Xiamen University

The university where we attend class is beautiful. The architecture of the buildings is diverse and beautiful – meaning you have some pretty modern looking buildings while others (like the one in which we attend class) are older, more traditional style. There are palm trees all over. There are a million basketball courts all over! They love their basketball. In fact, one of our Chinese classmates, Chris, loves to play and the other students go meet up with him to play. Chris is really quite good at playing!

Their School of Public Affairs building, where we meet for class, is beautiful. It has ivy or something growing all over the outside of it. The classroom is pretty standard. But the building has a coffee shop slash lounge where we all hangout to work on our homework since it has free Wi-Fi, is air conditioned, and is pretty nicely furnished. I spend hours in the lounge working. That’s where I do my work for 10 hours per week.

For class, Carol – our professor – teamed us up with Chinese students for our group assignments. My teammate’s name is Sky. All of the students in our class are graduate students and they are getting their Master of Public Administration (MPA) too. Sky is a hoot. She is almost hyper to be in class with us and get started working on our group assignment. She’s really on the ball. Her English is excellent and she understands most things shared in class. On occasion, Carol will give us some time to chat with our Chinese teammates to make sure they understand everything that Carol is teaching.

Then usually we go to lunch with Sky and Chris after class at their cafeterias that are called, “Canteens.” The food is . . . interesting. They don’t eat a whole lot of vegetables. Nearly every dish is hot – the only stuff that isn’t hot are the drinks, watermelon, yogurts, and ice cream. The Chinese looooove watermelon. It is everywhere. Seriously.

campus sidewalk

Xiamen University administration building

a cool building on campus

basketball courts galore on campus

a cool building on campus

dorms on campus (two fo my classmates too)

the School of Public Affairs building where I attend class