Advertisement
Published: October 3rd 2006
Edit Blog Post
My Host
Welcome To My Blog Family and Friends,
My host, my lifeline, while here in Beijing. They handle all foreign affairs.
I was met at the airport with one of those signs held high with my name on it. Hello Family and Friends.
Yes, we did arrive in Beijing. August 27th to be exact. TravelBlog is a nice way to stay in touch because it not only allows the travel journal to flow but it gives extra added information about popular sites and places in China. So if you want to come and see, it's all there for you.
Now you're probably wondering, why in the world would someone choose China. Well I say 'Why not'. Anyway, come along with me and see why I travelled to the other side of the world.
Here's my story:
For me, it all started when I was a graduate student at NCSU. I lived in graduate student family housing, the village. There I served as the Mayor of the graduate student family housing counsel. Oh what a time I had working with then a community that was well over 75% Chinese with some Indian families although today it's more Indian families.
Then the most amazing thing happened. I learned a few Chinese greetings (well out of necessity) and the close knit community the Chinese are, parents that were visiting their children were impressed. Well, I had a
newborn and they had time so my child became their child and the deal became, as long as I was in class or working on community issues, childcare was free. It was an offer that I just couldn't refuse and thus, the beginning of our journey to the far east.
Then, as Mayor, the top 3 most important issues were rent and amendities, children and garden plots. Yes "Garden plots" and although I couldn't speak the language, I had better know the value of those garden plots.
On the day to sign up, every Chinese family in the village was there and I mean bright and early and the line, well I can see now it was nothing compared to what I see in Beijing with wall to wall people. But those garden plots were always a topic of discussion as to how to improve them and manuever them and to make them just so. And you know we had a village contest on who had the best fruit, the best vegetable and so on.
Oh what a sight to see each morning, the Chinese men and women up early with their rakes and holes and poles hung over their backs with those large Chinese farming hats. You know, the round pointed kind.
Then my mayorship came and went. That happened in 2000.
In 2004 my family and I enrolled in the Chinese language academy just across from NCSU, met a wonderful Chinese teacher who tutored us in Chinese while we in turn tutored her in English. Oh what a wonderful exchange and friendship. Yes, a wonderful friend even today.
Then after those lessons, and knowing that China is a major contributor to the world economy and don't forget they have the world's largest population (1.3 billion I believe), we decided the best thing for our family's success, especially the littlest one, is to go to China, gain exposure to the language and to the culture. So here we are, in China, six years later after a wonderful seed of kindness was sown by a few Chinese parents who were visiting their children while I was a graduate student in need of childcare.
We're in Beijing and my littliest one is enrolled in the school where I work. It's a K-12 International Bacculeaurate program in Changping, a suburb of Beijing, China. Come along and visit the school's website http://www.huijia2000.com ... Make sure you push the English button unless you know Chinese. You can also see me and another teacher dancing with my students if you viisit http://www.huijia2000.com/show.php?newsid=7149 ...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.114s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 48; dbt: 0.064s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb