Dr. Mary Cullinan

I was in China only once before, for three weeks in 2006, but I can see significant changes in the two cities I visited on both trips, Shanghai and Beijing. Of course, construction projects continue on a gargantuan scale—whole neighborhoods reduced to rubble, skyscraper apartment buildings, multinational corporate buildings, and hotels rising everywhere.

One striking change from 2006 is the way in which roads and highways have improved. Four years ago in Shanghai, I stood paralyzed at intersections while six lanes of bicycles, scooters, and motorized vehicles streamed by with no provisions made for pedestrians. Taking pity on me, but also laughing, Chinese pedestrians would hold my elbow and guide me, lane by lane, as traffic swirled around us. Terrifying!

This year, I could see that thousands of intersections have been upgraded in these gigantic cities. On the highways, too, directional signs and well-marked lanes have greatly improved chaotic, overburdened roadways.

Even on more rural highways, bicycles laden with food and construction materials are quickly giving way to (heavily laden) motor scooters and small trucks.

More and more bathrooms are now Westernized—and, even in more rural areas, residents seem used to seeing Westerners.

One truly striking change I can see is that the Chinese young people are growing. I can no longer see over the heads of a crowd. Many young city dwellers now cast their elders in shadow. I saw a team of female basketball players visiting the Shaolin Temple when we were there. They weren’t as tall as Yao Ming—but they towered at least eight inches over me.  Changes in the national diet are affecting the Chinese populace as much as the modernization all around them.

One area that hasn’t changed is the air quality. Grey pollution still hangs grimly over the cities and even the countryside. Coal remains the fuel of choice—and millions of cars are replacing bicycles.

If I return to China four years from now, I hope to see major changes in the environmental quality as well as all the other areas China has tackled in its tremendous push into the 21^st Century.

The full Oregon delegation to China

On Friday, we left the Fuzhou hotel at 6 AM to head to the airport. Our delegation split up today as the legislators had a meeting with delegation member Bob Cockell, and the remaining five of us headed to Hong Kong so we could fly home on Saturday.

The Hong Kong airport is on an island many miles from downtown, so we are staying out by the airport. When you get off the plane in Hong Kong, you can feel that this is a different place from mainland China—more cosmopolitan and, unsurprisingly, with a strong British influence.

As we had only a few hours to spend here, Irene Kai and I traveled on a spectacular tram up to a temple and giant Buddha sitting high on a mountain. The tram ride, lasting half an hour, takes you over lush mountains and wild waterways—and provides stunning views of the Hong Kong harbor.

The destination is an unusual blend of commercialism and spirituality—with shops and restaurants as well as Buddhist statues. The Buddha himself is tremendous. Irene and I climbed many steps to see him. He was definitely worth the visit. Again, my camera can only hint at his size and grand presence overlooking the region.

Upon return to the hotel, I began making the transition to home. No Chinese banquet tonight—just some soup and a good night’s rest!

I pause in my descriptions of our activities in China to record a few amenities we’ve encountered in Chinese hotels. As a frequent hotel resident, I can attest that American hotels just don’t provide the same level of service for tired travelers. I was particularly struck by this last night when I returned at 11 PM, weary from a very full day, to find that the “turn down service” at the Xiamen Yeohwa Hotel included sprinkling rose petals on the sink and bathroom floor. The lovely smell made me smile, tired as I was.

Of course, many American hotels don’t provide a “turn down service” of any kind. The service we’ve had in China includes not only turning back your bedcovers but also putting out your hotel-provided slippers and robe.

Other hotel amenities:

• Apples in the room
• A “magic kettle” that boils water in less than a minute
• Porcelain tea service and nice quality tea
• Friendly and polite staff who not only provide directions in these large hotels but walk with you to your destination.

On the one day I had time to use the hotel health club, the assistant brought me water and a towel and insisted on helping me program the treadmill. Actually, I needed help, as it turned out. She asked me for my weight and looked shocked when I told her—then she told me the machine wanted my weight in kilos—not a number I carry in my head. She, of course, knew how to make the conversion.

