Eric's Beijing Diary

Lots and lots of talk these days about the visit of the KMT leader. China obviously views this visit very positively. The Wall Street Journal views it rather negatively. The Wall Street Journal's position is that the government in Beijing should deal with the duly elected leader of Taiwan, rather than the leader of the opposition party. That argument would be perfectly rational if we were talking about a sovereign nation. But is Taiwan a sovereign nation? Beijing certainly doesn't think so. And everyone knows that Taiwan would not have a chance to survive as in independent nation without the support of the United States. But it would be hypocritical for the United States to support Taiwan independence at this point. They never supported Taiwan independence when the KMT was in power.

Personally, I think this kind of visit is a good thing. The first reason I feel this way is that there is so much about this situation that is unusual, that it is hard to measure against ordinary norms of propriety. But the most important reason I feel this way is that I am committed to the underlying value that any reunification must be peaceful. In order for peace to exist between Taiwan and the Mainland, there must be communication. The Wall Street Journal makes much of the fact that Chen Shui-bian is the elected leader of Taiwan. But Chen Shui-bian is a Taiwanese native. The overwhelming majority of those who are eligible to vote in Taiwan are Taiwanese natives, which explains why he is president. But it does not explain how he won the last election over the KMT by such a narrow margin. Chen won by only 29,000 votes. And that over the KMT, which is supposed to be so despised by islanders who see them as the invaders from the mainland. Clearly, many, many Taiwanese natives voted for the KMT. Some say this is because they don't really see Taiwan as a country in its own right. I don't think so. I think it is because, even though most of the voters in Taiwan are not interested in being governed by Beijing, many of them are afraid that Chen's bluster will just stir up trouble with the Mainland. In other words, most of the citizens want to preserve the status quo. They want to go about their daily lives quietly, and avoid waking the dragon. And they are irritated with a leader they perceive as poking the dragon and challenging him to a fight. So even many who have no desire to become a part of China, are glad that their is some measure of friendly communication across the straits.

The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs bussed us to a concert by the Beijing Symphony. Hard to beat a good symphony. And I really like the Forbidden City Music Hall. It isn't too large, and is designed in such a way that virtually every seat is a good seat. The last time I was here was for Handel's "Messiah."

You know, it really is hard to beat a good symphony. There was one piece they played called "Ode to the Red Flag" that was nothing to write home about, which is why I don't have anything to say about it. But most of the concert was Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, and Strauss. And I can't imagine a better place to hear it than at the Forbidden City Music Hall.

Emily came running out of her apartment this evening, carrying a saucepan with flames leaping out of it. Apparantly, she had put this pan on the stove, and poured some oil into it. The pan caught on fire. Well, it was a deep pan, so the oil didn't spill, and soon burned up. The fire went out on its own.

I think I am going to keep "white eating." Cooking is dangerous.

Birthday party today...There were three of us with birthdays in proximity, so we had them together. I told them I would buy the groceries if they would do the cooking. I thought that was only fair that I should pay for it, since I always "white eat." I am not a cook. I took Joy and Cathy to the Wudaokou Market, gave them some money, and then disappeared. I knew the prices would be higher if I were there. We really did have a pretty good meal.

Hard to believe I am 51 years old. I think there's supposed to be some kind of internal clock inside of you that kinda lets you know what age you are. Mine must have stopped when I was about 10. I don't feel old. I get the shock of my life every time I look in the mirror. But after all, who really cares about that part of it? If you allow yourself to worry about looking old, you are begging for frustration. Every one is going to look old at some point. I really don't mind looking old. But I definitely don't look forward to feeling old. I found that out when I hurt my back. So far in my life, I have had pretty good health, and I suppose I have taken it for granted. Listen to me--if you have good health, you need to be thankful for it. Take care of your health. And I guess I have to follow my own advice. Hurting my back brought me to the realization that I am going to have to start acting like I am 51 years old even if I don't feel like it.

Met a young lady this evening on the way to the lab.

"Beautiful evening, isn't it?"

"Oh, thank-you! Thank-you!"

Oops. Wonder what she thought I said. I continued the conversation, but it soon became clear that her English was not strong. She explained it to me with one simple statement, which always blows me away,

"I studied German."

