Hello! I am a teacher at China Jiliang University, and I recently came from America, so it seemd like a good idea to tell you about the trip here!

My hometown is a small city called “Portland Oregon”, which is apparently home to bigfoot, and is where the vast majority of American vampire movies are filmed. The sky is always grey, and there’s a constant drizzle of rain. We just kind of grew accustomed to being slightly damp all the time. To get to China, I had to first travel to a nearby city in America called San Francisco. If you travel from China to America, odds are that you’ll stop in this city too. It’s huge and hot and trendy and there’s a lot of Asian food, so you’ll be able to find something that reminds you of home.

         San Francisco is mostly full of white people like me, or with Hispanic people (People from Mexico or other Central-South American countries). Next to the airplane to get to Shanghai, though, everyone was Chinese. It was my first experience being a minority, since America is primarily made up of white people. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, but I did feel like I was on my own more so than before.

         I flew to China, and even though I studied Chinese, I ran into a lot of difficulty trying to find the bus to Hangzhou. Eventually, a very nice girl helped me find the bus. The bus ride was my first real taste of China. The buildings were much bigger than I remembered, and it seemed like Shanghai was this never ending gigantic city. After finding my way to the school, I found my apartment and went to sleep.

         Since then, my understanding of this country and the people that live here has gotten much better. I can navigate much easier, even when I’m in a new city, and I’ve made some great friends, so I don’t feel like I’m alone. I’d like to thank the students and staff at China Jiliang University for being so kind and welcoming to me as I learned how to live in China, and for hiring me, which allowed me to go on this great adventure in the first place.