跨国在线系列 TNCCS SERIES
“走向世界”之一：巴西行 (5）
编者的话
Reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles means reading more books while connecting reality.“读万卷书，行万里路”,意在多多读书接触实际，开阔眼界增进见识。时而想着写这么一个故事，这个故事的主线也在脑中回响着，可是仍在寻找合适的落笔点。该怎么写呢？故事开头也许是主人公从乡下来到城市，又从地球这一边到了那一边。他总是随着时光列车跑啊跑啊！因为从乡下走来，走了很远的路，他总是在赶最后一班车......一路上，他遇上了她，还有很多好人。在这一过程中，他学会了朝着一定目标前行。有了坚持坚守，他积聚了自己的成长故事。编发这一跨国在线“走遍世界”英文系列，希望对于当下思索着尤其仍在成长着的朋友有所启迪启发。
Travel towards the Globe Series (I)
Road to Brazil
Arrived in Maringa 到达巴西
July 23, 2013
We arrived in Maringa at 3:00 p.m. flying from Sao Paulo for about one and half hour. The scheduled time was for one hour. When the flight arrived in the sky of Maringa, seemed no place to get off. So the flight was around the sky back and forth for several times. This made many passengers in the flight to feel uncomfortable with the noisy reactions. I also had some feelings about this, which I had not experienced. I even thought if anything might happen for the flight.
Fortunately, the flight landed. We were picked up by an arranged van driver. From the airport to the hotel, it took for about 20 minutes. Maringa was a nice city that looked in a far away from the Capital. This allowed me to recall when I was at my undergraduate in the first year. In that time, all schoolmates were in a remote place, the University’s division for social science students. I was told that Maringa has about 300,000 people. The State University of Maringa(UEM) here was the main campus including about 30,000 students and employees. The university gave this city a high-level status. Like many universities in the United States, the UEM is not in a mega city.
In the first day 巴西第一天
When arrived at Maringa, Eliane, a professor and friend from the UEM met with us and we had a dinner together. It was an Italian restaurant, which was quite well foods. Eliane brought his sister who was the same Department, and her sister’s son, a 13 years old boy with over 1.7 meters height. This was her second boy. Another was the one when I saw in the flight from Sao Paulo to Maringa. This Italian restaurant seemed quite good. All meals were buffet style but they served a variety of foods. I though that this was a way to avoid any food wasted. During the supper, as well as before and after this dinner and in the hotel lobby, we had opportunities to talk together.
Eliane was a nice lady. She received her Ph.D. in Economics in 2009. As her husband was an Italian, she could speak Protégées, English, Spanish, German, and Italian languages and published with high-level journals for the Department by using Protégées, English and Spanish. With her connections, the joint conference with us in Canada was taking place in Brazil, which became an important international event in the Department and UEM. It was the first time for the TNCR team to work on a conference with the experts in a country from South America.
In providing with quite a lot of the useful information, Eliane told that the colleagues from ANPEC (the National Association of Postgraduate Programs in Economics) could meet with us talking about an advanced collabotative program. She also inquired about our connections with Indian colleagues. It seemed that the Brazilian colleagues, esp. graduate students, were interested in publishing papers with international journals, which might also be some challenges to them. Eliane had an one year old boy, and her husband was a business lead who was doing car rentals. With this conference and many other administrative things involved, she might have less time to take care of her boy. Eliane told me that she drove to the University every day for research and teaching by leaving her boy to a kindergarten.
Prepare for the Conference 会议准备
I would need to work with the Brazilian colleagues to rearrange a special session for a Professor from Denver University in the United States. We would also need to handle the returned flights and many other communications. It was very busy after the supper till midnight. I got up about 7:00 a.m. in the morning to start the work, including the arrangements of Yue’s and Joe’s presentations, and the writings about the experiences. The breakfast was included in the hotel that seemed not bad. I took it about 8:00 a.m. in the morning while the cafeteria was from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. The conference was soon coming. I was taking a bit relaxing to think about it. I could not make myself to be too tired with confusions and mistakes during the event.
Without coming to Brazil, I was even not aware of the season's differences. Currently, Brazil was in its winter time, which the temperature some time was about 10 degree or above. This winter was a bit particular, and the coming days temperature might be down to about zero. It was some test for us to adapt to a new place with appreciating many things. I was advised that the Brazilian colleagues was coming to get us for lunch together about 12:30 p.m. and then bringing us to look around Maringa. After that, it might be the supper time about 7:00 p.m..
