It's another exhilarating day here in Harbin. Tonight, the rest of the teachers arrive, so I've spent the day working on class materials and generally getting ready for their arrival. I just had a meeting with the International Director here - a fellow who studied at Michigan State several years ago, and who stayed with a family in Lansing, riding his bike to MSU (past LCC) every day for the first three months he was here. We met him last year, too, and I really like him - he's a very kind and gracious man.

Then I met the 4 students who will be the monitors of the undergrad classes. They are all very excited about the program, and were very curious about the content of the classes during the day. I think our afternoon plans have made them very eager for the program to begin.

And then I came back to the foreign students' dorm and got in the elevator. Last year we usually rode the elevator in a group, and that's quite a different experience than I have had these past few days riding by myself. Six or eight of us together made us the dominant linguistic group when we were going up and down. (Well. Last year I did find myself in the elevator with an Iraqi man, and felt compelled to apologize for my country . . . ) But now it's a different story. I'm usually the only American, and usually anywhere from 10-30 years older than the other occupants. The people here studying over the summer usually hail from Korea or Russia, with a smattering of folks from Africa. It's quite something to listen to a Korean and an African speaking to each other in Chinese . . . The other day I shared the elevator with someone from Africa who first spoke to his friend in a language I couldn't recognize, and then spoke to someone in Chinese, and then spoke English to me. A person could begin to feel like quite the linguistic slug around here . . .

Today's experiences were a little more personally uplifting. This morning I rode along with one of the women who works here. She asked me my name (in Chinese), and not only could I answer, but I could ask her what hers is, too. And then just now, when I got in the elevator, a young man said hi to me. I asked if he spoke English, and he replied that his language is French. So then I spoke a little French with him.

I wish the whole world could be like that elevator. You don't find yourself in the foreign students' dorm elevator in the middle of bloody frickin' Red China unless you're born with a curiosity about other places and people, and a deep desire to live in harmony with them. The people who want to blow things up oughta have to come live here for a year, if you ask me . . . (and the rest of us should get to live here for two. :)