Settling in to being unsettled
Well, here we are in week 3! And somehow it is almost over… Jp, Rosi and I are plugging away at our objectives here at Yunnan Agricultural University. A few things have changed since my last post.
- Our objectives
- Our expectations
Now, neither of these are bad. We expected that our objectives would change once we were here on the ground and actually working with the dean and faculty within the College of Economics and Management on their main concerns, as they relate to the IT and E-Commerce curriculum. We needed to gather lots of information and really try to understand the issues before we could agree on the final Scope of Work, so the objectives did change as a result of those efforts.
As for the expectations adjustment, I would say we weren’t as prepared for that one. In hindsight it makes total sense, though. Three foreigners from a leading global technology company storm into southern China, full of gusto and ready to make an impact on everything in our paths… when in reality, there were a lot of obstacles we thought we were ready for, but didn’t truly appreciate until we were here.
Those things include:
- Self-deflation. Let’s face it, we’ve all got egos we’re trying to manage here. Several times we’ve confirmed, reconfirmed, and re-re-reconfirmed meetings or deliverables, and they simply haven’t happened. It’s not malicious intent on anyone’s part that things don’t happen the way we expect. It has really come down to us just assuming that everything we ask for will be granted, and then coming to the realization that that’s not how it’s gonna work here. It took a while to stop taking that personally.
- The amount of time it takes for translation. If we need to have a conversation with a faculty member, for example, we have to write down our questions, then have them translated on paper by our project assistant, Yoyo, who then reads the questions to the person, writes down their response, translates it back to us in English, which we then write down… repeat that process for every question, and then add additional time for clarification/follow-up questions, and all of the sudden what would be a 20–30 minute conversation in your native language turns into a 2-hour conversation with the translation from Chinese to English and vice versa.
3. There’s a different perspective on time here, as in there’s not much of a sense of urgency anywhere. Our coffee breaks on campus take three times longer than what we’re used to at home, even though we’re the only ones in the shop. The “lunch” break at the university is 3 hours long (we work through this time, of course) and everything basically stops. Again, there is nothing bad about this, it just took some time to realize that Kunming wasn’t suddenly going to operate on Megan time simply because I had arrived.
4. Resistance to change. Not everyone was as enthusiastic about us being here as we were. And I’m sure if I were in some of the faculty member’s shoes, I’d feel the same way if someone showed up out of nowhere and told me I needed to change.
What’s going well, though, is that we have a lot of great information and content to work with, and we’re going to do the best we can with what we’ve got. We had a very productive workshop on Tuesday with the dean and heads of IT and E-Commerce, and have a game plan for completing our deliverables.
Even better — the people are so lovely to work with. For the most part, the faculty members are really excited we’re here. Our project assistants, Yoyo and Li, have become close friends to us, and have even taken a lot of time outside of work to help us and get to know us better. Last night, the dean organized a barbecue for us with some of the faculty (plus Yoyo and Li), and we felt like we were with old friends.
The next week is creeping up on us very quickly. We’ll be working on Saturday due to a holiday next week, and will present our final deliverables to the dean and faculty on Wednesday. We’ll finalize any remaining items on Thursday, present with the other teams here as a group wrap-up meeting (similar to our kickoff) on Friday, and then Saturday we’re outta here! I’m excited to spend a few days in Hong Kong with some friends before returning back home. It is going to feel really lonely back in Charlotte, working from home alone in my pajamas again every day after all the togetherness here… sigh…
Last but not least, some pictures from our free time in this lovely city!
