China Update!

Hello all!

We are at the tail end of our China adventure but I figured I should post some images to share!

We spent our first two weeks in the northeast district of Beijing (Chaoyang) teaching at the University of International Business and Economics. It was a fabulous experience! Ted taught Introduction to Music and Computers and I taught Art Appreciation and Fundamentals of Design. We each had about 90 students in our courses which was unexpected (since a typical class usually has only 30-60 students), challenging and hugely rewarding. For the most part the students were engaged and excited about our subjects and also appreciated the opportunity to have foreign professors. Most of our students were born and raised in China. Some from Mongolia and Tibet. The ratio of
male:female is about 2:8. In general the business/law schools here attract more female students while the sciences are drawing in the men. Some of the students had very limited English so we had to be relatively conscious of our language/speech and remember to speak slowly and simply.

                         

Boxue Building - Our classroom are the ones in the left foreground, second and third floors

Final class picture. They all did so well on their projects. I was very proud of them!

Professor Coffey

There were about 120 professors from all over the world coming to UIBE to teach the summer school session. The university put the professors up at a funky old (Mao Era) hotel - very simple. We each got a nice big room with twin beds, overlooking the city. Elsa traded off between my room and Ted's. Since I taught everyday from 8-12 and Ted taught from 1:30-5:30 Elsa played lots of angry birds and watched movies while we alternately prepared for class or recovered from it! The beds were firm but comfortable and they had buckwheat pillows (which I personally, loved!). There was a big breakfast buffet each day which was sustaining and nutritious. It's a tricky thing being vegetarians in China but we have managed pretty well, considering. Though,  I imagine we are missing some traditional delicacies of Chinese cuisine (Peking Duck for instance). We passed on the pig ear and rabbit that were offered daily on the breakfast buffet and passed on the roast scorpions and sea horses that we passed in the Wangfujing night market last night! More on that later....!