China

=People to People and ISTI Technology Delegation trip to China, 7 - 18 December 2010= William L. Merrill, Ph.D.

Well, day one of the great adventure begins. Woke up at 4:00 am in San Francisco and grabbed the 6:00 shuttle to the airport. Of course, check in was not open until 7:00, or so they said. United began checking in passengers at 7:30 and I was first in line. The lady typed in my name and two different computers promptly broke! After the try on the third, I finally got my boarding pass I headed through security and was promptly “selected” for a more complete search, beginning with the famous or infamous body scanner. Somewhere a TSA agent is laughing at my images. In addition to the body scanner, I was lucky enough to get a pat down around my waist.
 * Tuesday, 7 December 2010**

Now I’m just waiting for my long flight at the gate while drinking some water and eating some tropical mix. I boarded the plane and found myself sitting the steerage at the back of the plane. At least they pressurized the section I’m in! We are flying in a 777 wide body that seat 10 across. The first class section has seats that could double as hotel rooms in Japan.

Thirteen hours flying time, 28 hours on the clock, we land in Beijing. Moving through customs is a breeze. It took less that a half-hour to get through customs, get our baggage, and gather for the bus ride to the hotel.
 * Wednesday, 8 December 2010**

When we entered the hotel, I couldn’t help but notice that the entire ground floor was decorated in Christmas decorations. The female employees were dressed in very skimpy Santa costumes and Christmas carols [non-religious, of course] were playing in the background. Since I knew the Chinese did not celebrate Christmas, I asked one of the hotel managers what was going on. He informed me that December is their slowest tourist month so they started decorating for Christmas and found that tourism, especially from Europe and the Americas, really increased. Commercialism by a Communist country at its best!

The lobby at our Beijing hotel.

Once at the hotel, we settled into our rooms. Our room was very nice, although a little small by U.S. standards. Bottled water is everywhere since it is not safe to drink the tap water. A causal dinner followed at the hotel’s buffet. The food was great with lots of choices from seafood, beef, chicken, vegetables, soups, lamb, pork, and potatoes. While they had a number of sweet things for dessert, they also had a large variety of fruit, and the fruit was tremendous! After my dinner and a long, long day, I drifted back to my room and became unconscious.

I woke at 4:00 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. One problem with having a roommate is having to stay quiet with the lights off during normal sleeping times. Tom woke at about 6:15 so we both prepared for the day’s activities. Today required business dress so it was a shirt, tie, and jacket. After breakfast at the same buffet as the night before, we headed off to our orientation meeting. We spent the next 135 minutes listening to our guide talk about the culture, customs, and history of China. It was a very informative talk and I learned a great deal about our group’s host. During this time, we also shared the gifts we brought and divided them into seven piles for the hosts at the seven professional meetings we have scheduled throughout the trip.
 * Thursday, 9 December 2010**
 * Happy Birthday Jennifer!**

After a brief moment to “freshen up” [aka use the toilet], we were all herded on the bus. We stopped at a great Chinese restaurant for a traditional Chinese lunch. Each table sat 10 people and there was a huge lazy Susan in the middle where large platters of food were placed for us. I must admit, you had to move fast to get the food as the lazy Susan spun around. They served the best lemon chicken I’ve ever had along with beef and other chicken dishes, salads, and a strange “vegetable” soup that was dark read in color and had very small bits of something white. The main guess was onion, but it didn’t taste like onion. The soup, like all the food, was fabulous.

The restaurant for lunch on the first full day in Beijing.

From the restaurant, we drove off to the Beijing International School, a K-12, English speaking school. I was most amazed at the amount of technology, art, and music taught and used in this school. Each child had a laptop and used it regularly. The school also did many project-based learning activities. Eighth grade students used computers to design toys, drew mock-ups of their work, built the toy in a workshop, and then tested the toys on the kindergarten students. Students composed their own music on computers and then preformed the compositions on their musical instruments.

Fourth grade student working on a netbook.

All the students in the school were foreign students since China forbids Chinese students from attending anything other than a Chinese school. The students in the school were typically diplomats’ kids or kids of business people who work in Beijing.

