Teaching conference in Changsha

This year's Yale-China teaching conference was in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, which is due north of Hong Kong. We took the overnight train, which is a real China experience.
There Yale-China fellows teach at Yali Middle School, a school that Yale-China helped found (hence the name) 100 years ago. It was great to see Yali and get to see all the other fellows. We ate delicious Hunan cuisine and managed to find time for bowling and just hanging out as well as teaching discussions. This is me in a Yali class:

Weekending in Taipei

At the end of October, a crew of 6 of us headed to Taipei for the weekend. I was really interested to see Taipei finally, having read so much about the ROC and its history. Although we did not see any protests, it was a really interesting time to be in Taiwan. We had a great time--especially tasting all the snacks that Taipei has to offer! Here Mark enjoys a giant piece of fried chicken:


The crew:
The Chiang Kai-Shek memorial (Aunt Martha recommended to see both the Sun Yat-Sen and this memorial together--it made for very interesting reflections on the roles the leaders played and how they are remembered):



At a beautiful temple, where we saw many people gathering after work:

The happiest of runs

We did the Happy Run a few weeks ago, just like last year. In the not terribly competitive category of female staff, the ladies of GB did quite well. I managed to come in second and get an even more ridiculous trophy than last year. But the day was beautiful and it was a fun time and a chance to hang out with Dr. Man!