I have met several students like this. Not a lot of them, but enough to make me very, very curious. What would posses a student in this day and age to forgo learning English? I have told students many times, "If you want to study Russian or German or French, be my guest. But you must never, never use such studies as an excuse not to study English." I believe this warning is well placed in any field, but it is especially true in the field of Software.

The young lady I met this evening is not wrong to study German. But she is very, very unwise to neglect English in the process. A young university student in modern China who doesn't speak English. Unbelievable. I wonder what kind of future she has?

Faculty outing today. We went to the peach orchards northeast of Beijing, after which we went for a lake cruise.

On the way to the lake, we had a rather lively discussion in the back of the bus. Two issues seem to be very much in the minds of many Chinese people. One, of course, is Taiwan. Always Taiwan. The other is the frosty relationship with Japan. I made the comment that I give China high marks for economic reform, but low marks for diplomacy. I had to explain what I meant by diplomacy, which generated some disagreement. Michael made the comment very directly that people in China do not have access to a variety of viewpoints because their news is controlled. Michael has spent a lot of time in Asia--most of it in Japan. The Chinese professors seemed to express confidence in the news sources they had access to. So I said, "How many of you knew that China sent a submarine into Japanese waters?" They were quite surprised by this news.

Basically, as I see it, China's failure in diplomacy is shown by the fact that China's actions tend to move world opinion in precisely the opposite direction from that which would be in the best interests of China. In the case of Taiwan, China had all but secured the acquiescence of the EU in lifting the arms embargo. The ruling party in Taiwan had been kept from controlling the legislative body, which was widely viewed as conciliatory toward Beijing. China's response was to pass the anti-secession law, which had the effect of strengthening the independence movement on Taiwan, and creating great resistance to lifting the arms embargo in Europe.

In the case of Japan, China's sent a submarine into Japanese waters, which was promptly chased back to China by the Japanese. When China was asked about this, the official response was that Koizumi should not visit the shrine where war criminals were buried. This response seemed rather bizarre, and left most of the world scratching their heads. Now students are throwing rocks and damaging the property of good citizens, and the official response of the city of Shanghai is that this is all Japan's fault. Over and over again, China manages to effect precisely the opposite response from what would seem to be in her best interests. This is not good diplomacy.

I was glad to see a discussion on Dialogue this morning about the difficult relationship between China and Japan. The two guests were a professor from Remin University, and a Fulbright scholar from Seika University in Kyoto. The scholar was very open about expressing his concern that the student protests in China had become violent in some instances. But he was also critical of the Japanese government for it's refusal to apologize. He also pointed out that the Moriyama statement a few years ago was made my a prime minister from the opposition party during the only two years since World War II that the dominant party in Japan was not in power. But he also made the point that there was lots of debate in Japan about this issue, and that the actions of the government by no means represented the views of the entire country.

I believe that the Japanese government should apologize, but I also believe that China should do a better job of focussing on the actions of the Mombusho (Japanese Ministry of Education), which are clearly wrong, rather than allowing the issue to be generalized to the Japanese people.

Albert Einstein died fifty years ago today. Not sure why that is such big news in China, but Einstein is very highly regarded in the Chinese academic community. Here are a few of the more noteworthy things Einstein said during his life:

• "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
  

• "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
  

• "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
  

• "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
  

• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
  

• "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
  

• "We can't solve our problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
  

• "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
  

• "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the former."
  

• "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
  

• "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
  

• If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
  

• The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.
  

• The important thing is not to stop questioning.
  

• Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
  

• "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
  

Met a guy from Israel at the coffee bar this morning. He told me he was from Jerusalem, but it came out later that he is teaching at Princeton, so he no longer lives in Israel. I asked him what he thought about Sharon pulling out of Gaza. He said, "We think it should have happened a long time ago." I told him that this differed quite a bit from the stuff I was hearing on INR (Israel National Radio). But he was from Israel. He had obviously grown up there. I was wondering if perhaps the difference in perspective might have something to do with this. I told him that the talk show hosts I was listening to on INR, were obviously Americans who had moved to Israel quite recently. It isn't jut their accents. It's the fact that all the talk shows on INR give out an American 800 number. So American Jewish intelletuals are sitting at their computers listening to a live broadcast from Jerusalem (actually internet radio has about a three minute delay), and calling in live on an American toll free number. The show is plainly designed to appeal to Jews in America, not just in Israel.