For dinner, a group of us went across the street from the hotel and had Korean Barbeque. We had a number of different dishes made from beef and chicken. We also had calamari. I tried it but it was the one dish I didn’t care for; it was too rubbery.

Dinner at the Korean Barbeque.

After dinner, some of us went to see the play: The Legend of Kung Fu. The play was filled with music and dance. The story was the journey of the life of the oldest monk told to a new boy just entering the temple. Much of the narration was in English, but for the parts in Chinese, there was a large electronic sign that translated the Chinese into English. The parts in English were translated in the Chinese on the same board.

The Legend of Kung Fu show.

While the temperature today was chilly, there were high winds that made it feel MUCH colder. We went to Beijing Normal University and spoke with the educational technology professors in the morning and high school teachers and students in the afternoon.
 * Friday, 10 December 2010**

Beijing Normal University is one of the top 15 universities in China. It was equated with our Ivy League universities in the United States. The School of Education Technology offers masters and doctorate level degrees and much professional development for practicing teachers. They also conduct research in numerous areas including uses of technology in teaching, learning, and using technology in engineering.

We watched a presentation and videos of one research project in place in 270 Chinese schools around the country. It was clear from this project that the professors were trying to move teaching away from rote memorization to a more “western” style of teaching. The videos we saw showed a teacher teaching a group of second grade students English [English is required in schools through 9th grade]. The teacher used technology both on the projector and with each child having their own computer, lots of questions, chants, movement, and student-to-student interaction. This lesson was an example of outstanding teaching and learning regardless of the country. There were about 48 students in the room and they were all engaged in learning since the teacher kept things moving and kept switching activities to keep the students engaged. We were told that it is typical in Chinese schools to have 50 per classroom with one teacher and so far, our observations confirm that.

Graduate student presenting research on changing the teaching paradigm in China.

After another HUGE meal at the campus dining facility, we were off the High School #3 to speak with the principal, teachers and students. Attending high school, or senior school, is not required and if students wish to graduate from high school, they must pay tuition. Tuition is about $350 per semester which doesn’t seem like much to Americans, is a great deal of money here in China. In the larger cities, the average salary is around $1,000 per month with housing being very expensive. The people must also pay for part of their health care, or go without, transportation, food, and taxes, so there is not a lot of money to waste. Our guide told us that Chinese people want to own their apartments and the average cost is $500 to $600 per square foot. This is for an apartment in what we would call “projects” type housing; tall, rundown-looking apartment complexes. We could have easily been in Chicago, Boston, New York or just about any other U.S. urban city while driving through these areas.

Once again, the classes were very large at this high school. The computer class we visited had 54 10th grade students all working on computers [one student per computer] making Christmas cards using Photoshop. The teacher taught using a microphone so all could hear her and helped individual students with problems that might arise. Once again, all the students were engaged and working hard in a very quiet classroom. When we were in the room, students were learning how to add text to their image, change font sizes, and emboss the text.

High school student learning how to use Photoshop.

We spoke with several teachers and the principal and were able to ask many questions. I found out that while technology was important in the school, it was not as widely used as in the international school. Most of the uses were by teachers showing PowerPoint presentations. There are only 2 computer labs in the school and teachers cannot take their students to one of the labs since only computer classes can use the laboratories.

We had dinner at an excellent restaurant that opened in 1864 and first created the famous Peking Duck. Just like all the Chinese meals we have had, there were huge quantities of food. The Peking Duck was great and we also had various chicken, pork, and beef dishes. The strangest dish, that the restaurant is world know for, was duck and scorpions. While I tried many things, I didn’t try the deep fried scorpions. About a third of the delegation members, however, did try them.


 * Saturday, 11 December 2010 **

Saturday was a cultural day in Beijing. We visited Tian An Men Square, the Imperial Palace, the Forbidden Palace, and the Great Wall. We also drove by the Bird’s Nest and the Aquatic Cube used during the Beijing Olympics.

In the morning we toured Tian An Men Square, the Imperial Palace, and for Forbidden Palace. Tian An Men Square is the largest square in the world. The area was huge! To get into the square, people needed to go through metal detectors and have their bags searched just like in the airports. We saw the hall were Mao is encased in a glass coffin, although we did not go in to see him. We wandered the square and our guide, Frank, told us of the student uprising in the square [in a very low voice] since he was there. It is interesting to hear a different version of the incident than the one told by the western press.

