Half Way Through

I have been unable to get onto my mail site from work so I have been unable to write to anybody. We are all well and are finishing our second day in Hongzhou. It is a city of 6 million and is famous for silk, rice, and fish. They are in the process of trying to make it a tourist area but the traffic problem will certainly fight against it. Tomorrow we go to the Tea museum here and then fly back to Beijing. The weather has been hot and humid making each activity much more draining. We sweat through our clothes in the first half hour and then walk around wet for the rest of the day.

They have been treating us like kings, pulling out all the stops to make sure that we are welcome and have a positive impression. This hosting of Americans is a huge and expensive effort being made by their government through Honban and the College Board. One gets the sense that they have their agenda and we have ours and while we are always sure to be polite and appreciative, many of us have expressed the hope that our visit can result in positives for kids and not just kudos for the establishment. We travel with the constant presence of Mr. Hu, a government official that takes great pains to count us as we arrive at and leave places.

Our meetings with the educational officials on Friday and tours of the school sites were very informative but their principals seemed to be under a lot of pressure to establish relationships with us. Mark was talking nicely to one high school principal who wanted to know if we were ready to exchange teachers with him this fall. When Mark answered that we were not at that point, the Chinese principal lost interest in a hurry. We are looking at and meeting their very best, which is sobering for their kids.

I have gained a great appreciation for what it means to be an outsider in a culture. It is exhausting as you are always trying with everything you have to cope with the new and mysterious experiences. We walked along a lake shore today and I saw a lot of Chinese dogs and people doing their exercises by the thousands. And this was at 5:30 AM. One pale poodle was pretty interesting. I am getting the hang of chop sticks and it is a good thing since they are the tools to use here.

China is so different I am not sure I would ever be able to explain it if anybody was willing to listen to me try. China town in San Francisco is unique and exotic. China is completely overwhelming. When Marco Polo returned home to Italy after his visit to China his countrymen referred to him derisively as "Millions" Polo, since everything he had to say about China involved the reference to millions of people and millions of dollars of wealth. They could not credit his report since it was so completely outside their frame of reference and experience. I feel the same way and the millions has now become billions.

Hope all is well at home. We leave China on Tuesday, here, which is Monday there, and arrive in DC on Tuesday there. We stay overnight in Virginia near the airport and then fly on to MSP. I will be able to talk to you from DC.