today, however, we did see the police out on the street with a PA system trying in some way to regulate the traffic...not sure how effective this has been but it's interesting. People seem to be much more affluent than what I saw last year...they are dressed well, carry themselves with pride, and commerce seems to be thriving. Develpment is in the air and in this hotel surely there is a prevailing sense of affluence.
It's all quite amazing to see!

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