A pre-departure post.

I think I was asked for a weather report for the area and failed to include it in our last post. Most days are cold, much like Minnesota this time of year though maybe a bit more of the biting wind to deal with. Often the weather report that comes to my friends' laptops reads "smoky" and often they're quite right. Some days we just breathe a thin haze of smoke. It's not a daily thing ever and the situation is way better than a lot of Chinese cities but it still is a little gross that there's literally smoke all over (from coal I imagine).

I'm getting different rumors now on what I'm teaching. Our bosses have told us nothing and seem to like telling us nothing while our students have had two conflicting schedules released to them. Some students are pretty sure I'm teaching them literature, while others are convinced that I'm teaching them technological English and a Bible/greek mythology class. The possibility that both are true is remote but it could happen.

Upon arriving in Jilin I was shocked at the number of questions I recieved about Jesus and the Bible. Some of this is due to the fact that the students had a Biblical Literature class with a previous Maryknoller. However, there is a rather high-profile group of Christians in town. They run multiple English corners (free, open English practice) and a large portion of Jilin's serious English students seem to know them. I'm sort of intrigued by their presence in this random corner of China. I'm interested to know the story as to exactly how they got here and how they stay.

Between the Christian school in town, the Chinese-Catholic seminary next to Campus, and the old church at the riverfront (looks like a mini St. Francis De Sales) Christianity seems surprisingly noticeable in Jilin.