Sunlin College part one: the American presence

The other day I mentioned to the President (Chun) that I wanted to buy a Sunlin pin that many of the faculty wear. It's pretty nice. I wanted to have it as a memento. He told me to stop by his office and he would give me and the other two Americans an honorary pin.
On Monday I saw him and he told me that he was busy, but on the following day there will be a "ceremony". Again the term is used broadly; I laugh to myself -knowing the extent of what that could mean. It turned out to be mainly a large faculty meeting, but we were respectfully given our pins and that was that.
But more on the other Americans here
I came here with Pops' university, NPU. For the first three week period, I am here with a Professor Fred Dalili. Throughout my stay here there will be NPU professors cycled in and out. I am an asset to the Sunlin-NPU relationship because I am willing to stay here, really. Not that it's bad here, just established people with masters and PhDs can't leave their lives in the Silicon Valley for too long.
Professor Dalili, Fred, is a pretty interesting guy. At first I thought he was just an old grouchy guy, and I was right. But there is more to his character than just being a picky, hard-to-please guy. He lived for the first 25 years of his life in Iran, where he was born. He left as an Iranian diplomat and went to Germany. He traveled for quite some time after that and never returned to live in his "home country". Eventually he moved to the U.S. where he has lived for the past 20 years. I have three of his business cards, all say President and CEO. I don't know how successful he is with his consulting firms, but he is headed to South Africa and Geneva to speak with the UN (I think UNDEP) in a few months about cross-cultural cooperation.
He says that he spends 70% of his time, however, on his organization: Red Flags Help. It's a suicide prevention organization. He is the head of the west coast operations. Right now he is trying to get state funding. All in Sacramento support it, just not the funding part.
Here he is teaching public speaking and a management course. He, like I am, is frustrated with the poor English ability from the students. But, he is leaving next Friday to give a speech in SF Saturday. I will definitely be leaving a resume with him.
Some other characters that I have to cover at some point are Jared Dittmer (he's the one from Kansas), also the two missionaries that just arrived. Pretty interesting guys. One is from Canada and the other, Netherlands. They're traveling all around the world on a ship selling Bibles. They have some pretty interesting stories. But, maybe some other time.
I had six hours of lecture today and am pretty tired.