5.23.2009 – Meeting Zhejiang Students
This morning we were asked for our temperature sheets early and were
taken by a maid and returned to us. We learned later in the day that
the whole temperature thing isn’t even a university suggestion, but
rather a city government policy so there was nothing the university or
the hotel could do about it. We met with some professors later in the
day who laughed at the idea and thought it was also silly due to the
amount of time we had already been in China.
Some of us skipped breakfast this morning, having eaten a lot over the
last several days and we congregated at 8.30 to head over to the new
Zhejiang Campus to meet the students who will be coming to Ames later
in the summer. We learned that the university has 5 campuses in town
and that it has a total student population of about 40,000.
We gave a brief presentation to introduce ourselves where we showed
the other students a couple slides of our familes, friends, pets,
things we like to do, etc. This presentation was followed by a short
introduction about Iowa to let them see the area they will be going
to. Many of the students know of places in the U.S. like New York,
Los Angeles, and other east and west-coast cities, but didn’t ever
consider the middle of the country. They were excited to see photos
of us and to hear some of the things they will be participating in
when they come to the states.
Many of the students seemed enamored with certain things in the U.S.
One student loved to watch the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Another
had studied geography and wanted to see the Mississippi river. Every
one of them seemed really excited to have us there and to be coming to
the U.S. for a visit.
The ISU students spent the afternoon and into the evening with the
Zhejiang university students and got to go to lunch in the largest
lunchroom (canteen) in Asia as well as see some of their living
arrangements and dorms. They were also invited to a masquerade party
and most of them had a good time.
The leader group went to the home of Dr. Guo who is organizing the
trip for us in China and is leading the student group from China to
the U.S. The group also met with some faculty in the college of
agriculture.
Tomorrow will be a more relaxing day with people optionally going to
church here, listening to a lecture, going to a supermarket close to
the hotel and having some free time to walk or taxi around the city.