I don’t need to be pampered—but I do think American and even European hotels could learn a little about hospitality from the Chinese.

The long relationship between Oregon and Fujian Province helped to make this part of our travels particularly successful. In Xiamen, Representative Richardson was named an honorary citizen of the province, and in Fuxhou, we were welcomed by people from the Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) who have known him for a number of years.

View from the bullet train.

Thursday (September 9) we took the bullet train from Xiamen to Fuzhou—enjoying quiet, rapid progress between cities in individual coaches set up to be sleeper cars. The FAO in Xiamen had even arranged to have our luggage transported separately by bus so we wouldn’t have to deal with it on the train. (I took pictures of the industrial and residential areas of Fujian Province from the train, but the perpetual grey skies make it hard to get a good photo.)

With the assistance of Meiwen Richards back in Ashland, I was able to meet with Fuzhou leaders from the Chamber of Commerce, who introduced me to a number of people interested in education, particularly higher education.

The highlight of the day was the official signing of an agreement between Fujian Normal University and SOU. Representative Richardson and I were welcomed warmly by university administrators. Fujian Normal University has grown over a hundred years from a teachers’ college to an extensive university with 40,000 students and a wide array of undergraduate and graduate programs at the master’s and doctoral level. They have partnerships with other universities, but we are the first partner from the U.S.—and again the relationship between Oregon and Fujian Province is significant. I am hopeful this relationship will prove fruitful for SOU.

This was a very successful day!

(Wednesday, September 8) After the long day at our CIFIT booth, the Fujian Province Foreign Affairs Office hosted our delegation at a lovely banquet and then transported us to a fireworks event celebrating the first day of this highly significant investment and trade show for Xiamen and for Fujian Province.

From the bus, we walked in the tropical evening through a park decorated by lanterns and brilliantly lit city skyscrapers to an enormous amphitheatre.

“Fireworks” doesn’t really begin to describe the event. Yes, there were fireworks—fireworks considerably more spectacular than any July 4^th fireworks we see in the U.S. (and I’ve attended the ones in Washington, D.C., which are pretty darn spectacular). But this event, titled “The World in Jubilation,” used stunning fireworks as a backdrop to even more dazzling celebrations on stage and screen—with enormous screens that moved back and forth as needed.

Singers, dancers, gymnasts, musicians—all performed in sync with music, with dramatic video on the huge screens, and with fireworks complementing the performances. Performers included singers well-known in China from Broadway and opera around the world.

The jaw-dropping event, which lasted over 90 minutes, ended with a dramatic rendition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and, of course, sensational fireworks. I’m sorry my camera can’t capture the illusions created by the multimedia performances. In my photos, though, you can see the golden key, which is the symbol of CIFIT—and of China’s announcement to the world that it is a key player in the world’s economy.

Interestingly for us visitors, one of the themes of this event was bridges—China’s interest in bridging to countries around the world, but particularly to Taiwan, sitting just a few miles across the water from mainland China.

President Cullinan and Representative Richardson at the opening of CIFIT

Thursday (September 9). CIFIT is China’s largest investment fair. Our delegation arrived in time for the opening ceremonies, which included Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, representatives from the UN, and other dignitaries speaking to the crowd, emphasizing China’s economic growth, and urging foreign investment in China. (According to a UN report released at CIFIT, China is the largest destination in the world for foreign direct investment.)

The booth that SOU shared with Bill Dunn’s Oregon company was modest amid the splashy and aggressive marketing being done all around us. However, SOU’s International Director Gary Miller and I visited with a constant flow of visitors all day long.

We shared business cards, gave away SOU brochures in Chinese, and had our pictures taken with dozens of interested people—from agents wanting to place students abroad to business people with family members interested in studying in the US to representatives from the U.S. Department of Commerce stationed in China. Plus, we met some American students studying in China who enthusiastically offered to assist SOU in our internationalizing efforts.

It was an exhausting day, but one that could well lead to interesting and productive collaborations for SOU.

