I'm finally here, and what a journey it's been

First things first, Brenna Anne Hallin was born yesterday morning, August 31 at 9:30. I'm an aunt! Or Ayi as they say over here.




My travel time to China was very long and overwhelmingly complicated at times. I flew threw four different carriers and managed to lose my bag somewhere between Denver and Vancouver. Now word yet on if it will ever arrive in China. I almost didn't get my second bag on the flight to Beijing, which meant I would have been naked and smelly in a strange land. Fortunately though, a nice woman from Air Canada was able to get my bag on the plane at the last minute. Other than that, the flights went smoothly and I didn't get hassled at all through customs, so I would say it all went pretty successfully.

We were met in Xi'an by an English professor from the University named Ma Jing. She escorted us to our new apartments, which are actually hotel rooms in the University hotel. The place has everything that I could need, a little kitchen, a living room with a TV, a large bed and a bathroom. I'll post pictures from my new place a little later.

The next day we had a lot to do to get established on campus. We had to get a medical exam in order to process our long term visas that will allow us to stay here longer than 30 days. This was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. A Chinese student who spoke very good English brought us to the medical exam office so that he could translate for us. We had forms that we brought into several different rooms that didn't seem to be labeled in any particular way. The workers would gesture to us because most didn't speak English, perform their evaluation, and then sign off on our sheet. We were required to get blood tests, chest X-rays, EKGs, and an ultrasound. Very thorough.

After that, we went to look at the office where the English department is housed. I got the textbooks for the classes I will be teaching. The first unit in the book is, "With Alzheimer's, you meet a lot of new people". I'm not kidding. There is also a dialogue in which one person can't remember someone's phone number and the other suggests he might be developing Alzheimer's. I wonder if any other foreign teacher has remarked on the inappropriateness of this topic.

For lunch, we went to a banquet with the entire English department for the University. The food was absolutely amazing. We sat at a table with other English teachers, and they preferred to speak in Chinese, so I concentrated mostly on eating.

Everyone here has been very friendly so far, but I have encountered problems in understanding Chinese. I pick out a few words here and there, but that doesn't make for communication. Today is our first day without Ma Jing's help and translation abilities, and we at least plan to go to the supermarket. I start teaching Monday, so I need to spend some time figuring out what I'm going to do with these people.