Day 9 – Qilu University

May 23, 2017

The day started with some much-needed rest. The trip had been intense so far and day 9 was a welcome reprieve. The group was allowed to sleep in a tad, as we had to leave the hotel by 10:30 am for the University. Many rose for breakfast, but some chose to take the opportunity to sleep in until the last minute.

Meet & Greet with Qilu Students

After a short bus ride, we arrived at Qilu University to tour their facilities and meet with some of their students. Our first stop was the library, which was by far, the most amazing library I have ever been in, (suffice to say it was enormous). The group met in a conference room where we received a welcome speech, briefly introduced to some of the faculty of the university, followed by a small gift giving ceremony, then a wonderful meet and greet session with the students. Some fellow Wolfpack students (Sarah Sassarossi, Jacob Rooks, and Bruce Butler) and myself, talked with a student named James who had phenomenal English speaking skills (which he attributed to numerous watching’s of Game of Thrones and House of Cards). James was studying Food Safety (a discipline of study China could seriously benefit from) and was a real pleasure to talk to him. He expressed much interest in coming to the US to visit; hopefully some of us can host him here soon!

After the meet and greet with the students, the group toured the Qilu Ceramics Glass Science and Art Museum. The Museum was extremely impressive and held hundreds of masterfully crafted glass and ceramic pottery pieces. Following the museum visit, we were allowed to tour their paper making facilities and their on campus brewery (where we sampled some of their beer).

Basketball or PingPong

After lunch, we played a rematch game of basketball against some of the Qilu students. The game was back and forth the entire match and ended in a heartbreaker of a loss for the Wolfpack. With 8 seconds left and the Wolfpack up 60-59, we had a controversial backcourt violation called against us after great defense forced a turnover. Qilu regained the ball and scored after some brief confusion, the whistle blew resulting in a 60-61 loss. Our boys put up some serious hustle against a clearly practiced Qilu squad and should all be commended for their efforts! Some students elected not to participate in the Basketball game and decided to go play ping-pong with Dr. Chang and some other Qilu students instead. The PSE students that played ping-pong came back to tell us their games had been much more one-sided (in Qilu’s favor) and they were saved from disgrace by Dr. Chang’s incredible table tennis skills.

Sea Cucumber for dinner

The day ended with a fantastic dinner hosted by Qilu, where we were able to try the local delicacy, Sea Cucumber. While terrifying in appearance, its taste was anything but. It tasted most similarly to an extremely chewy, bland piece of fish. The dinner had some of the students we met from Qilu earlier in the day and was a nice reunion to cap the day off.

by guest blogger: Madden Neilson and David Sheppard