Thoughts on Swearing In

US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman

We are at the beginning again. Today we stood up and raised our right hands and swore in as the 15^th group of Peace Corps Volunteers serving under the unique subtitle, the US-China Friendship Volunteers. This is our second time we have taken this oath. We are now committed to go out and fulfill our organization’s and our country’s three goals for PC. For those of you who may not know they are:

· Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

· Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

· Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

These may seem like very easy tasks, but at times these are very difficult to put into practice. Not only must we be good at our teaching jobs, but we must also be good ambassadors to the Chinese on the part of the US and to our fellow citizens on the part of the Chinese culture. We are constantly reminded that this is not just during business hours, but 24 hours a day 7 days a week including our vacations. We are PCVs period.

Even on those days when we are struggling to adapt we must put on our smiles and be a good friend to our community. Even if we do not like some aspect of the culture we are obliged to understand it or accept it. The speaker today spoke of challenges and I look forward to them for the next year here. All in all we look forward to the opportunity to yet again serve the US and China.

We had the rare opportunity to be sworn in by the brand new US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman. He has just sworn in himself and before meeting with the Chinese President, he decided to come to Chengdu to administer our Oath of Office. This being one of his first official acts, there was a lot of media that came to the ceremony. So it felt like an especially important day. He spoke of our importance as friendship makers and this is how understanding happens between nations. I found his speech and the words of our director to be very motivating.

Today was a good day to reflect on what it is we are doing here. We all join this organization for different reasons, but we all have one mission and purpose. Sometimes during the long hours of training we forget what that is and how important we can be if we are effective volunteers. We are here to strengthen our two nations understanding of each other, which will hopefully insure peace here and throughout the world. Talk about pressure. Well tomorrow we are off to Zhangye and the work (in the classroom) starts on Monday. We hope to be able to post more often as we are settled in Hexi University.

kandm