Xiamen is a beautiful coastal city. The Oregon delegation is here for two days to attend the 14th annual China Investment Fair for Investment and Trade (known as CIFIT). SOU is sharing a booth with delegation member Bill Dunn, who represents his grass seed company (Oregon is considered the “grass seed capital of the world”).

CIFIT is an enormous operation. Like the World Expo, this event highlights China’s tremendous strength as an economic power, but it also emphasizes the individual economic strength of Fujian Province and the city of Xiamen. Xiamen is clearly positioning itself as a rival to Taiwan, which lies just across the straits.

While others toured on Tuesday (September 7) Bill and I traveled to the conference center with our trusty translator assistants—two student volunteers from Xiamen University. (CIFIT and the local Foreign Affairs Office are using hundreds of students as volunteers for this event.) Our two students, Li (majoring in Artificial Intelligence) and Frank (majoring in English) worked very hard for us to overcome all obstacles as we set up our booth—setting up a TV and DVD player, acquiring a second table, and so on.

We could see, even on this day before CIFIT had opened, that many booths were spectacular—some five times larger than ours with huge screens, ten-foot high posters, and multimedia presentations. Our booth was humble. But we’d been given a good position in the enormous trade show building—right across the aisle from the booths set up by Iceland and by Lithuania. All photos M. Cullinan.

This is our last day in Beijing, and it has been packed with meetings. We first visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where we discussed trade, visas, and delicate political issues between our two countries. The Minister was also meeting today with a delegation from D.C. that included Larry Summers (who is staying in our hotel).

Toward the end of the afternoon, we met with representatives from the Police Aviation Administration Office, Ministry of Public Security, to discuss possible helicopter training opportunities with Ashland-based Air Rescue Systems.

The meeting of greatest interest to me was at lunch, where we met with heads of the Hanban, the Office of Chinese Language Council International. To promote the teaching of Mandarin language, this office chooses and maintains Confucius Classrooms and Confucius Institutes all over the world. St. Mary’s High School was one of the first Confucius Classrooms in the U.S.

As we have worked closely with St. Mary’s, I am very interested in SOU having a Confucius Institute on our campus similar to those at PSU and the University of Oregon. The conversation at lunch indicated there may be a possibility for SOU. We will need to follow up upon returning to Oregon.

Tonight the Foreign Affairs Office is hosting a banquet for our delegation. After a few hours of sleep, we will meet in the lobby at 5:30 AM to fly to the coastal port of Xiamen.

I always love to read local newspapers. (Of course, now you can read many of them online when you’re home, but seeing them in their home country is a different experience somehow.) Here at the Raffles Beijing Hotel, the English-language China Daily comes to our door every morning.

These are some top stories this weekend:

• Another monster traffic jam has hit the Beijing-Tibet Highway. A jam that started August 14 lasted nine days and extended 100 kilometers (62 miles). This past Friday another jam built up with about 10,000 trucks affected over 120 kilometers (75 miles). Many carrying coal from Inner Mongolia, the trucks are getting stuck at a poorly planned intersection of four highways.
• This year’s crop of matsutake mushrooms in China’s Yunnan province is late this year—but now the highly valued mushrooms are beginning to arrive. (From the photo in the newspaper, I can see that matsutake are among the wonderful treats I’ve been enjoying on this trip but didn’t recognize.)
• A major scandal has hit international cricket, with three of Pakistan’s best players accused of “spot-fixing.” This isn’t the same as throwing a match. Because cricket moves slowly, gamblers bet on individual plays—and these players are accused of fixing particular plays. The paper reports that the Pakistan players, if found guilty, could face anything from life bans to execution in Pakistan for treason.
• Cuba’s Fidel Castro has recovered from a long-term severe illness and is feeling “revived.” He is walking a bit without crutches and attended a dolphin show at the National Aquarium last week.

For our own bit of news: we’ve been told that President Carter is also staying at the Raffles Beijing Hotel this week. I haven’t yet run into him in the elevator.

