A Quick Introduction to Your Students' Teachers

We arrived back at the hotel late last night after a full day of learning about air pollution, one of the biggest issues facing Chinese public health. Today we're headed to Tiananmen Square (the forbidden city) but I'll tell you all about it in my next post. For today, I thought you might like to know who's teaching our travelers!

Above and to the right is Jiang Laoshi (teacher Jiang) who runs the Beijing CIEE programs. She is ridiculously nice and, incidentally, usually the one that solves our many and varied technology issues. To the left is Chang Laoshi, the Program Coordinator and Chinese teacher of our students. She is with us every day, leading us through Beijing, translating, helping us understand cultural differences, and helping us improve out Mandarin speaking skills! She has just finished her master's degree for teaching Chinese to foreigners at Minzu University.

Below and to the left is Keoni, who teaches the students their Sustainable Development content class. He is one year away from being done with his Bachelor's degree in history. Ironically, he and I are from the same hometwon, Bellevue Washington. How we two Americans from the same Seattle suburb ended up leading the same program in Beijing is a mystery. And of course, below and to the right is me, the Program Leader. I'm with these young people every step of the way, helping them with everything from how to use squat toilets to what things taste most and least like food from America. I teach their Cross-Cultural Communication Training and get to end each day talking to them about all they've learned so far!