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Photodocumentary
of my trip to the People's Republic of China,
October 3-11, 2003
In June of 2003, I was approached by a textbook publishing consultant
about a series of textbooks that were planned for the secondary school
reform in the People's Republic of China. In September 2004, four provinces
in China are to experiment with a new curriculum that calls for all high
school students in China to take mandatory and optional technology courses
(Information Technology and General Technology). A publishing company
in one of these provinces, Shandong, was working to get their textbook
approved by the Ministry of Education. They invited me to come to China
to discuss the project with their writing teams of the new textbooks.
My trip to China was to say the least, life altering. I never would have
believed I would be standing on a sacred mountain on the other side of
the world, or visit temples begun 2500 years ago, or see the famous Great
Wall with my own eyes, or walk historic Tianamen Square. My hosts were
the most friendly and accomodating people I have ever met. Through this
trip, I now have a appreciation of the history, the culture, and the promises
of this incredible, magical country. China is a nation of 1.3 billion
people with 5000 years of history, a people that have weathered unbelieveable
floods, famines and invasions through the centuries and have vast challenges
ahead. They are a nation where 'big' is a small word, and a modern nation
poised to leap unto the world stage, ready to change the face of the globe.
Here I will post some pictures of my trip, from Beijing, Tiashan, Ji'nan,
Qufu, Badaling and in between. I hope you enjoy. I will be adding to these
pages, making corrections etc. over the next while, time permitting.
Pictures were taken by a 5MP Pentax Optio 550, and were processed with
ACDSee v. 3.1, and reduced to 1024X768 by Shortcut's S-Spline v. 2.2 for
the web. Thumbnails were created by S-Spline as well. All materials copyright
Michael A. Scott. Click to enlarge.
Beijing,
Day 1 | Tiashan | Ji'nan
| Qufu | The Great Wall
| Beijing return
Beijing,
Day 1
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I arrived at Beijing after 15 hours of flying time,
5 hours to Vancouver and 10 hours across the Pacific. Ottawa now
seems very far away. I had no idea what to expect. I waited for
my Air China flight in Vancouver wondering if I was crazy to be
doing this.
The sun followed us most of the way so I arrived at about the same
time I left, a day later. China is 12 hours difference, so while
I felt good at 3:00pm, I had to remind myself that it was really
3:00am, biological clock time. When I arrived at Bejing airport,
I walked easily through customs, and was met by my hosts and off
we went. It started off normal enough through a busy, modern toll
highway, but I knew I was somewhere different when we drove through
the crowded busy city streets with every vehicle known to man jockeying
for position. We eventually arrived at the Guangxi Hotel, newly
built, and I looked out on a noisy, smoggy city, bustling with activity
and colour. There was construction everywhere, like these workman
installing signs on the buiding outside my window.
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| After an hour or so rest, (in which I couldn't rest), off we went
to meet a Ministry official for dinner. Our hotel was on a crowded
narrow street, full of three wheelers, bicycles, and honking cars.
We wound through city streets and wide boulevards and turned onto
Jianguomennei Dajie. I was here! We passed Tianamen Square, the square
bustling with people as they came to see the flag lowering ceremony
on their National Holiday week (begun Oct 1). The traffic was dense,
full of every description of car, the smallest taxis I had every seen,
and the most colouful buses. |
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I was so impressed with the size and grandeur of the buildings,
the huge square and the wide boulevards. Everything was massive and
imperial. I was told that everything was lit up for the holidays.
I think we should adopt this practice...Canada Week instead of Canada
Day, eh? :) |
Amazing trip through the city. Every resturaunt and store seems
to have a pair of greeters at the door. I begin to realize what
a task it must be to employ a billion people. The colours and imagery
is outstanding. Our driver is incredibly masterful..to turn left,
you just turn left and traffic flows around you, honking away. It
dawns on me that there aren't many stop lights. I am sure if they
had to wait for stop lights the whole city would be in gridlock.
Sure would be an interesting engineerng study on flow here.
We finally arrived at the resturant, the Jin Long Teng. It is super
bright inside, and we are greeted by a bevy of hostesses, and led
up to a room on the second floor, where our Ministry official was
waiting for us. |
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My first authentic Chinese meal. Unbelievable food. Dishes are
served by a couple of hostesses who don't let your glasses run dry.
I'm going to eat like this all week? All right!
I understand chopsticks are part of the culture, and that the Chinese
regard knives and forks as cold, and weapon like. I like eating
with chopsticks, and I guess I amazed my hosts that I can eat with
them (or perhaps they were being kind!)
Meals are a social occasion, and involves sampling many dishes
on a glass lazy-susan. It also involves lots of toasts, (more on
this later!) I like eating this way; it will be hard to go back. |
I find that the Chinese have a firm belief in asking for good
luck and fortune. Not hard to understand when you study their history.
This offering to General Guan Gong (Taoist deity) of the Three Kingdoms
Dynasty was in a small alcove at the resturant.
One day and I already am so impressed. What a beautiful culture,
what friendly people! Tomorrow we go to Tiashan, the most sacred
of the sacred mountains in China. |
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| Next:
Tiashan |
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