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I have never appreciated clean air and unpolluted water more than I do having just returned from China. We live in a very favored land.

Our educator trip to China has been a huge success. We have come away with a much stronger appreciation of our need to be knowledgeable about that country and to realize that they are open to relationships to the west much more so than may have been true in the past. Although it is clear that the general populace still reveres their Chairman Mao they are open to modern American connections and are personally quite positive toward visitors.

I'm sorry that my hope to blog daily was frustrated by the failure of my laptop to connect for whatever reason. Now that we are back we will look forward to organizing our pictures into a presentation that we will be able to share with groups and individuals in the Waconia area. Thanks for your attention, and I look forward to talking more about China as the opportunities present themselves.

Half Way Through

I have been unable to get onto my mail site from work so I have been unable to write to anybody. We are all well and are finishing our second day in Hongzhou. It is a city of 6 million and is famous for silk, rice, and fish. They are in the process of trying to make it a tourist area but the traffic problem will certainly fight against it. Tomorrow we go to the Tea museum here and then fly back to Beijing. The weather has been hot and humid making each activity much more draining. We sweat through our clothes in the first half hour and then walk around wet for the rest of the day.

They have been treating us like kings, pulling out all the stops to make sure that we are welcome and have a positive impression. This hosting of Americans is a huge and expensive effort being made by their government through Honban and the College Board. One gets the sense that they have their agenda and we have ours and while we are always sure to be polite and appreciative, many of us have expressed the hope that our visit can result in positives for kids and not just kudos for the establishment. We travel with the constant presence of Mr. Hu, a government official that takes great pains to count us as we arrive at and leave places.

Our meetings with the educational officials on Friday and tours of the school sites were very informative but their principals seemed to be under a lot of pressure to establish relationships with us. Mark was talking nicely to one high school principal who wanted to know if we were ready to exchange teachers with him this fall. When Mark answered that we were not at that point, the Chinese principal lost interest in a hurry. We are looking at and meeting their very best, which is sobering for their kids.

I have gained a great appreciation for what it means to be an outsider in a culture. It is exhausting as you are always trying with everything you have to cope with the new and mysterious experiences. We walked along a lake shore today and I saw a lot of Chinese dogs and people doing their exercises by the thousands. And this was at 5:30 AM. One pale poodle was pretty interesting. I am getting the hang of chop sticks and it is a good thing since they are the tools to use here.

China is so different I am not sure I would ever be able to explain it if anybody was willing to listen to me try. China town in San Francisco is unique and exotic. China is completely overwhelming. When Marco Polo returned home to Italy after his visit to China his countrymen referred to him derisively as "Millions" Polo, since everything he had to say about China involved the reference to millions of people and millions of dollars of wealth. They could not credit his report since it was so completely outside their frame of reference and experience. I feel the same way and the millions has now become billions.

Hope all is well at home. We leave China on Tuesday, here, which is Monday there, and arrive in DC on Tuesday there. We stay overnight in Virginia near the airport and then fly on to MSP. I will be able to talk to you from DC.

We're in China

I have had a horrible time getting on line and then getting the blog site to work. That still is not working but I was able to get onto the email as you can see.

We arrived, after the world's longest flight. We traveled straight north from Washington DC and ended up going almost directly over the north pole on our way. The total trip exceed 7000 miles. After arriving in Beijing, we found that they are taking the swine flu very seriously as they sent medical personnel onto the plane to scope our temperatures. Once we were released from that, we passed through at least two more temperature sensing zones going to our baggage.

Once through the airport challenges we meet our tour guides and were taken by coach bus to the hotel. Our rooms are great but everything is so unfamiliar that is has been challenging.

Beijing is hot, hot, hot! Today we toured the Forbidden City in the morning so we could take advantage of the cooler temperatures. After lunch, we dressed up and went to Hanban University, one of the sponsors of our trip. A few speeches were made and we toured the University. By the time we finished there, we drove (we could have walked faster) through the worst possible traffic jams to the Great Hall of the People where we were welcomed by government officials and student performers. The Great Hall accommodates 5000 for dinner so our 400 fit right in. By now we were all feeling the heat of the day (102 degrees F). The dinner was a very well prepared Chinese banquet served family style. Back to the hotel by 10:00 PM and the weather had cooled to the mid 80's.

