Category: China

At 7 a.m. we headed to the train station which was very modern and clean. We traveled about 190 miles per hour. It took about six hours for the trip to Shanghai. Shanghai is very different from Beijing.  It looks more like a European city.  That is because the English, French, and…

Arts District Today we toured the Arts District. Mr. Wong picked us up to go there. Artists congregated there during the Cultural Revolution. It is a sprawling community of contemporary galleries, studios, cafes, and shops housed inside unique, Bauhaus-inspired decommissioned military and electronics factories from the 1950s The art is all Modern, and…

Everyone goes to the park on Sunday morning.  We were no exception.  After breakfast we headed to Jingshan Park. The park is a historic, 57-acre imperial park located directly north of the Forbidden City. It was originally an imperial garden for the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties and served as the backyard to the Forbidden…

The Great Wall Today was the Great Wall Day. The Great Wall of China is the largest man-made architectural project in the world, stretching over 13,171 miles across 15 northern Chinese provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. Designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, this immense system of fortifications winding over mountains and deserts…

While I had traveled some to this point, it was the trip to China that awakened my desire to see the world.  Over spring break, I went with some students and other faculty to Beijing and Shanghai.  We arrived after a long 14-hour overnight flight to hot, humid, smoggy Beijing.  We were met…