Well, the guy I was talking to said, "Yes, most of the American Jews who have come recently are pretty right-wing." It's interesting that the future politics of Israel will be influenced very largely by where the largest number of immigrants happen to come from.

Yesterday morning on Dialogue, Yang Rui was interviewing some university students from the university district here in Haidian. The Haidian District has more than 50 universities, including the many of what are called the "Key Universities."

The young people were talking about the change in relationship between the United States and China after the Iraq war. I wish the world could hear these young people. I think the world would be a better place.

Some would question their objectivity, since they live in a country where the media is supervised by the government. But ironically, these young people are not less informed than their counterparts in countries like America. If anything, they are quite significantly better informed.

I missed this program when I was in Guangzhou. I had to settle for the CBS Evening News, which plays the Hong Kong stations at 7:30 in the morning. It was handy, I guess, in a way, because the American stations probably gave better coverage of the Pope's funeral than I would have gotten from CCTV. (China refused to send a delegation, because the Vatican still holds to the pre-seventies status quo, where Taiwan was the "real" China.) But I would not want a steady diet of Western television.

I saw a couple of those "reality shows" when I was in Guangzhou. I never watched those things when I was in the States, but I had heard of them. I watched a few of them until I reached the "gag me" point five or ten minutes later. They are sensational, but not informing. But this is just one example. When I visited the States a couple months ago, I was struck by the lack of genuine information which characterized American television. Maybe that's because China has only one English channel, which is similar to public television in the US. I don't watch much television, but when I do, it is educational.

Of course, with all the variety available in an open society, there is certainly a greater opportunity for information than would be true in China. Right now, I am sitting here at the Thinker coffee bar watching the McLaughlin Group on my laptop via the high speed wireless LAN. John McLaughlin is arguing with Pat Buchanan about the legacy of John Paul. McLaughlin, of course, is a former Catholic priest, and Buchanan is a Jesuit trained commentator who has no hesitation espousing his conservative Catholic beliefs. This kind of stuff you don't see on Chinese television. It would be fair to say that most Chinese young people have never seen anything like this. But that gets back to my point--most young people in America don't see this stuff either. They have way, way to much junk coming at them to sift through and find that which is truly informative. American you ng people do have a larger "buffet" of entertainment available to them. But when it comes to having a balanced, informed global perspective, American young people are horribly undernourished and underdeveloped.

This past weekend, there were a number of demonstrations in cities across China. The government insists that these demonstrations were completely spontaneous, and there is some merit to that argument, since the demonsrations immediately followed the release of new textbooks by the Japanese Mombusho (Ministry of Education). However, those demonstrations also serve a purpose for China, because China has been able to use the demonstrations to reiterate its call for Japan to own up to its history.

This morning I had breakfast with one of the Japanese teachers. (Students from the Japanese Software major need to take intensive Japanese language training in preparation for doing their internships in Japan.) I asked her how it was for her--how people here in China respond when she tells them she is from Japan. She said, "I tell them I am American."

I think she could just about pull it off; her English is pretty good. But the fact that she is that strongly motivated to employ such a ruse is telling. I asked her what her plans were. She said that she had stopped in Seoul, Korea on her way here, and was impressed with it. She is inclined to go to Korea. I think she is going to run into a good deal of the same type of animosity.

Japan needs to apologize. Germany set the example, and Germany has been spared the type of anger that is so often directed at Japan. But I also believe that China needs to learn some things about basic diplomacy. Over and over again, they manage to focus the world's attention on their beligerant response rather than the issue they are trying to address.

Been reading one of the books Samuel Lamb gave me. He has it figured out that the original Garden of Eden was in what is now Sichuan Province. For those of you who are not Chinese, the word "Sichuan" means "four rivers," so that proves it. Actually, he did present a few more arguments, all of them interesting. But somehow, I just can't picture Adam and Eve feasting on a Sichuan hotpot. Or sipping tea under the gazebo by the river. Or playing Majong in the streets of Chengdu.

