Day 24: Texans

No matter where you seem to go people tend to find people that know people that you know, that they know, that someone knows. Basically what I’m trying to say is that there are connections everywhere.

This past week was the week of random occurrences and meetings. It all started out with being notified that a Music professor from my University had come to Qingdao and that I was to meet with him and have dinner. I didn’t think much of it and then they started talking about who he was.

Come to be we had met on another occasion and never knew that we were going to be in the same Chinese City at the same Chinese University. So… me, Izzy (which was his name) and his friend (who’s name seems to leave me) was there for our dinner. That was the first one.

The next interesting happenstance was when I was watching a certain school in Texas and their beginning proceedings to start exchange agreements and other possible plans with Qingdao University. Many universities come to Qingdao each year to try and set up these agreements.

After further talking to the reprentatives about my experience and such I began to tell them about where I did my undergrad and such (Oklahoma State by the way) and my past and how I got to Qingdao. The head of the group from Texas began to ask if she knew me. I said I didn’t think so, and she said I looked familiar.

She then asked about if I was involved in a certain program at OSU and I said I was and then “bada bing bad boom” we both realized we knew the same professor and were at the same American Advertising Federation NSAC competition. She complimented our work that year and said she remembered me. I ended up taking cards from them and telling them I graduate in May. They seemed to respond positively to that.

The week continued on with a few other meeting with the same people and some others from a school I Maryland. It was just one random happenstance after another. My lecture that I was scheduled to give got canceled, which might have been good. They were touting me as an expert. I’m not sure if I count as an expert on much, maybe myself, which I’m not even sure about sometimes.

I took plenty of notes on how the sitting at a table seems to have certain rites and rituals to it. It even depends on the room. I’ve figured out it for myself but it still baffles me how these proceedings are formal and the wall slowly breaks down. I’ll attach a picture of how a table is set up in a diplomatic or other type of proceeding in China.

So this week I got to meet the president of the University, share time with big wigs at other schools, collected too many business cards to count and was called an expert. Not a bad week really. Not a bad week. Would been better if I would’ve been able to

This weekend I’ll be working because the Dragon Boat Festival is this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So I might be taking a day trip somewhere. I’ll keep you posted on my possible train journey.

~

Photos include a picture of my chart and a few other gems from the past week including the weirdest Oreos I’ve ever eaten. Not sure what they are.

On another note, what is going on with college football. My two main news sources here in China are NPR.com and Yahoo.com and they report everything either very intellectually or in the case of Yahoo, badly. I see what happens when I leave the country for one month.

-NL