Arriving in China

Letters from China (August 26, 2008 – June 29, 2009)

Letter #1 - Monday, August 25, 2008 – after a very long 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Beijing, China, we had a 2 hour layover in Beijing before boarding a very small plane (seats made for Chinese-size people), we flew another 2 hours to Xi’an. After getting through customs, we found a very short man holding a sign that said “BYU, Mr. and Mrs. Brown”. His name is Hans (many Chinese choose an English name) and he is a professor in the English Department where we have been told we will be teaching. And that is all that we have heard to this point (I am writing this on Sunday, August 31, 2008-school begins tomorrow). Then it was a 40 minute drive to our apartment. There were several people waiting to help us unload suitcases, give us a key to the apartment and make sure we were settled for the night. The Chinese have treated us with great respect and are very helpful. We had been told by e-mail during the summer that we should get the apartment that the BYU teachers lived in last year because they left books, food, lesson plans and clothes for the next couple.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 – We woke up about 4:30 am (still on Utah time) and was showered, dressed and out the door by 7:00 am. A lady named Rao found us wandering about the campus and showed us the cafeteria and helped us order our first Chinese breakfast. We have had the same thing for breakfast every day with the only change being a hard boiled egg instead of a fried egg. It is a large breakfast with a fried egg, rice porridge (very bland, but warm), a scone type roll, a rice roll, warmed cucumbers, shoestring potatoes and shoestring long white radishes (which is a little spicy). It was good and filling. Rao got us situated into the right apartment and it was quite dirty because the cleaning staff did not come in at all during the summer because of all the stuff that had been left. So we spent the day cleaning until afternoon when Charlie (our waiban, in charge of all foreign teachers) came to get us and helped us buy a cell phone and then left us at the grocery store. That was a very interesting experience, but we did find some things to eat. We forced ourselves to stay up until 9:30pm.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 – We woke up at 5:00 am (still on Utah time) and continued cleaning. We ate breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria. We had the same breakfast and had sweet and sour chicken for lunch (it does not taste like Americanized sweet and sour, but was good). We were too full to eat dinner. Charlie set us up on the internet. On Wednesday evening, Steve and Elva Orton arrived. They live directly across the hall from us and we have enjoyed each other very much. They are from Virginia. The other two couples arrived late on Tuesday night and are assigned to a different university and are quite far from us. We have learned that there are over 40 universities in Xi’an.

Thursday, August 28, 2008 – We woke up at 5:00 am (still on Utah time??) and got ready for the day. We knocked on the Ortons’ door and they also had been awake for a few hours, so we showed them around and taught them all that we knew. The Orton’s representative from the Business Department visited with them and took them shopping. We invited ourselves along and she answered a lot of our questions. We were anxiously waiting to hear from someone about our assignments.

Friday, August 29, 2008 – We went to Metro (like a Costco – and we shopped at a Metro in Denmark) with 4 Chinese women (2 mothers and 2 daughters). While we were at our training at BYU, one of our FHE’s was a gal from Xi’an, China who had converted to the church and served a mission in California. She e-mailed her friends to help us go shopping. They were very helpful and it was fun to be with them. We have walked to the grocery store (15 minute walk) every day and sometimes twice a day as we continue to get ourselves set up in our new home. It was a very rainy day.

Saturday, August 30, 2008 – We thought about home a lot, since it was Payton’s baptism and Kyler’s birthday. The weather has been very humid and overcast – although we did see the sun and sky on two days that we have been here. Since we still have not heard from our department and school begins on Monday, September 1st, we had copies made and prepared our first lesson.

Sunday, August 31, 2008 – All of the foreign teachers gathered at 9:30 am for a bus ride and tour of the new campus where we will be teaching. We were met at our bus by a lady named Rosie, who told us we were colleagues. She introduced us to the dean, assistant dean and several teachers in the Education Department. We were FINALLY told that we would be teaching freshman oral English and that each of us would have 8 classes, 2 classes that are 2 hours long each day from Tuesday through Friday (so it is one preparation each week). The freshmen are in military training and will not be ready to attend classes until October 7, 2008. Then Charlie mentioned that two of their teachers from Britain had not been able to obtain their VISAS yet and would we (and the Ortons) be willing to be substitute teachers to the sophomores and begin TOMORROW. Thank goodness the lesson we planned was a “get to know each other type lesson”, so we were prepared.

The Xi’an Branch met at 1:00pm. There were us 4 couples from BYU (2 more returning couples will be here soon), a young man from BYU studying Chinese for international business, the branch president and family, a young couple whose family lives in Xi’an, so they are here often, a lady who runs a foster home (orphanage for babies), and a father from South Africa who has left his family of 4 children to come here and learn Chinese. The branch president called before we got on the bus to see if Ross would teach the Priesthood/RS lesson. So, we had a very special Sunday service. The church is true everywhere!!!

This is definitely a cultural experience. We were told that everyone spoke English – NOT TRUE, so it has been interesting trying to communicate, but we have had a lot of fun and are very comfortable on our HARD bed, cooking on a hot plate, no oven, but we have a microwave and a crockpot. We are set!!!