What can I say? Sichuan is Sichuan, and there is only one Sichuan. One out of every 50 people in the world live in Sichuan Province. Sichuan Province is, of course, the home of the famed "Sichuan Hotpot," although the hotpot actually hails from Chongqing, which is now a separate admistrative region, and not politically (although still culturally) part of Sichuan Province. Many do not realize that the Chongqing Hotpot originated in the early part of the 20th Century when longshoreman and boatmen along the Yangtze River would buy the cheap refuse from the slaughter houses nearby, and cook it in small pot as they huddled together in the cold, damp winter.

The hotpot has grown up now. The choice of meats now includes more than just cow guts. But I had some of those boiled cow guts last summer when I was in Chengdu. It's actually pretty good stuff. But maybe I'm just saying that because it was so spicy that I couldn't really taste it.

Good to be back in Beijing. Guangzhou is certainly an interesting place, but I do prefer a dry climate. And it is probably a good thing that I didn't stay any longer. Fengwei, my "caretaker," took me out to eat every day. I was on my own for breakfast, but "lunch" and dinner were quite abundant. I was chatting online with Kahori the other day, "complaining" about all the delicious food I was being "forced" to eat:

"Dakara, onaka futoteru."

She came right back:

"Sore wa itsumo, da yo.
Onaka has always balloon, ne"

Hmmmm....so I can't blame it all on Chinese food. Well, but it certainly doesn't help any.

His name is Lin Xian Gao. He is known in the West as Samuel Lamb. He is the pastor of what has to be the largest house church in China. In fact, the term "house church" is a bit of a stretch, because he preaches every week to 3000 people. Like all other Christian churches in China, he is required to register and become a part of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. But like many other house churches, he refuses to do so. This makes his situation somewhat tenuous, because his house church could be cited for violation of the government policy on religious affairs.

Samuel Lamb's father was a Baptist pastor who grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Samuel himself was born in Macau and received his early education in Hong Kong. He started preaching when he was 22 years old. He was arrested the first time in 1955, for about a year-and-a-half. He was arrested again in 1958, and released in 1978, when he was in his early fifties.

Friends in Beijing had gotten me the address for his church, so I asked Fengwei to call and see if it would be possible for me to visit him. Samuel Lamb's house church is located in a small, tight neighborhood in old town Guangzhou. The building has three or four stories, and does not look like the kind of place that could hold an audience of 3000. Actually, the Sunday sermon is preached four times through the week. This accommodates the needs of people with varying schedules.

Samuel Lamb is a very friendly, outgoing man. He told me that before he was first arrested in 1955, his church had 400 people. After he was released, it grew to 900 people. "Persecution is good!" He related how several different times, pressure and adversity have caused the church to grow.

I asked him why he refused to register. He said that if he did, he would immediately come under the restrictions of the Three-Self Movement as to what he could or could not talk about. I have never been able to nail down, in hard and fast terms, exactly what these restrictions are, so there wasn't much I could say to this. I think that as a general principle, Christians should abide by the laws of the country in which they live in so far as it is possible to do so. But in the case of Samuel Lamb, my sentiments are definitely with him. He spent twenty years in prison for preaching the gospel. If they are not going to compensate him for having taken such a huge chunk of his life, the least they can do is leave him alone to live his last days in peace. In fact, that is what they appear to be doing. It is impossible to predict, of course, especially with the new regulations on religious affairs which just went into effect in March, but I don't think they are likely to give Samuel Lamb a lot of trouble. It would give China a whole lot of the wrong kind of publicity.

While we were talking, a PSB (Public Security Bureau) officer walked in. He asked Samuel Lamb how he would be affected by the death of John Paul. Samuel Lamb responded that they would not be affected because they were not Catholic. Then he gave the police officer a booklet on the difference between Catholicism and Christianity. Perhaps the cop was just curious. Or maybe he wanted to check out the foreigner he had seen wandering around the neighborhood. The Public Security Bureau keeps a pretty close eye on this guy, and I guess I can't blame them. They're just doing their job.

