Some Numbers

Nine hours, Eight people, Seven Team Harbin-ers, Six floors, Five washing machines, Four dining halls to choose from, Three different curriculums, Two hideous curtains, One big box.

On Monday, we took a nine-hour fast train up to Harbin, accompanied by our academic waiban [basically, our liaison], Vincent (making eight people, seven from team). One thing you need to know, Vincent is the man. He is part of the faculty here at the college and is our go-to guy for anything academic that we need. Our team absolutely loves and adores him and he is so incredibly excited to partner with us in our teaching. We’re even more exited because Vincent has been given a special project by the head people at Heilongjiang East College, and he’s hoping to implement it through us, the foreign teachers. More about that later.

Upon arriving, we received our room assignments. My apartment is on the sixth floor. More about that later.

So many exciting things are going on here in Harbin that our team was unaware of until rather recently. Last year there was a team of five foreign teachers here. Because previous teams have done such a wonderful job paving relationships and having successful teaching experiences, the school requested two more foreign teachers through our organization, thus our team of seven! Because of this new request, two more apartments had to be provided. As we’ve gone about our days helping one another clean (and clean…and clean) we’ve counted seven apartments, and five washers. Team Harbin will be having some laundry parties. More about that later.

We’ve had a brief {very brief} tour of the school and the campus of Heilongjiang East College. The main highlights of the tour included the most important things: where to eat. Eating is so important in Chinese culture. Lucky for us, the nearest dining hall is literally right next door to our dormitory building, which I’m sure will be a wonderful blessing on days when it is -20 degrees. All in all, there are four ‘dining halls’ to choose from, two of which being stretches of restaurants of mom & pop shops [which always have the best food]. More about that later.

These first few days have been an absolute whirlwind, but we are so fortunate; we couldn’t ask for anything more, He’s truly provided for us every single step of the way. Within hours of making a request (for things like drinking water, broken lights/drains, meal cards) our needs were met, questions answered, and the serving hearts of the Chinese people completely outstretched towards us; we are so undeserving.

Yesterday our team leader, Dan the Man, set the task before us of designing our curriculum for the semester. Yes, the whole curriculum [which is basically unheard of] under the special request of Vincent. For 8 to 10 hours yesterday, Team Harbin divided and conquered a whole curriculum for Freshman Oral English, Sophomore Oral English, and an Upper & Lower Level Writing class. Three whole curriculums, one day. This was the first time we had to truly get our academic butts in gear…metaphorically speaking. It was so encouraging to see how well we handled the stressful situation and viewing the results and creative ideas that we all came up with. These students are going to love their English classes. More about that later.

Our apartments (now that they're cleaned) are absolutely lovely: fully furnished, air conditioning [I'm assuming heating], a bed, desk and some fixins'. However, for my apartment in particular, two hideous curtains we're thrown into that "catch-all" of fixins'.  They are satin. They are a pale pink. They have a pattern of fans on them. They don't even block the sunlight. Oh China, how we disagree about fashionable design, but I am willing to work with you.

After a huge day of travel and another whole day of adjusting to the city, our team returned to our dormitory to find one huge box sitting in the lobby. You guessed it. It was none other than our IKEA lamps! They made it here, safe and sound, and all are currently in use in aiding the illumination of our apartments. Our excitement was overwhelming with us girls literally jumping up and down. Our ayi {dorm mother} whose name is san laoshi was equally as excited for us, even though we’re pretty sure she had no idea what was going on. Her hospitality and excitement made the moment even sweeter. More to about that

…later.