Jimei University, Xiamen, Fujian Province, China

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We've finished our first week of teaching here. I'm teaching Human Resources Management to undergraduate Seniors and my husband is teaching Business Negotiation to undergraduate Sophmores.

The Chinese students are all very polite and hard-working. Their English is quite good, as it should be, since they've been taking English classes since they were in Kindergarten.

We are living in the on-campus foreign faculty apartments. Since two of us are teaching, we have two apartments - we live in one on the fifth floor (ugh! LOTS OF STAIRS) and our son, Andrew, lives in one on the second floor of the same building. The classes that I teach are all in the building that we live in or the one right across the parking lot. My husband's classes are on the other side of campus, necessitating either a bus ride (provided he doesn't miss it) or a 1 1/2 mile walk in the heat or the rain.

On the first day of class, we had each of the students ask us a question after we introduced ourselves and they introduced themselves. We also showed pictures of our home, our children, our pets, and some of our other travels. I also introduced our younger son to my classes - the girls all "ooohed" and he got a standing ovation after intoducing himself. I've been innundated with offers by my female students to tutor him in Chinese...for some reason, no males offered to do so!

Questions I was asked by my students included:

Q: Which of your sons do you love the most?
A: Neither. I hate both of them!

Q: How do you keep your dog from eating your cat?
A: Our dog only eats what we eat, so the cat is safe.

Q: What is your favorite Chinese food?
A: Beijing duck. (I lied. I don't like Chinese food...at all!)

Q: How many countries have you visited?
A: 25.

My husband got more interesting questions, like:

Q: Would you like to have a Chinese girlfriend?
A: I don't think my wife would allow me to have one.

Q: What would you think if your son had a Chinese girlfriend?
A: I would have no problem with it as long as he was happy.
(We've since learned that the better answer to this is - our son has no house and no car, so he cannot have a girlfriend!)

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Photos

Overseas college and dorm
Foreign faculty live and teach many classes in this building - it is one of the older buildings on campus.

Overseas college
All decked out for the start of the school year.

English language library
This is the new library that houses all of the English language books and journals on campus.

New buildings
New classroom and dorm buildings on campus.

New buildings
The large building under construction is the new campus administration building. You can also see new class and dorm buildings that are almost done in the distance.

View from our balcony
On the other side of the canopy of trees is a track. At 630 AM each morning, we are awakened by loudspeakers blaring some sort of patriotic music for 30 minutes - the "class monitors" from the Communist Party gather at the track and make speeches until 730, when they march off to class. The monitors take attendance and report any untoward activity by classmates or professors to the Party Secretary in each Department or School.

Pagoda
Some sort of Pagoda, viewed from one of the balconies of our apartment.

Le Chat
This is one of three scrawny newborn kittens living behind our apartment. We didn't have anything to feed them except croissants - this one was less skittish than the other two. I've christened this kitten "Le Chat." Its' brothers/sisters are a white kitten named "Puff" and a gray, hairless cat we call "Mr. Bigglesworth" (ala Austin Powers fame). I plan to pick up some cat food tomorrow from Metro or Carrefour for our new pets.

Bouganvillea
Pretty Bourganvillea outside our apartment building.

Rest areas
One of many covered rest areas scattered around the campus.