San Francisco Visit

Last week,  I got an email message from a high school classmate Zhujun  He told me that one of his colleagues, Ms. Liu, would be in San Francisco for a training program.  Both of them are teachers in China.  Zhujun is a physics teacher and Ms. Liu is an English teacher.  Zhujun gave her email address to me and ask me if I could contact her while she was in San Francisco.  Almost at the same time,  I received a greeting from Ms. Liu.  In her email, she told me that, she had already been in San Francisco and her trainning program would end soon.  She would leave San Francisco and would fly to LA for a few days.  She then would come back to San Francisco, from which she would fly back to China.  I was sorry to let her know that I couldn't greet her in person in the State because of my different schedule.

What amazes me is the changes that have been taken place in China.  It would be impossible for teachers in a typical middle school to have a chance to study abroad twenty years ago when I was still a student in China.  China was poor and the resources allocated for higer education was quite limited.   Many students had to struggle through the collage entrance exam.  Only those on top had a chance to college.   In a typical graduating class, there only a few students could make it.  The competition was so severe that student needed to spend a year to prepare the exam.   Back then, it was a privilege for a student just to finish the regular college in the country, let alone studying abroad.  It is amazing to see Ms. Liu studying in San Francisco.