As the three young Americans found themselves lethargically emerging from the 18 hour plane ride from Detroit to Beijing, they were eagerly greeted by Du Ying, the young woman in the HR department in charge of making sure they had arrived safely. After a week of uncertainty about whether or not their visas would come through, they had finally arrived! Jeff, Keith, and Kellie quietly spoke to one another in the backseat of the car as they drove another 2 hours to the city of Tianjin. By the time they had reached Kellie’s apartment (formerly Julie V’s place) it was already 1:30am. Leaving Kellie all alone for the night, Keith and Jeff nervously said good-bye, noticing the slight glimmer of apprehension in her eyes. The area was of course safe, but at 2 in the morning, the dark alleyways gave the neighborhood an unwarranted, yet scary feel.
The two boys then journeyed to the Tianjin CDC to find out where they were going to live. As they made their way into the “gated community” of high-rise buildings across from the TJCDC, they kept telling themselves that this could not possibly be where they were going to spend the next three months of their lives.
Even as Du Ying pressed button 21 on the elevator (the top floor!), the two men could not help but laugh a little at how ridiculous it was that they were going to be living in this brand new penthouse, especially seeing as that most of the other apartments in the building were not even completed yet. Little did they know that there was more to come from this amazing apartment – complete with two bedrooms, a balcony, a bidet in the bathroom, a 
chez lounge, and blue neon lights along the ceiling just to name a few things. They thought to themselves, “What is this, MTV Cribs: Tianjin?!” As absurd as they felt about living in a place 10x nicer than their apartments in Ann Arbor, they had to try and get at least of few hours of sleep before the Tianjin CDC-University of Michigan Forum on Public Health Practice. 
Running off of mostly adrenalin, the three “scholars” sat through many interesting presentations on the current state of health in Tianjin. Together with Dr. Warner, Dr. Boulton, and Director Wang (from the TJCDC), they were taken on a tour of the building and the various laboratories. They were then whisked off to where they would be working for the summer – a corner office on the 4th floor surrounded with windows and a view of their penthouse in building #8! Again, Team Ber-Ger, as they liked to refer to themselves (which is a Chinese slang-word meaning ‘interesting’) could not help but feel almost guilty at how nice their new work area was. Thank goodness they had been accepted into the Chinese Scholar Exchange Program Summer Internship through the Office of Public Health Practice. Otherwise, who knows where they would be working at now?
Kellie would be starting out in the Institute of Health Education, Keith would be working in the Institute of Communicable Diseases, and Jeff would be spending the first half of his internship in the Institute of HIV/AIDS/STIs Control and Prevention. But before they began their respective internships, they were glad to hear that they would be given the next day off to adjust to their new surroundings. And what could be more fun and help them settle in to China on their day off then a trip to Wal-Mart?! 
Wal-Mart’s are difficult enough to navigate in the states, but this first trip of MANY was a bit overwhelming. Team Ber-Ger was welcomed by stares from workers and shoppers alike as they made their way through aisles of strange meats, babies oddly being lifted above trash cans in order to pee, and a number of other food products that they could barely make out. Even though they were concerned about what they would be eating for dinner in the next couple of days, there were still more pressing issues going on around the country that they slowly began to hear about.
Little did they know that during the Forum on Public Health, a massive earthquake hit the Wenchuan Province in central China. Luckily they were nowhere near the disaster; but having only one English TV channel, it was difficult for them to learn anymore about the incident than what was already presented in the media. The death toll kept rising, and the devastating pictures kept flashing on the news, and all they could do was hope for the best for those affected by this tragedy. As concerned as they were, and though they could tell their Chinese counterparts often spoke about it, the language barrier prevented them from truly getting a local perspective on the terrible disaster. That was one aspect of their trip that they wished they could have been more involved in or learned more about at the time, but the images of those trapped as well as those being saved would stay in their minds. It was truly amazing how quickly the relief efforts were being coordinated. They even learned that the TJCDC would be sending a team to the epicenter for disaster relief. All the while, the three Americans anxiously awaited their first official day at work...
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