Tian An Men Square

The Imperial Palace and the Forbidden Place were monstrously large. The palaces stretch through 9 gates and 1000's of rooms. The movie The Last Emperor was filmed there along with the new Karate Kid. We learned which of the opening in the gates various people could pass through based upon their status and why all the doors have kick plates you need to step over to enter [it is because the bad spirits are very short and cannot jump over the plate and enter the room].

In the afternoon we traveled to the Great Wall. While it is impressive in picture, it is even more so in person. We were told that the Great Wall is the longest cemetery in the world since when one of the worker slaved died, they where buried in the wall. Obviously, many workers died over the several centuries it took to complete the entire wall.

Once on the Wall, the views were magnificent. Walking up the Wall was like walking up a mountain since the Wall runs along the ridge of mountains.The top peek we walked to was about 3,000 feet over sea level. I was sucking a lot of oxygen during that climb. The problem was, that coming down the Wall was just as hard since it was so steep.

Me at the Great Wall outside Beijing.

We also learned about the importance of tone of voice when speaking Chinese. For instance, the word "ma" has four different meanings depending upon how it is said. Our guide, Frank, tells a story using all four meanings and it becomes our "song" for the trip.

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Dinner was on our own and I was bushed so I just went back to the room and relaxed.

Today is our travel day from Beijing to Xi'an. After we packed and had breakfast we headed out to the airport. We are flying Air China and check in when very smoothly. There were lots of people flying but they had rows and rows of windows open so there was little waiting. Our airplane was a 737 and the flight was smooth. They even fed us a real meal on the flight for no additional charge.
 * Sunday, 12 December 2010 **
 * Happy Birthday Bill! **

We were met the airport by our local guide Richard [The Chinese take "American" names since so many have the same name and the first part is always the family name rather than the given name in the west]. We got to the hotel and it is definitely a 5 star hotel.

For dinner we went and saw a musical/dancing dinner show. The dance and music was from the Tang Dynasty and was preformed by the Tang Dynasty Theater group. The show's music was preformed on ancient musical instruments and the dancers' costumes were authentic from the period. As usual, the food was great as was the entertainment.

Tang Dynasty Theater Group in performance.

Today was our cultural day in Xi'an. We started the day at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and learned about the monks and Buddhism. The Pagoda and surrounding areas covered a huge space. The Pagoda, over time, leans to one side and it became more pronounced after an earthquake back in the 1980's. Monks still live in the complex and take care of the ground.
 * Monday, 13 December 2010 **

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

From there we traveled to the Jade Carving Center and learned about jade. The Xi'an region is famous for jade. Jade is mined from the Earth and is also found in rivers here in China. The river jade looks like most other rocks but when it is cut open, you see the jade. Also, jade is not just green; it comes in a number of different colors. We spent time looking around the gift shop--the items were either really cheap [in every sense of the word] or really expensive! I decided to pass on purchasing jade.

Carved jade

We traveled about an hour and a half to the Terra-Cotta Warriors Museum where we had a wonderful lunch. After lunch we headed out to the pits and the museum. There are three pits where they are excavating the warriors and we started at pit #1, the largest. I've seen pictures of the warriors but they don't even come close to doing them justice. Pit #1 is about 640 meters by 62 meters large and houses thousands of warriors and horses. All the statues needed to be since they were all crushed by the earth caving in on the tomb area. Also in Pit #1 we were able to watch archeologists reassemble various statues from the smaller parts. We also visited the other two pits that have been excavated, Pit #2 and Pit #3.

Several of the thousands of terra-cotta warrior soldiers.

After being in two Chinese cities, I've decided that the saying "if you can drive in China, you can drive anywhere," is so true. Watching the traffic in Beijing and Xi'an, I can only conclude that all traffic lines, lights, signs, are just suggestions since drivers go where they want, when they want. Merging and changing lanes is easy; if you want to, just do it! Cars and buses drive on the side of the road, vehicles travel the wrong way down one way streets, vehicles turn right and left into oncoming traffic [no opening, just make one yourself]. And walking is a real adventure. Cars don't yield for pedestrians even when the pedestrians have the right away and the car is running a light. I've done very little walking around where I have to cross a street since I'm not in a hurry to visit a Chinese Emergency Room.