But this is a good man. As I said, I have mixed feelings about this, because I believe that Christians should abide by the law. I go to a Three-Self church in Beijing, and I do not believe that the Three-Self churches are just puppets of the government. But I can understand how the house church folks feel, too. The vast majority of them are decent people, and if they occasionally have some unusual ideas, they are not dangerous people.

Samuel Lamb gave me a pile of literature...booklets and articles he had written, as well as three music CD's, and a collection of hymns he had written while he was in prison. I had known that Samuel Lamb had a passion for the Gospel. But I did not know that he was also a lover of classical music, and had a passion for Beethoven.

Samuel Lamb has had a hard life. He has "paid his dues," so to speak, and is not easily intimidated. But I think a large part of his overwhelming sense of confidence and optimism is his belief in the power of prayer. Several times during our conversation, he said, "Please pray for us." So I prayed for him before I left.

If you ever happen to be in Guangzhou, his church would be worth a visit, although I don't think they provide English translation. But if you can understand Cantonese or Mandarin, he would definitely be worth listening to. Samuel Lamb has a warm, engaging personality. Cozy as the day is long.

I first saw the announcement on the Bloomberg news ticker on the Hong Kong station. Pope John Paul is dead.

Pope John Paul changed the world in a way that few people in his generation have. Perhaps young people who have grown up knowing nothing else would not appreciate how unique he was. But I remember what it was like before John Paul. Devout Catholics may have thought the pope infallible, but to most of the world, the Catholic popes were viewed as stuffy old men who waved and spoke Latin. This guy was definitely different.

Many believe his greatest contribution was the way he reached out to the Jews. The right-wingers on Israel National Radio are quick to point out that he issued a joint statement with Yasser Arafat calling for the maintenence of Jerusalem as an international city. Nevertheless, even they could not resist a complement, "Everyone knows that the Catholic Church is a very anti-semetic sect. Pope John Paul was known to be less anti-semtic."

Faint praise, and unfairly so. John Paul was the first pontif in 2000 years to visit the Synagogue in Rome, and he refered to the Jews as "our elder brothers." Again, young people who have not known another dimension would not appreciate this, but I remember what the Catholic church was like before John Paul. The Jews were still viewed by many Catholics as "Christ Killers," and, as incredible as it now seems, the Vatican did not recognize the right of Israel to exist as a nation. Pope John Paul changed all that.

During the days that I was living on the road, I used to obtain books on tape through a rental service at the truck stops. I would rent the book, then turn it in within two weeks at one of the truckstops on the list. I "read" dozens and dozens of books this way. One of them was John Paul's "Crossing the Threshold of Hope." I was very interested to hear how he would address the issue of Israel and the Jews. When it comes to treatment of the Jews, the Catholic Church does not have a good history. Jews remember (even if no one else does) the concordat that the Pope signed with Hitler, in order to protect the wealth of the Vatican. [To get a feel for this time in history, I recommend The Scarlet and the Black, starring Gregory Peck.]

Perhaps events would have taken their course anyway--maybe or maybe not. But Pope John Paul was not complacent. He did not make a political issue out of it. But he did force the issue by stating his personal position on the matter calmly and clearly.

It is hard to resist the parallel between the death of John Paul and Terri Schiavo and that of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa during the summer of 1997. The parallel is more than a bit ironic. Princess Diana and Terri Schiavo were both women whose wreckless, self-destructive behavior eventually led to their deaths. We can't help feeling some sympathy for them, because they were both stuck with husbands who (forgive the understatement) did not "love their wives as Christ loved the Church." Yet, mixed with that sympathy is a certain sense of pathos...wishing they could have done better--could have dealt with their frustrations with a bit more character and nobility. Still, we all know our own weaknesses. So we are left to mutter "Oh, what fools we mortals be."

In sharp contrast, Mother Theresa and John Paul represent the best that Eastern Europe had to offer. Whatever else can be said about them, they both played the hand that was dealt them so very, very well. They remind us what greatness can emerge from a life which does not use misfortune and difficulty as an excuse to be less than what God has called us to be.

Pope John Paul's writing is not quite as rich with the references to Jesus as a personal friend as was characteristic of Mother Theresa's writing. But he was clear in his rebuke of those who would subvert the name of Christ, especially those who wanted to remove the name of Jesus from the public square, "the exclusion of Christ from history is an act against man."

