Welcome

Dear friends and family of Northeastern University's 2011 Summer I language-intensive Dialogue of Civilizations in China,

It will be exactly a week before we start our six-week adventure in China! It will be a very intense and demanding program, from which students will rightly earn their two-course worth of credits. The program is packed with language classes, cultural activities, homestay, internship, and dialogues with a diverse group of Chinese from peer students to the movers and shakers of China. We will witness first-hand how China's environment, culture, economy and politics in both urban and rural areas are being affected by its fast progress.

Based in Nanjing, we will travel to three major cities and one rural village in China. The trip will start from Beijing, the last imperial capital, filled with landmarks both ancient and modern. We will explore the city and experience its unique culture, speaking with various NGOS and developers about the issues of development and environment, culture preservation in the face of ever-increasing urbanization.

We then move south to Nanjing, an ancient imperial capital, base of the Nationalist government, site of the Nanking Massacre, and now at the forefront of China’s transition toward global power. Here we will settle into student life at Nanjing University, one of the country’s premier Sino-Anglo exchange institutions. While in Nanjing, each student will stay with a Chinese family for a week, and intern at a Chinese company for 30-40 hours, on top of their daily routine of four-hour language classes at Nanjing University in the morning.

After the midterm at the end of the second week in Nanjing, we will retreat for a long weekend to Huang Cun, a small rural village 250 miles southwest of Shanghai, home of the Yin Yu Tang at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Here, the students will stay in a well-preserved home built by wealthy merchants of previous centuries, and experience a real rural lifestyle by interacting with the local villagers, artisans, and children.

After completing our final program at Nanjing University, we will relocate to Shanghai, where the 2010 World Expo took place. Here, at the pinnacle of China’s economic progress, we will visit landmarks, tour multinational corporates and small companies run by Chinese and expatriates, and meet with businesspeople, educators, architects and artists to get a feel for what the future of the city and indeed the country might look like.

This year's Dialogue team comprises 21 undergradutes of varying majors, academic years, and levels of Chinese proficiency. I will be aided by a graduate assistant, Andrew, who will take charge most of the daily entries of this blog. This is going to be my 5th trip as a Dialogue leader to China. Each year brings its own unique highlights and memories, and I am sure this year will add another amazing experience to us all involved.

This blog will serve as a window into the world of your Dialoguer when, as so frequently happens, they "forget" or are unable to contact you themselves. Here we will do our best to keep you up to date on where we are, what we're doing, and why, hopefully with at least a few pictures and contributions from the students themselves. I also encourage you to check out the day-to-day blog from last year, penned mostly by my most wonderful, three-time TA, Alex, who is now serving as a Peace Corps member in a remote area in northwest China. You can also view some of my photos taken in my 2007 Dialogue trip for a taste of the places that we are going to visit.

See you in Beijing!
Regards,

-Hua