Dinner tonight is at the Sunshine Beauty City Restaurant. Xi'an is famous for numerous types of dumplings and noodles so this restaurant is famous for the huge selection of dumplings. I'm sure that the food will be excellent, just like everywhere else we have dined. It is humorous that many delegates said they really thought they would loose weight on this trip but they had all given up on that idea after the first few meals.

Today we are off to the countryside to visit Dongtun primary school near Nansuo Village in Hu County in the morning. Then we will visit a normal university in the afternoon. I'm guessing I won't have Internet access for a couple of days now since we travel tomorrow and my account here in China will be down before we return to the hotel today. I'll update this journal as soon as I can get access again, probably in Shanghai.
 * Tuesday, 14 December 2010 **

I've added a few pictures to this wiki but I won't be able to load all my images to Flickr until I get back home. I'll add the link to my Flickr pictures when they are uploaded.

Today we visited Dongtun Primary School in a small rural village [Nansuo Village] about an hour outside of Xi’an. The road to the school was so small that the bus couldn’t access it so we had to get off and walk about a kilometer to the school entrance. The school has 16 teachers and about 175 students all from the nearby village. We first went to a third grade classroom where the students were learning English. The children were practicing writing the numbers and took great pride in introducing themselves and counting to 10 in English for us. They did much better than I if I needed to count to 10 in Chinese!

We all sang “If you’re Happy and you Know It,” to the children in English and then they sang it to use in Chinese! It was a riot and I have the entire exchange on video posted below.

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Next, we visited their technology room that consisted of one computer with Internet access hooked to two large televisions. The mathematics and music teacher showed us some of the PowerPoint presentations the teachers created to help students with difficult topics. All the teachers create presentations and store them on this computer. When they need to use the technology, they bring their classes to this room.

We then went to the school library that was donated by People to People, for an exchange with the school principal and two teachers. It was clear that the school didn’t have lots of stuff, but they did have caring and enthusiastic teachers who wanted the children to learn. This was also clear since about 60 to 70% of their students went on to study in senior high school [compulsory education only goes through junior high school and students must pass rigorous tests and family must pay money to send their children to senior high school, grades 10 through 12].

The only heat in all the classrooms and the library was a small coal burner standing in one corner. All the teachers and the students kept their coats on and many wore gloves to keep warm. The rooms had no insulation and many of the windows were left open because they wouldn’t close. The teachers were determined to teach and the children were determined to learn. This was a very sobering experience that demonstrated that despite adversity, education will prevail. I think of all that U.S. schools have and how teachers and students expect so much, and it is shaming when I think of the disparity between the two systems. On top of that, we were told that this village school was among the better village schools in the country. I cannot imaging what those poorer schools looked like.

Before heading off to lunch, we visited the home of the famous peasant artist Mr. Zhang Qingyi. In his courtyard, the villagers preformed a traditional welcoming ceremony for us. The ceremony consisted of music and dance and some members of the delegation had the chance to be the dragon.

Part I: Sailing on the River

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Part II: The Dragon

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Part III: We were the Dragon

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Part IV: Dance and Music

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We saw the work of peasant artist Mr. Zhang Qingyi and it was incredible. During the cultural revolution in China, Mr. Zhang was exiled to the countryside to become a farmer. Once he was allowed to paint again, he stayed in the village with his family and continued to farm and paint. Below is a video of Mr. Zhang creating a painting for the delegation.

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In the afternoon, we visited Xi’an Eurasia University, a private university interested in implementing more technology in their teaching and learning. The university opened in 1995 so it is a new institution. They have old and new buildings on campus and about 22,000 students. We found out that the old building were once used to raise chickens.

Our professional meeting with their administrators and faculty resembled a state department-level negotiation. There were long, rectangular tables with them on one side and us on the other with their interpreter and our interpreter and microphones on both sides.