There is a certain sense in which a person of such noteriety is viewed as having some measure of worth merely because of his celebrity status. All the acouterments of the office tend to blind one to the eventual humanity of the man himself. Got to admit, if the President of the United States walked into my room right now, I guess I would at least stand up. But when it comes to matters of truth and justice, then religious pomp and ceremony don't impress me much. They don't impress God, either. Hear words of Amos the prophet:

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. (Amos 5:21-24)

I was in graduate school at the University of Regina when Pope John Paul came to Canada. He was stopping at various places across the country, when he ran into a storm. The plane he was on had to land at Yellowknife, where there was no one waiting for him. The media was not prepared, but someone had a camera. I will never forget the sight of that very ordinary man getting of the plane and walking to the terminal. No red carpet, no entourage. Many Catholics would consider it a rare privilege to go to Rome and have an audience with the Pope. I would rather see him in Yellowknife, because I want to know what he looks like without all the fancy clothes. This is my point about John Paul. He was not a great man because of the greatness of his position. He was a great man becuase he was a great man before he became a great man.

Pope John Paul was certainly not without controversy, and he had his weaknesses. For example, he deplored the tremendous spiritual awakenings in Latin America because they involved people leaving the Catholic church. But in a Catholocism where worshipping God is mixed with worshiping volcanos, leaving the Catholic Church could be the most Christian thing a person could do. Salvation does not come through the Church. Salvation comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And if one must leave the Catholic Church (or any church, for that matter) to find that relationship, then so be it. Scripture says that "there is no other Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4:12) And that Name is not John Paul. Having said that, it is important to reiterate that while I owe no allegiance to any man's religion, I am still bound by principle to recognize and honor those from any religion who have gone out on a limb to stand for truth and justice. I am not a Roman Catholic, so I have no religious reasons to give honor to the Pope. But Scripture says we are to give to every man the honor that is due him (Romans 13:7).

I believe the greatest honor is due Pope John for the part he played in bringing an end to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe that Gerald Ford denied, but that was very, very real for the people of Poland. Most of his contribution took place before he became Pope, because he always spoke very forthrightly about the importance of the church being independent. But after he became Pope, he personally went to Poland and he met personally with Lech Walesa. Lech Welesa, you may remember, was the union leader who made "Solidarity" a household word around the world. Once again, those who grew up after the wall fell tend to take the end of the cold war for granted. But the cold war came to an end because certain key people took a stand when it was very important to do so. In the case of Poland, two people come to mind. One is the electrician from Gdansk. The other is the parish priest who became Pope John Paul.

The death of John Paul is in many ways the end of an era. And I must say that I do not have high hopes for the Catholic Church. They won't find a man like this again.

I caught the airport shuttle at North Gate this morning, and went to the airport to board the plane for Guangzhou (Canton). At the airport, I was looking around for a news stand to pick up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, when I heard a bunch of people calling my name. Another group of students from the Software College leaving for Japan. There is a growing number of students from the Software College doing internships of one kind or another with Japanese companies. The student I had dinner with in February was in the Japanese software program; these kids are from the IC Design program. They will spend a year or two in Japan, and then come back to China and be in a very good position to get good jobs with joint venture companies.

Fengwei, the assistant to the Vice President, met me at the airport, and brought me here to the campus. I had never met Fengwei, but we had communicated by phone and email during the weeks before I came, as I was giving them instructions for the lab setup.

The University of Guangzhou has sixteen campuses. This one is located about 40 kilometers north of Guangzhou. I am here for two weeks as a visiting professor in the South China Institute of Software Engineering. I will be here one week now, and another week in May. Originally, I was scheduled to teach this class in the city (Guangzhou), because most of my students are working there. But I had sent very specific requirements for the lab, and they were not able to find a lab in the city proper which met these requirements. So I am teaching the first half of the course in two consecutive weekends here at the campus. Kinda awkward for me, because I have to be gone for two weekends, but it does work out better for the students, because they can stay here on campus over the weekend. And I would rather be here where I can get some work done, than holed up in a hotel in Guangzhou.