U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad. The work that diplomats do has an impact on the world as they serve at one of any of the more than 270 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

The duties of a Consular Officer include to provide emergency and non-emergency services to American citizens and protect our borders through the proper adjudication of visas to foreign nationals and passports to American citizens. We adjudicate immigrant and non-immigrant visas, facilitate adoptions, help evacuate Americans, combat fraud, and fight human trafficking. Consular Officers touch people’s lives in important ways, often reassuring families in crisis. They face many situations which require quick thinking under stress and develop and use a wide range of skills, from managing resources and conducting public outreach to assisting Americans in distress.

The adventure in China begins

It is hard to believe that I left Michigan about a month ago and started orientation in Shanghai. The journey has been full of ups and downs but things have finally settled more or less into a routine.

The adventure began with a long trip from Grand Rapids to Shanghai. Sean and I had to be at the airport at 5:30 am in order to arrive in Chicago on time to

make our 10:30 flight to China. Unfortunately our flight to Shanghai was delayed by 8 hours due to mechanical problems and we spent a tiring and frustrating day in Chicago only to board a plane for 14 cramped hours of mediocre movies and strange airplane Chinese food.

We were happy to arrive at the airport and were picked up by CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange) who hosted us at a hotel in the faculty club at a university in Shanghai for our week-long orientation about teaching English, living abroad and working in China.

After a week packed with meeting new people (34 new participants in all), crash courses in Mandarin, sight-seeing, recovering from jet-lag, chopstick practice, trying different foods and lots of lessons and tips on teaching English, Sean, Jordan and I took a train one and a half hours north to Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology in Changzhou.

We spent the first week in our new home unpacking, settling in our new apartments, having meetings with Teddy (our liaison) and the foreign language department, meeting the other English teachers and exploring the campus as well as the city of Changzhou. I will be teaching 14 hours a week of oral English classes to sophomore English majors and Sean will be teaching 16 hours of oral English to freshmen.

Though we were supposed to start teaching the following week, classes were canceled due to an outbreak of H1N1 on campus. To take advantage of the free time, Sean, Daniel, Jordan, Ken and I took a trip north to Qingdao, a city on the coast and had a good time enjoying the beach, exploring the city, and tasting the mussels, kebabs and Tsingtao beer the city is famous for.

It is Saturday here and we are using our last weekend of vacation to plan some lessons, do laundry, catch up on emails and send some post cards. I am looking forward to keeping a blog while I am here - thanks for reading!

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Wanderlust

In Mandarin: 旅遊癮 (lǚyóu yǐn)

According to my Mandarin teacher, the term 'wanderlust' can best be translated as 'a travel addiction or craving'. In the above translation, 'yǐn' has several meanings such as 'a strong impulse', 'a longing', or 'a desire'.

U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The adventure in China begins

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