Photo: M.Cullinan

On Saturday evening, our delegation member Gabriela Ferrari introduced us to her Beijing-based Nike colleagues, Patrick Wang and Stephen Yuan. Patrick attended Lewis and Clark and then Columbia, while Stephen received his MBA from the University of London. We visited the Nike flagship store on a major shopping street near our hotel, and then they hosted us at a dinner.

The Nike store we visited is extensive—three floors, all bustling with customers at 6 PM on Saturday—but it is only one of over 300 Nike stores in Beijing. There are more than 4,000 Nike stores in China.

Our dinner was held in a private room of a lovely restaurant famous for roast duck: the Quan Ju De Wang Fu Jing Roast Duck Restaurant. (I can now add stewed whelk and stir-fried weever to the array of taste sensations I’ve experienced in the past four days.) The highlight of the meal occurs when a chef brings in a beautifully browned roast duck and carves it in front of the guests.

China is the second-largest market for Nike, after the U.S. Patrick spoke to us about the ways in which factory production is handled, including issues of worker salaries and benefits, the relationships Nike has with partners who run Nike stores, and the rapidly growing markets in countries such as Vietnam. Our legislators and the Nike folks touched on a few of the complex and delicate political issues surrounding this major global enterprise—an enterprise that is also a major contributor to Oregon’s economy. Our discussion of visas raised issues that exchange students and universities as well as businesses continue to find challenging.

The duck was sensational!

A basic assortment of dim sum. Photo: Dragon City

I need to report on the amazing food this delegation has enjoyed since arriving here. We’ve been feasted at lunches and dinners. Each meal has a multitude of dishes so different from anything one encounters in U.S. Chinese restaurants (we’ve had no rice at all since we arrived, for instance) and each filled with foods and flavors we’ve never encountered outside of China.

The dishes circulate around the table on large Lazy Susans, and you pluck off what you want to eat with your chop sticks as the selections go by.

In Shanghai, our leader Steven Ying took some of us to a huge, multi-story mall packed with stalls serving everything from sushi to hot pots you cook yourself. Four of us ordered two enormous bowls of mixed vegetables, fish, and chicken in spicy sauces and had quite a feast. (Our plan was to walk afterwards in the Bund, the Shanghai commercial area near the river, but the typhoon made walking less than appealing, so we had to head back to the hotel on the subway after all that food!)

For the record: in the last three days, I’ve sampled sea cucumber in millet soup, steamed yellow croaker, jellyfish, ginko berries, dragon fruit, pig’s tail, bamboo, tiny fried fish that you eat whole in one bite, many types of fungus, regional greens, marinated garlic, lotus root, veal spare ribs, durian fruit, soup with ginseng, thumbnail-size vegetables that taste like sweet potatoes, a sweet beverage made from dates—and many more items I can’t identify. The seasonings run the gamut from sweet to sour and very spicy, and the food explodes with flavor.

Tonight (Saturday) we attend a banquet hosted by Nike, so I’m eating very sparingly today!

Photo courtesy of Flickr. Click for link and information.

On Friday (September 3), the Oregon delegation spent time touring the Longmen Caves and the Shaolin Temple before heading to the Zhengzhou Airport and our flight to Beijing. The grottoes were carved, mostly in the 400’s AD, into the rocky cliffs that run along the Yi River (a tributary of the Yellow River). Each grotto features Buddhist statues—thousands of them. There are over 2,000 grottoes and over 100,000 statues. Sadly, many of the statues were defaced over the centuries during wars and uprisings, including the Cultural Revolution.

I enjoyed speaking with our guide for the caves, a young woman who majored in English literature in China and then attended Queen’s University in Belfast for her Master’s degree. She flooded me enthusiastically with details about many of the Buddhas and heavenly guards we were seeing—I wish I could have recorded all her information.

After the caves, our group headed to the Shaolin Temple in a mountainous area of Henan Province. Founded in the Fifth Century AD, the temple is actually a huge complex of buildings focused on Buddhist worship and scripture—but also on martial arts. Surrounding the Temple for miles around are king fu schools. We attended a demonstration of kung fu—seeing the astonishing ways in which the human body can move given years of intense training—and then toured a small part of the impressive temple complex.

