Greetings from China!

Sat 8/8/2009

I arrived here on Thursday around 4:45pm (China time). The flight on Air Canada was actually not too bad. The seats had plenty of legroom and we all had those individual on-demand TVs, so that really made the flight go by a lot quicker.

All of us are in quarantine for a week at Beijing University because they are taking precautions against H1N1 due to what happened with the Sars outbreak a few years ago. So we're not allowed to leave the campus and are only allowed to go to certain designated areas. We've been kept busy during the day with training and orientation which will last about three weeks. All of us are trying to adjust to the time zone. I'm having a hard time adjusting because I'm going to bed by 10pm and waking up by 5am everyday. I'm sure in due time, my body will adjust to this time zone.

I've met and have been spending a lot of time in quarantine with the other volunteer teachers from around the country...2 of them are fellow Episcopalians. One from Seattle and one from Alabama. They all seem to be a great group of people, so it'll make working together much easier. And did I mention one of them is a fellow Giants fan? He has confirmed that one of his friends will record the SuperBowl and mail it to us so we can watch it...a week or two later.

The cafeteria food as expected is mediocre and the portions are a lot smaller than what I'm use to. I can feel the weight loss already! We've had rice at every meal and some of my fellow teachers are already sick of it and we've only been here for 3 days. We did ask them to order us some noodle dishes for our next meal so we can get some variety.

We are living and teaching out of a satellite campus of Beijing University. This campus is about 10 minutes by cab from the main Beijing University campus. Its in the heart of the Haidian district and they told us that is the silicon valley of China. Having said that, this college campus isn't anything that we as Americans would expect. Those of you that were on the West Virginia mission trip, think that but with air condition, but the cafeteria serves Chinese food instead of American food and Icees. In the dorms, we are sleeping on beds without mattresses. They put a comforter between the wood board and us as the mattress so this is gonna take some getting use to. And I'll spare you the details on how to use the toilets here, but during orientation, they actually spent a few minutes teaching us how to use them. I'll just leave it at this...its basically a hole in ground.

The weather here has been quite humid and we had some strong torrential downpours yesterday, but its not humid like say Belize or Puerto Rico.

The internet here is slow because they don't have DSL or cable internet. We are operating off a 3G network with a mediocre wireless router and with many of the other teachers online at the same time, checking and sending e-mails take a lot longer than expected. However Grace's old Mac iBook is working just fine! Its actually a lot faster than most of the other teacher's PC laptops. Thanks again Grace!

So I've been here in China for only 3 days, but my first lesson learned is that this is exactly what I needed in my life. I've been in my comfort zone for quite some time now and taking myself out of my bubble is definitely a good thing. Every now and then we need a reality check to make us realize how fortunate we are to have the things we have and live the lives we do. These are all blessings that God has given us and perhaps sometimes we take it for granted because we fall into that comfort zone. So while my back is a little bit sore from sleeping on that hard wood bed and while the food is not exactly what I'm use to and the dorm conditions aren't exactly up to the standards that we expect in the U.S., this is how people live in China and if they can survive, I know I can too.

We will be out of quarantine on Thursday so we'll get to finally leave the campus and check out the local area and go out to dinner. I'll send another update once I experience more of what China has to offer.

Missing you all.

Timothy Wong