Hundreds of miles, millions of people and a whole different climate separated Zhang Hong’s school in Zhengzhou, China, from Xu Dan’s school in Haerbin, China.

Of course, they never met.

But when they began teaching at schools six miles from each other, Zhang and Xu became fast friends.

Zhang, 31, is teaching Chinese language and culture at Muskogee High School through the Teachers of Critical Languages Program, a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and administered by American Councils for International Education.

Xu, who is staying with Fort Gibson teacher Mary White, teaches Chinese classes at Fort Gibson through an exchange program sponsored by the Confucius Institute of the University of Oklahoma.

The two met earlier this school year in Tulsa at an orientation meeting for visiting Chinese teachers, Xu said.

“We are in two different programs, but all the teachers got together,” she said.

“The OU Confucius Institute had a gathering the first day I came here, and we had a warm reception,” said Zhang, 31. “We got to know each other and we went to a lot of workshops and we went to Tulsa to attend a concert.”

Xu, 30, said that over the past few weeks, she and Hong have gone to the Cherokee National Holiday, a blues festival, and a Chinese restaurant in Muskogee.

Earlier this month, the two went Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

“We didn’t gamble at all,” Zhang said with a giggle. “We went to a lot of shows. We went to see the Lion King, and we thought it was perfect. And we went to the Grand Canyon.”

Xu agreed the Las Vegas shows were wonderful.

“And I loved the scenery of the Grand Canyon,” she said. “We took a helicopter ride, a boat ride and went on the Skywalk.”

The Skywalk is a glass-bottom pier that juts over the canyon and allows visitors to look straight down.

Zhang and Xu said they never visited the part of China where the other teacher lived.