Campus Life

So here in China I can update my blog but not actually see the finished product. I believe I have posted a couple of pictures. One is myself and two fellow Maryknoll teachers with the fourth taking the picture. Jim is in the middle, Matt's on the right, James is taking the picture (with his camera, I still don't have one). So far everything has been excellent in terms of hanging out with each other, meeting our students, and meeting international students (we live in the international students' dormitory).

I have still only taught two classes and have another two tomorrow, then one on Friday. I have the option to attend Chinese classes for free and they are pretty good. The teachers speak very little English which is difficult in the beginning, but I have enough in memory to follow along.

The town of Jilin is pretty cool. There is very little old architecture left, it's all given way to apartment buildings and malls and such, but it is still a very Chinese city. It's out of the way of a lot of expats and tourists, and neither especially rich or poor for China. One thing I've loved is the grocery store. I realized I had only really been to a large (Chinese-owned) Chinese grocery store while in Beibei which is a much smaller town than jilin. The grocery store here is much much larger with all sorts of crazy food, the variety being somewhat due to the Korean influence as well as closer proximity to the ocean--the seafood here is crazy.

I'm blogging a lot lately and I'm sure I have a great deal more to discover, especially as I get to know people around here, but it's been pretty exciting to be back. It's certainly different than last time both because of where I am in China and because I think much differently than last time I landed here. There are however a lot of similarities: the friendly and timid "hellos" randomly from people in the streets, students who are incredibly shy and giggly around me, a lot of older men and women laughing and joking with me (if I only knew chinese, but they still have a good time) while I wait for food, and the need for 360 degrees of awareness no matter what lane I'm in. It's all pretty wild and it's a lot to take in even the second time around.