They were very interested in finding out how we implemented technology integration in our schools including how to get their faculty to start using the tools. The university is interested in moving from a rote style of teaching to one that stresses critical thinking. Their students, throughout their education, have learned by memorizing everything and their faculty are use to lecturing to the students so they can memorize the information.

We are off to Shanghai today flying on Eastern China airline and the flight will take about 2 hours. Waiting at the airport, we were standing near a group of about a dozen Chinese and they decided that I was too tall. Several came over and, while standing next to me, measured themselves against me. It didn't take long before they wanted their picture taken with me. What is scary now is that my face is on who knows how many Chinese cameras.
 * Wednesday, 15 December 2010**

While the flight from Xi'an to Shanghai was bumpy, it was uneventful. Travel rules in China are interesting. They have many rules about the number of checked bags, their weight, the size is carry-on bags, and their weight, but they don't appear to enforce any of them. For instance, the rules say every passenger is allow only one checked bag and it can weigh no more than 44 pounds. However, we were told unofficially that you can have two checked bags with the total weight not to exceed 44 pounds. If you do go over 44 pounds, you would be charged about $1.50 US for each pound. I went to both airports knowing my bags were over weight and expecting to pay, but when I got to each airport, they weighed each bag separately and if each was under 44 pounds, it was okay. One of my bags was exactly 44 pounds and the other was well under, so I had to pay nothing.

Shanghai is huge, modern city that resembles almost any major U.S. city. There are lots of skyscrapers and traffic congestion everywhere. We arrived at the airport and it promptly began to snow. Snow is a rare event in Shanghai with a snow event only happening every three years or so. From the airport traffic was light until we go into the city. That is where Shanghai began to resemble Beijing and Xi'an. Bumper to bumper traffic with the bus moving only small distances at a time.

The Shanghai skyline.

Our hotel is very nice and it is in the French concession area of Shanghai. The rooms are smaller, like the hotel in Beijing, but they are very comfortable and nice. The Chinese like to sleep on harder surfaces so all the beds are VERY firm! Watching television in China is interesting also. I was watching CNN and when a story about the Noble Peace Prize began, the station went blank. It seems the government censors any story about China that they don't like. The first time it happened I thought the TV had broken, but no, this is the way in China. I also find that access of sites through the Internet to be interesting. A site might be accessible one day and not the next. Two sites I use, Facebook and Twitter, are never allowed to be used.

In the evening we headed out for dinner and a performance by the Chinese Acrobats. Due to traffic, we missed dinner but did make it to the theater in plenty of time to see the acrobatic performance. Since we had no dinner, some of the group got their dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken while others visited the McDonalds across the street from the theater. I wanted neither and had a "warm coco" [better known as hot chocolate] from the theater concessions stand. The preference lasted about 80 minutes and was spectacular! We could not take pictures or videos during the show and unfortunately, they did not sell any DVD/videos of their show. That was too bad since I would have loved to have video to share with others.

Today is our professional day in Shanghai. We started out at the Shanghai Electronic Education Studio that is a subsidiary of the Shanghai Distance Education Group. They wanted to learn more about cloud computing and the use of e-books and we wanted to know more about their operation and what they were planning in the future. The discussions were very informative and the tour of their facility was interesting.
 * Thursday, 16 December 2010**

We went to lunch at the Silk Museum and Restaurant. There we learned about how silk is made and had a delicious lunch.

Loom used to weaving silk.

In the afternoon we took a brief trip to the YP Pao School, a private international school. The school is a primary school currently with grades 1 through 4, but they are adding a grade a year to sixth grade. Next year they are opening a secondary boarding school starting with a seventh grade class and adding one grade per year until they have all twelve grades.

We talked with the principal and a few teachers about using technology in teaching and learning. We then took a tour of the school and watched as the children worked in their classrooms. There was a great deal of technology used in the school along with lots of student interaction.

Student work at the YP Pao School.

We ended the day at the Bund, a section of river front that separates the old Shanghai with the new. All of the new Shanghai was built after 1992.

