Last Day of Teaching...

Last dinner with my class.

I woke up at 3:15 am on June 17th and could not go back to sleep.  Since it was day time in the US I sent several text messages to friends and work associates.  I guess I had a lot on my mind.  I was sort of keyed up for the last day of class and I was interested in several items on the agenda for the Glynn County Board of Commissioners meeting that was scheduled for 6:00 PM Thursday evening, which for me would happen at 6:00 am.  Fortunately I had some colleagues at work that sent me text messages during the meeting to keep me informed of what was taking place.  Although I was not at the meeting I felt a part of it. 

Since I was up so early I went ahead and got ready for the day before the Commission meeting started so I would be able to receive the text messages.  I then walked to a famous square in Nanchang that is a memorial to the 1927 uprising.  It is a very large place and in the morning hundreds of Chinese are out doing their morning exercises.  I went back to the Institute for breakfast and had great success holding a fried egg with chopsticks :)  After breakfast Kismet and I went shopping at a nearby location.  While we were walking to the shops I saw a very unusual site.  A child perhaps 20 months old was walking with its parents and wearing a pant suit.  Although this was not your usual pant suit.  The back part was draped open exposing the child's naked bottom.  I asked Kismet about this and apparently when children are small this outfit aids them in using the bathroom.  I am not so sure about that because there is no way at the age of this child that they would have control.  But perhaps they do.  I have refrained from discussing the style of bathrooms in China and will continue to do so.  Lets just say that they are different than the ones in the US. 

I was interested in the porcelain, which is made in this province.  Unfortunately the boxes that each item is packed in are very large and would be difficult to fit into my luggage.  We came back to the institute about 10:00 am and I took time to prepare for class.  I also had to change my shirt from perspiration.  It was so hot this morning and muggy that my shirt was wringing wet when I returned to my room. 

We had a special lunch with the vice-president of the Institute and other officials.  The food was, as usual, plentiful, spicy and very tasty.  I did have to apply a couple of coats of chapstick to my lips after lunch since they were burning from the spices in the food.  It was a wonderful lunch and very special.  Typically a farewell dinner is held Friday evening with Institute officials, but several of them were going to be away this evening.  Since this was a more formal lunch it lasted longer than our other lunches this week.  After lunch I headed back to my room to gather my things and look over my notes one more time.  Then it was off to class.

To follow-up on our session Thursday on planning I showed slides that had been converted in Chinese on Glynn County's Altamaha canal restoration project, which they seemed to enjoy very much.  I tied this project back into planning aspects of a county and the importance of a vision statement and how everything needs to tie back to the vision for a community.  I then spent a while on the budgeting process for a local government.  I was able to show a lot of illustrations to drive my point across and I believe that the illustrations helped them connect the dots.  The budget process generated a lot of questions that were very perceptive.  The last 20 minutes we had another Q&A session, which they seem to enjoy.

For dinner the class hosted us at a very nice and upscale French restaurant.  They actually had forks and knives, which were a little difficult for our hosts to use.  We had a wonderful meal and there were lots of speeches and kind remarks from our students and from us.  We also had a very good kind of ice cream for dessert and somehow I ended up with two bowls.  I did not complain :)  The dinner was very unusual for the Chinese.  We sat at a rectangle table rather than a round table and our food was American.  Steak and french fries.  It was more than obvious that the class chose the place to please us, which was very, very kind of them.  I am also sure that the dinner cost the class a lot of money. 

Tomorrow we are scheduled to leave the Institute at 6:30 am to travel to the airport.  My flight was originally at 11:30, but John suggested that I change my flight to be able to fly to Beijing with him and Kristy.  John lived in China for 7 years back in the 1990's and knows his way around pretty well.  So after we arrive in Beijing tomorrow John plans to take us to the Forbidden City.  Sunday we are scheduled to go to the Great Wall.  Next week I will be on vacation and will see sights in Beijing and Xian before I return to the states on June 24th.  I do hope I can find wifi while in Beijing.  I would like to beam some pictures back home.

Signing off from Nanchang.