Amoy Wanderings

So, our second school year at BASIS International School, Park Lane Harbour is wrapping up. Sandy and Emily are finishing up their college classes, with Sandy completing her BA and Emily her AA both in intercultural studies. We are all looking forward to summer vacation, though mine won't begin until June 30.  The long and wild ride which began in 2020 seems to be coming to and end, and it has been very heartening to hear how life is beginning to return to normal in the US and around the world. In China, though, prevention measures for COVID are still ever present. With the zero tolerance policy that China has implemented, BASIS Park Lane Harbour (being a boarding school) faced several challenges this winter and spring when new cases broke out in the nearby city of Shenzhen. Just prior to Chinese New Year vacation, we ran 15 days of school straight because students couldn't return home without undergoing schoolwide testing. Then after the holiday, more cases broke out, so, the ...

"Wuhan jiayou! Zhongguo jiayou!" A commonly heard refrain of encouragement for Wuhand and China in the fight against COVID-19. Life has settled in to the new normal for us now. We basically are housebound, going out for walks usually in the evening (always with our masks on) but generally feeling like we are on a staycation without the fun aspect of a vacation. We are able to get the food we need and have stocked up a bit just in case food gets scarce, but for now it doesn’t look like we will be facing any shortages. The real challenge right now comes with the future. How bad is the virus really? How long will this last? When will school begin again? When will life return to normal? What will that normal look like? And this provides us a look into the cultural window of living in China.  So, as it stands, all schools are shut down by order of the government, and schools will reopen when the government deems it safe. Then, they will give us a one-week notice...

We had an amazing summer in the US, and were very sad when it came time to leave family and return to our home in China. It is always an emotional time, but we are joyful to be where we are supposed to be. When Emily and I returned to China, we knew that we had a challenge ahead of us. Over the summer, Emily had been accepted into Jimei University to study Chinese, and the school had sent the official paperwork to our address in China. Well, that created a problem. Because we didn't have the original paperwork, we would be unable to apply for a student visa for Emily and she would have to re-enter China on her tourist visa. When we arrived back in China, we weren't exactly sure what the process to make that change would be, but I anticipated that at minimum we would have to visit a US embassy within China and at most we would have to travel out of country to make that change. We got the visa! Administrative Building at Jimei University At the first opportunity...