As we head out on our cultural day in Shanghai, the burning questions of the delegates where ever we go is, "What type of bathroom do we have access to?" "Is it eastern or western?" The national and local guides have done their best to make sure we have western toilets [like we have in the U.S.] but it is not always possible. So, squat toilets need to be used sometimes. I must admit, they are not as difficult to use as I thought they would be, because, when you have to go, you have to go! The real problem with either type of toilet, is sometimes there is not toilet paper in the restroom! Everyone carries tissues, just in case.
 * Friday, 17 December 2010**

I've really enjoyed meeting the Chinese people and have learned much from them. I hope they also learned from me. In the west, we are fed a very different picture of China than you experience here! While there is censorship, I find the people a free to talk about a variety of topics including being critical of their government. They are also free to worship any religion they want [except Communist Party members would cannot practice religion of any kind]. I find the Chinese people very friendly and respectful and very interested in talking with us. They are a proud people who take great pride in what there country has accomplished since opening up to the rest of the world.

We are now back from our cultural day and a busy and interesting day's travels. We started at the Shanghai Museum where there is a huge collection of Chinese historical artifacts. The Shanghai Museum is one of the finest museums in the world. Each person got an audio guide in English to learn more about the various exhibits. Each section of the museum was devoted to one aspect of Chinese history. They included Jade, furniture, money, dress, bronze, art work, signature stamps, and pottery. I loved the furniture and art work sections. They have paintings that date back 1500+ years. It is clear they never used acid paper like in the west.

From there we went to the Shanghai General Silk Rug Factory and saw how they make silk rugs by hand. We saw them working on a 5 by 7 foot rug that will take 13 months to make with two workers each putting in 8 hours a day [total of 16 hours work a day]. The rug costs just $2,800 which includes shipping and insurance to the U.S. We were told that they can do this because their workers make only about $150 a month.

Chinese worker tying knots while making a silk on silk rug.

We also had lunch at the Qiandao Mongolian BBQ Restaurant on the first floor of the rug factory. It was just like the Mongolian BBQ restaurants in the U.S. Load up a bowl with stuff, it gets cooked on the large round grills, and you eat.

In the afternoon we went to the Yu Garden in Old Town. The garden was beautiful and we learned about the history of those who constructed it. I also found a kitty cow [you had to know Elmer to understand this] to scratch; just an old guy laying in the sun. He was very appreciative of the attention! I didn't see many pets at all here. A few dogs and even fewer cats.

Friendly cat at the Yu Garden in Old Town, Shanghai.

On our way back to the bus we were given 45 minutes to shop in Old Town. Lots of small shops and really pushy street vendors. One dollar, cheap cheap! I bought nothing since I can buy Chinese junk in the states and not have someone hanging on my arm. So, a group of us went to the local Starbucks and waited for the group to reassemble to go to the bus. I had a small hot chocolate.

Yes, Starbucks is everywhere!

Shanghai is also a magnet for many western companies and stores. On our way to one of our destinations, we saw an IKEA and our guide said it is very popular, not for their furniture, but for their selection of cookware. She also said that people also go there for the Swedish meatballs!

Go to IKEA for cookware and Swedish meatballs!

I'm back at the hotel now and in 15 minutes we will meet to have a discussion of what we saw and learned on the trip. Then, an hour later, we are off to our farewell dinner at the Bund Riverside Hotel. Tomorrow, our long flight back to San Francisco.

The table at our farewell dinner in Shanghai.

Eating in China. Lots of food but not always lots of protein so the protein bars I packed came in handy! When you eat in China, you get two glasses of "soft drinks" as part of the cost of the meal. So, there was always Coke and Sprite, but no Diet Coke unless you paid extra. At only one place was the choice Pepsi and 7 Up. You could also have bottled water for your drink and you needed to see them pour it from a bottle since you don't want to drink tap water here. All of that is pretty normal, but the surprising thing was that included in their list of "soft drinks," is beer. Local beer is considered a free soft drink so many of the delegates had lots of beer with their meals.

