Our travel-study group returned to Texas at DFW airport on Friday evening May 23rd, after an active, intense trip. Most of us were “pretty healthy”, though China’s air pollution had depressed the upper respiratory systems! So: Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Xi’an, and then back through Beijing (with an extra night due to an unworkable airport transfer) — what of it all? And what of our presence in Xi’an during the three national days or mourning for the Sichuan earthquake victims? Let me suggest a metaphor for the entire trip, which we had to re-route just before departure anyway. Speaking urbanely, the term protean works (the simpler word is changeableness) from the Greek sea-god Proteus who could change shapes. Or, as D. Wainscott took to saying, “flexibility” in the face of possible diversions, delays, or frustrations. Altogether we could accept surprises and perhaps serendipities, and there were some, even to the last when we spent yet another afternoon and evening of group bonding, unplanned, at the Guo Du (Sino-Swiss) hotel near Beijing airport. Did we get some needed rest, recuperate from some brief illnesses, have an in-house picnic with help from the local grocer, (watch the finals of American Idol, some of us), and get one last look at some stunning contrasts of wealth and poverty, new and old, in Developing China in the neighborhoods close by? Yes, all that. Fundamentally, though, what we had was life, but in uncustomary contexts. That’s travel, and that’s part of the aim and intention for our international programs. We will be evaluating these things more, and I’ll write some more in dialogue with our group members. Maybe some of them will respond to this posting, too.
I’ll get a photo or two up here later today.
That’s right. Our ETBU travel study & BSM group goes to Beijing via DFW and SFO this next Monday. Our itinerary once we are there is under reconsideration — more on that later. In reading Peter Jenkins’ eighties book Across China about his trip to Tibet, Everest base camp, and China, I noticed that he passed through Lanzhou but wrote hardly a word about it! Other places warranted more print, I guess, but, then, as the coastal Chinese say, Lanzhou is so “remote”. Not any more.
Our travel study group to China is growing and coming together along with the BSM leadership — and will get ready to go during the spring semester! Our itinerary (about May 5-22): Beijing - Lanzhou - Xi’an - and then back through Beijing. The middle part in Lanzhou - about a week - gives us some great cultural exchange and interdiscipilinary experiences in history, politics, music, communications, and the general culture. We’ll look forward to seeing Mu Yongqiang, Hou Binhua, and the good friends in the international office at the Lanzhou University of Technology, too, and they will be helping us with a lot of things while we are there.
Our travel study and many other experiences will help us all to understand the Chinese past, the fascinating Chinese present (and future), and the ways they connect together — or not. That’s a good thing to do considering that we are already in what many people are referring to as the “Chinese Century”.
More later . . .
Dr. Israel Nandamudi (Political Science) and Dr. Carolyn Rester (Speech) are surveying a group of prospective student registrants for the Model United Nations spring class. They will travel to compete at MUN New York. It is true that the prospect of participating in the competition, which meets in the United Nations facilities in New York City, is a big draw for students. Equally true, though, is that the MUN program has a success record over the past few years when our teams went to MUN Chicago. It is a fine program for our students and university. Thanks to scholarship support from Academic Affairs and a great deal of hard, focused work from the faculty sponsors, this program has been a success. I hope that tradition of success continues for many years.