Beijing is huge. 17 million people live in the city compared to the six million or so that live in all of Minnesota. It is hard to imagine how they will get a handle on their problem of traffic and spoilation of the environment. The government here is making a huge effort to establish Chinese language programs around the globe and they were very proud of the Confucius Institutes in each region of the globe. The Beijingers who have served as our hosts have been wonderful and very sincere. Kids here seem younger than their years compared to US kids. High schoolers seem like middle schoolers in their ways.

Tomorrow morning we tour Beijing University, another interested party in the movement and then we fly to Hangzhou (two hours by plane) for three days in that location before returning to Beijing. We are all well and are learning a lot about the culture.

Christian, if you could see what you could do to get part of this on the blog site, that would be great. I pressed the SPOT device several times over the last few days most recently in Tianamen Square. You know my email address and my password is Simon1397. Between Mark and myself, we have taken hundreds of picture so a slide show is in the offing.

We'll be in touch soon, again. -PG

Anticipation Builds

Greetings,

Well, my appointment at the travel medical clinic has been accomplished and I am shot up and provided with pills against all anticipated ailments as I travel to China. My paperwork is in order and my selected wardrobe for the trip is spread out on the bed in the guest bedroom waiting to be packed carefully away in the chosen suitcase. I am reading everything I can get my hands on that that would seem to offer some information that might come in handy as I seek to be a respectful guest in a foreign land. Some items of interest include the following:

• It is rude to clean your plate in China. It would imply that the amount of food was insufficient and be insulting to the host.
• When handing something (a business card or a gift) to a person in China, it should be held out toward the person with both hands. Using a single extended hand would be too casual and would be insulting to the person receiving the gift.
• People you meet in China in a business capacity should always be referred to by their title and their last name each time they are addressed as in, "Yes, it is a lovely day, School Superintendent, Chang."
• Countries of origin are personalized in Chinese as in "My United States of America," or, "Your China." This tends to make comments regarding features of the country...good roads....rainy weather....personal to the person hearing the comment.
  

I am very appreciative of the efforts of Hanban University in Beijing in providing me with the opportunity to visit their country and I do hope to be a respectful and appreciative guest.

We are informed that we will be staying in the Hotel Beijing for the days that we are in Beijing. Their web site follows if you would care to see the facilities with which we are being provided:

http://www.chinabeijinghotel.com.cn/en/sport.html

Again, I am filled with appreciation.

You will hear from us next as we are on the trip. Thanks for following our adventure.

Who'd a Thunk It?

Life takes strange turns. I would never, in my wildest imaginings, have predicted that I would be traveling to China with anticipation and excitement.

Hi, I'm Peter Gustafson the Principal of Clearwater Middle School in Waconia, Minnesota. Last summer our school district welcomed a new Superintendent, Dr. Nancy Rajanen. She has a strong interest in international relations and has traveled extensively as an educational consultant.

Coincident with that, our community was surveyed to identify its areas of interest for future educational programing. Loud and clear came the response: foreign language and culture. The stars were aligning.

Dr. Rajanen encouraged us Principals to note that an educator's trip to China was being sponsored and paid for by the College Board and Hanban University. She thought we should apply.

Three of the five Principals of District 110 applied thinking that we might have one of our applications approved. Imagine our surprise when we learned that all three of us were invited to participate.

Therefore, in June of 2009, Principal Mark Fredericksen of Waconia High School and Principal Khuzana DeVaan of Southview Elementary School and I, together with 397 other American school administrators will be winging our way to the other side of the world for a six day educators' conference in Beijing.

In order to get the most out of our trip, we are inviting you to take the trip with us via technology. A good start has been made on a web site where we will be posting daily updates including pictures as well as our impressions. This blog will continue to be posted while we are on the trip and we will be encouraging those who know us to follow our travels using the SPOT technology of GoogleEarth.

We hope to establish a strong and informative relationship with schools in China. We anticipate sharing our adventure with all District 110 students and we hope to significantly increase their awareness of and interest in China as a human culture.

Thanks for your interest. We invite you to stay tuned for further information.