Well, this is my last post from China. We head to the airport soon as our great adventure come to an end. I'll be updating this wiki with additional images, videos, and links once I get back home.
 * Saturday, 18 December 2010**

The flight back was on a 747 jet and none of the electronics in the seat [light, headset, attendant call button, volume] worked. The flight only lasted 11 hours. Once in San Francisco, I had a 7 hour lay over and two additional flights, one from San Francisco to Minneapolis and a second from Minneapolis to Detroit. Luckily, my youngest son was at Detroit Metro Airport to pick me up and take me to his house to get some sleep before driving back to Mount Pleasant. My total time awake was 31 hours and I was bushed!

After sleeping from 2:30 am to 11:00 am, I drove home. It was marvelous to be home and see Kathy and the cats again and the end of my Chinese adventure.
 * Sunday, 19 December 2010**

Now that I am back and have almost recovered from jet lag, I wanted to reflect on my experiences. This was truly an opportunity of a lifetime! Through a partnership between People to People and ISTE, all the delegates had an unique opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas on the uses of educational technology with other educators and visit a number of cultural sites and experience the Chinese people.
 * Final Thoughts**

In a variety of educational settings, I found the Chinese and American educational systems have much in common. Both have "have" and "have not" schools; both struggle with how to best use the technology to help students learn; both want the teachers to use the technology with students more; both want their students to do more critical thinking and less memorizing; both deal with appropriate and inappropriate web sites and filtering content and both struggle with having to "teach to the test."

In the Chinese system, however, students are only required to attend school until 9th grade and then pay to attend high school [grades 10 through 12]. While in many states in the U.S., students may drop out of school at 16-years-old, if they continue, that do not need to pay for their high school education. Class sizes in the Chinese classrooms tend to be much larger than in U.S. schools with average class sizes in China standing at 45 to 50 students [for each teacher]. However, in most Chinese schools, teachers only teach 2 or 3 class periods a day, with students usually attending school for 7 periods a day.

Similarly, those in higher education voiced the same issues faced in U.S. colleges and universities. I found that they are not sure how to encourage their teachers to use technology; how to get students to use more technology for learning; and how to get their students to learn and practice critical thinking rather than just memorizing facts.

In higher education, however, the Chinese must deal with significant Internet censorship by the government which limits the tools that teachers and students may use. For instance, both Facebook and Twitter are banned in China so they cannot be used anywhere in the country. Different educational sites may be censored at any time by the Chinese government for any reason government officials deems.

During our meetings with various university faculty and administrators, I feel I have various contacts with like-minded individuals who are interested in research activities and exchange programs. Some of these contacts involve preparing future and current teachers and some just involving using technology to help all college students learn. I also found a number of opportunities for our students to participate in service learning with schools in China.

Finally, I found the Chinese people to be warm and friendly who were just as curious about us as we were about them. The people liked to have their pictures taken with us, especially those of us who are tall or with blonde women, or with the African Americans in our group. Since I am tall, I had a number of people measure themselves against me and comment on how tall I was. We were also told that many in China see blonde women as "movie stars" and want their picture taken to show their friends. We also found that when we took group pictures at a tourist attraction, someone else was taking a picture and would run off and print the image and reappear trying to sell the picture to us. Even though China is communist, they have mastered the principles of capitalism without rival!

This trip also reaffirmed my belief in humanity and how most people just want to live the best life they can and raise their children helping them to a better life! The Chinese people have a number of freedoms that I didn't think they had, including freedom of religion [unless they are Communist Party members], the right, within limits, to criticize their government, and the right to free movement within China. However, there are very strict limitations on information that can be accessed in the country since the communist government controls the media. For instance, most people in China know little or nothing about the Tian An Square uprising. The government controls the media so if an international news source airs a story that the Chinese government doesn't want aired, they simply black out the radio or television signal.

I encourage anyone interested in the world to take advantage of a similar opportunity if one becomes available. People to People Ambassador programs are available for adults and students for travel to spots around the world. This was a great experience!

William L. Merrill, Ph.D. Central Michigan University

I took about 1,000 images and a number of videos while on my trip. I posted about 100 per city on Flickr and you can access them through the links below: Beijing: @http://www.flickr.com/photos/merri1w/sets/72157625526896015/ Xi'an: @http://www.flickr.com/photos/merri1w/sets/72157625652675698/ Shanghai: @http://www.flickr.com/photos/merri1w/sets/72157625527314297/
 * Trip Media:**