I particularly enjoyed the bus rides today as we traveled several hours through the countryside of Henan Province. We saw smaller cities, mountains, reservoirs, miles of agriculture—corn and other crops—as well as farm animals. Much of the highway was new and smoothly paved, but we did glimpse the older, rural China. The small shops and the rough roads—bicycles precariously piled with everything from mattresses and food to building materials—probably won’t be part of the Chinese landscape for much longer.

The Main Gate of Zhengzhou University. Photo: CUCAS (www.cucas.edu.cn)

I was sorry to leave the JinJaing Hotel, but we had to board the bus at 6:30 AM to catch our flight to Zhengzhou. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed, so our plans for the day had to be greatly compressed. (There were mechanical issues with the plane, so they changed to a different type of aircraft—and then apparently had no pilot available for that aircraft.)

Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, is not as cosmopolitan as Shanghai. They’re tearing down large areas of the city and modernizing, but you can still see traces of the older China. The skies seem to be permanently grey: huge coal plants supply power to the region.

We were met by the Director General of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Henan Provincial People’s Government and were feasted at a lovely luncheon with many courses. Then we visited Zhengzhou University, where we exchanged courtesies with university officials. We met Representative Richardson’s daughter and son-in-law, who are studying Chinese language and culture at the university for the year. I was also delighted to meet with John Siu, who has worked with St. Mary’s High School and SOU in providing Mandarin instruction through the Confucius Classroom.

This vast university campus is one of three ZZ University campuses. This campus has housing and classroom/laboratory space for its 40,000 students and the faculty and staff. A hill, wooded area, and lake—all put in when the campus was built—create some beauty on the very new campus.

As we’ve made several visits to this university and are increasing our connections with them, I’m hopeful we will develop some interesting partnerships over time.

Photo - AP

September 1. A typhoon is blowing through Shanghai. The rain pours down in wet sheets—hot, tropical sheets. Then suddenly the sun emerges for a while, and the day is hot, muggy, with a touch of blue sky.

I’m here with a small group: four legislators and a handful of business people. We are the 2010 Oregon Legislative and Business Trade Delegation to China.

I arrived at night on August 31, seeing the city at night as the taxi headed to the hotel from the Pudong Airport. I had been here in 2006 and saw again how the city pulsates with colors at night: the bridges and skyscrapers all have their own light shows in vivid pinks, blues, yellows, and greens. We are staying at the JinJiang Hotel, where Nixon stayed when he made his historic trip to China.

Today we visited the Expo, which covers many acres in Shanghai, with hundreds of pavilions sponsored by countries and companies. The China Pavilion is spectacular. Half a million people per day go through the Expo, often waiting 2-3 hours in line to get into pavilions. (We are VIPs and were escorted in through special entrances.) I was pleased to meet a young man who works at the American Pavilion; he’s from Bend, Oregon, and offered to put me in contact with some universities interested in partnering with U.S. universities.

In the morning, we get up early and head to Zhengzhou.

The city of Xiamen as seen from the harbor

Two weeks ago I received a call from Representative Dennis Richardson. He is organizing an Oregon Legislative and Business Trade Delegation to China and wanted to ensure that I had an opportunity to participate and represent SOU. Representative Richardson has actively pursued Oregon-China partnerships for a number of years and is very supportive of SOU’s efforts to foster student exchanges and collaborations with China.

When I saw the cities the delegation was visiting, I realized that I could follow up on connections already established by our International Director Gary Miller, Provost Jim Klein, and Dean of Business Raj Parikh. Moreover, I would be traveling with legislators and business leaders who could help us make further connections with schools, universities, and government officials in China.

So I will be in China from August 31 through September 11. My trip will overlap with Gary Miller’s itinerary; he will meet with numerous individuals from high schools and universities, and he will present information about higher education and SOU at a large event at the Chinese International Fair for Investment and Trade in Xiamen, a coastal port in Fujian province. SOU will also host a booth at the fair.

I’ll do my best to send updates from China!