Is it really the middle
of October?? Here is an update of the last month.
A Little About our
School
We are at CFAU –
China Foreign Affairs University. China
Foreign Affairs University was founded in 1955, and is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is an executive agency responsible for foreign relations between
the People's Republic of China (PRC) and other countries in the world. The
agency is led by the Foreign Minister (the
guy we shook hands with at the Opening Ceremonies at the beginning of the
year). The agency is responsible for formulating foreign policies,
decisions, foreign affairs documents, and statements in regard to the PRC.
The courses of study
offered include foreign languages (English, French and Japanese), foreign affairs,
international politics and relations and diplomacy, international law and
economics. The university awards BA. MA
and PhD degrees. Jordan has all international
law classes. I have one international
law class, two foreign affairs classes and the remainder are all international
economics classes. We definitely have a challenge in our teaching this
year. These students are some of the brightest in China. As Jordan
mentioned last month in his little blurb, these students are handpicked before
any other universities get their choice. Once the students are chosen by
CFAU, they must accept and do not have the option to choose any of the other
schools that accept them. CFAU is serious about who they want running
their government and train them from the ground up. There is a large rock
in the center of the campus that says, “The Cradle of Diplomats.”
The new campus where we
teach is amazing and only a couple of years old. The classrooms are very
clean and quite high tech with everything at your fingertips. We no
longer have to haul our laptops, projectors and screens, etc. We just put
our little USB drive in our backpacks and off we go. It is GREAT!
So all in all the facilities have improved 100%.
It is also great
exercise each morning because most of our classes are on the 5th floor,
exactly 170 steps up, up, up. I've determined to never take
the elevator and so far so good! It helps that the elevator is the size of
a breadbox and tons of students and teachers wait in line to take it up.
I hate standing around so would rather be working off that Snickers we might
have at night!
Transportation
We can hardly believe
the transportation situation here. Apparently, taxis here don’t mind
picking up foreigners. In Xi’an, we practically had to lay down in front
of an oncoming taxi to get it to stop and even then, they would swerve around
and keep going. Hailing taxis here is easy and fairly cheap. We
mostly use them to get to and from church, which is about 35 minutes
away. That trip only costs us around 40 yuan one-way ($7).
Additionally, there is a great subway system here in Beijing. In Xi’an we
only had 2 lines: N/S and E/W. Here, we have 8 major lines running within
the city and another 9 lines which connect and serve the outlying suburbs.
Sweeeet!
However, we have found a
MUCH better means of transportation!! A few weeks ago, we decided to get
bikes. We finally found just the right ones. They are mountain
bike/city cruisers (a bit heavy but very sturdy) with 18 gears, disc brakes and
good tires to navigate around the potholes, manholes and people! We found
some baskets at a different bike shop and zip-tied them to the back rack we had
the bike shop install before we bought them. The baskets are great and
carry all our parcels and shopping perfectly! You would be amazed at the
things we have bungeed in, bungeed on and bungeed around those baskets.
Thank goodness for bungee cords! Whenever we need food, we hop on our
bikes and off we go. Did I mention earlier that there are no stores very
close by for shopping? Not a problem anymore! We LOVE our
bikes!!!!! Jordan's bike is Blue Lightening and mine is Green Hornet!
Every day we have off
together (usually only Thursday unless there is a holiday), I plan a new route
and area of the city to explore. For example, today we did a 17 mile
round trip to see the Olympic Green Area where the 2008 Beijing Olympics were
held. Here is a picture of the famous Beijing National Stadium also known
as the “Bird’s Nest” where the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and athletic events were held. The stadium cost USD 428 million and
will seat 91,000 people. It is a pretty cool area and we loved riding all
around and exploring the area.
We will keep you updated
on all of our biking adventures. We are getting more adept at dodging
traffic and dangerous situations, although once in a while we have some near
misses. Today was no exception. As a scooter almost took me out, I
could hear “so-di, so-di, so-di” ringing in my ear as I swerved to avoid a
collision. I guess he was at least close enough to recognize me as a
foreigner and decided I might understand “sorry, sorry, sorry” said with great
enthusiasm! But, we ARE being careful, so no worries!!!!!!
AQI & Blue Skies
We have been pleasantly
surprised with the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Beijing. Seriously, we have
had more blue sky days here than the entire time we lived in Xi’an.
Everyone told us that the Beijing air quality was so much worse than
Xi’an. Well, from our firsthand account, not so. In the 53 days
that we have been here we have only seen 4 really bad days that were in the
400’s. Otherwise, we are either below 100 or definitely below 175.
Today as we were riding it was around 67. We can even see the surrounding
mountains quite frequently, especially when we head out to the new
campus. It’s great!
We continue to love our
experience here in China and encourage anyone that is interested in having an
incredible, lifetime experience to plan on doing this sometime in the future,
no matter how distant! You won't ever regret it!!!
We are Happy in
Beijing!!!
