Kaifeng visitors

Guiding a group from Shanghai to Seoul, The University of Akron Director of International Programs Dave Ayers brought a group of students and staff to Kaifeng last weekend. The group visited two of my classes Thursday. The students received them with all of the politeness, joy, and enthusiasm one comes to expect here. I organized a mixer at the pub Friday evening. I didn't know if five or fifty students would show up. When we trooped over after dinner, we found the crowd spilling out of the small bar onto the street. The guests were greeted with an ovation, the beer began to flow, and the UA kids had what I am sure is one of the most memorable evenings of their visit. They were given the star treatment. Each of them had an audience a fascinated audience of several students gathered around hanging on their every word. By 11:00 the crowd had dissipated as the students returned to their dorms under curfew. We foreigners were challenged by the remaining inventory at the bar and succeeded in reducing it significantly.

The next day I joined the group as it visited the Millennium City Park (see the April 15 post). It attempts to evoke Kaifeng's glory days during the Song Dynasty a thousand years ago. Later that day we took boats across the Yellow River and visited the Night Market. The day ended at the home of Shirley Wood, a retired Henan University faculty member who moved to China in 1946 with her new husband. I'm writing a bit more about her in my next article for the Wooster Daily Record.

Monday I saw a couple of young foreigners walking on a street near campus. That's always a surprise. I found that they were Brits on an eight month odyssey through Asia. We stopped at the pub and that evening a bunch of us took them out to dinner at the small night market down the street. I left in the middle of the 4th keg of beer since I had class the next morning, but I heard later the reveling went on through another, some whisky, karakoke, and on to about 4 AM. James and Sarah visited my class the next morning. They left that evening after a great Kaifeng experience!

Off to Nanjing this weekend and then points beyond while my poor students sweat through the final exams I've left for them. I hope I can post some pictures soon!