2007 Program:
Photo Diary for the China-to-US group
Week 3
Jun 15-21
Welcome
to UM PKU - 2007
The University of Michigan/Peking University Summer
Undergraduate Exchange Program
2007 Pilot Program in Chemistry
15 June 2007 (noon CST) - By wonderful coincidence,
the end of the "boot camp" was also the day that a delegation of
UM administrators arrived in Beijing as part of an annual 4-city
tour on behalf of President Coleman. We were able to include
the celebration of this pilot program with the visit.
15 June 2007 (noon CST) - Former UM faculty member William Chang
now directs the National Science Foundation's office in Beijing,
and he has been generous with his enthusiasm in supporting our
program.
15 June 2007 (noon CST) - Another great coincidence was that
LSA Dean Terry McDonald, who provided some of the funding for this
pilot program, was part of the UM delegation, so he got to meet
the LSA students while they were here in China.
15 June 2007 (1:00 PMCST) - The signing ceremony to establish,
officially, the UM/PKU Joint Institute. Henry Kissinger is nowhere
to be found.
15 June 2007 (1:30 PM CST) - After the ceremony (and lunch).
15 June 2007 (2:15 PM CST) - Chilling at the Joint Institute
between events.
15 June 2007 (3:00 PM CST) - The LSA group took a campus
walking tour after lunch.
15 June 2007 (3:00 PM CST) - A nice scene during the tour.
15 June 2007 (3:00 PM CST) - Joint Institute Director Professor
James Lee (r) with Dean McDonald.
15 June 2007 (4:00 PM CST) - A brief visit to the Sackler archeology
museum on the PKU campus.
15 June 2007 (6:00 PM CST) - We also had an evening celebration
specifically for the summer undergraduate research exchange program.
Here is the speaker line-up (l to r: PKU Chemistry Vice Dean Zi-Chen
Li, PKU student Xiaoxue Zhou, UM student Brian O'Keefe, UM Associate
Dean Jim Penner-Hahn, and Joint Institute Director James Lee.
15 June 2007 (6:00 PM CST) - Jim makes a point about the value
of providing undergraduate students with international experiences.
15 June 2007 (6:00 PM CST) - Zi-Chen is enthusiastic about our
plans to expand and add to the collaborations between our two universities.
15 June 2007 (6:00 PM CST) - Movie clip: Somewhere in the US,
Brian's parents can be quite proud of him for the thoughtful remarks
he made on behalf of the UM students. There was not a dry eye left
in the house.
15 June 2007 (6:00 PM CST) - Movie clip: Xiaoxue and her colleagues
are excited to be travelling to the US in early July.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - The Juesheng (Bell) Temple was
built in the 1730s.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - This is an example of a relatively
small bronze bell that dates from the 1700s.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - The sense of scale is not that
good in a picture. This one is over twice the size of the other
one.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - The tops of these bells are really
cool - most of the hangers are shaped as mythological creatures.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - A better sense of scale.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - Another hanger.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - These bells are reproductions of
a full set of ancient musical bells. In addition, the original
bells were found with some ancient sheet music. You can buy a CD
of people performing the ancient tunes on the kinds of bells on
which they would have been played.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - How to read the ancient music.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - Ane example of the ancient sheet
music.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - Movie Clip: For 10 RMB ($1.25),
you can get the woman who guards the bells to play 5 tunes.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - Movie Clip: The music being played
is according to the ancient sheet music that was found with the
bells.
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - Mvoie Clip: This one is not an
ancient tune... can you recognize it?
16 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - Brian and Justin at an interactive
display about the bells.
16 June 2007 (noon CST) - You will get sense of the scale
of this giant bell in just a few moments.
16 June 2007 (noon CST) - There are an estimated 250,000
characters that make up the surface of the big bell
16 June 2007 (noon CST) - High detail in bronze. This character
is about 2 cm tell.
16 June 2007 (noon CST) - Another view, from a flatform above
the big bell.
16 June 2007 (noon CST) - Movie Clip: For 100 RMB ($13), you
can ring the big bell. Look at the size of that thing!
16 June 2007 (1:20 PM CST) - Lunch at a Peking Duck restaurant.
This was our duck.
16 June 2007 (1:20 PM CST) - Place setting... all ready for the
duck.
16 June 2007 (4:00 PM CST) - At a Starbucks in the lobby of the
hotel where the American Club is located, waiting for the evening
event with the UM alumni association.
16 June 2007 (7:00 PM CST) - Special guest at a UM Alumni reception:
the US Ambassador to China, who lives in Beijing and happens to
be a 1975 UM Law Schol graduate. Clark T. Randt, Jr., is the longest
serving United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China.
He was confirmed by the Senate on July 11, 2001 and moved to Beijing
soonafter.
17 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - While the students went to the
Emperor's Summer Palace (pictures to come), James and I went to
a display of contemporary Chinese student art at a nearby university.
Here is one painting I absolutely loved from the senior undergraduate
student end-of-year exhibit.
17 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - Close-up of the same painting.
17 June 2007 (11:00 AM CST) - James' daughter is here in Beijing
at the moment on a 6-month study abroad with this artist, Lu Ping.
Ping is a reknowned artist who teaches the traditional woodblock
print method (including no mechanical press). That is one of his
prints, just over his left shoulder.If you know me, and you are
reading this, you already know that I now own a copy of this print.
If you really know me, you also know I now own more than one of
his prints.
17 June 2007 (2:00 PM CST) - Met up with the students for a little
more... shopping! Everyone is gah-gah over the 5 mascots for the
Summer 2008 Olympics.
17 June 2007 (3:00 PM CST) - Touring the HouHai section of old
Beijing, which was filled with Western visitors.
17 June 2007 (3:00 PM CST) - Taking a break in HouHai. Justin,
for some reason, ordered hot tea. He's here figuring out how to
negotiate a glass of hot water with tea floating in it.
18 June 2007 63:00 PM CST) - Jim left for the US yesterday, and
the students all joined their labs today. I have text messages
from 2 of them, already (in Chinese), saying that everything is
fine. I got some prep work done for meetings later this week,
and headed out into the neighborhood area around the YanShan hotel.
It somehow reminds me of the times I have been in rural Italian
villages... the families are all out, and this park is a major
focus for activity from sun-up till long into the evening. It's
a rather pleasant area.
18 June 2007 63:00 PM CST) - This is the Ban Mu Yuan noodle joint.
It's an international chain, and it's really good. If you are staying
at the YanShan, head toward the park and turn right toward the
third ring road... it's two doors up from the McDonalds.
18 June 2007 6:00 PM CST) - I think these little movies give
a nice feel for certain areas. Here I'm standing at the third ring
road, just down from Ban Mu Yuan, and you can see just how East
and West mix here.
18 June 2007 - Brian's "office space," currently shared with
a graduate student.
18 June 2007 - Brian's official PKU lab notebook.
20 June 2007 - My last "dinner and a show" with the
students before I head back to the US. Given the choice of the
Peking Opera, an acrobats preformance, or a kung fu show... the
kung fu won out. It's actually a little unnervingly a completely
cater-to-Western audiences tourist thing that has little basis
in much more than cartoon/TV stereotypes (think: wild west rodeo
shows at Disney), but the performers are truly remarkable athletes.
20 June 2007 - A brief movie clip from the intro of the show.
Sometimes you can record, sometimes you cannot. The aisles were
being patrolled, so I don't have any of the good stuff.
21 June 2007 - Another movie of a common sight in this program:
the incomparable Helen Shi flagging down a cab.
21 June 2007 - One of the things the students have learned from
their Chinese counterparts is the value of a good nap after lunch.
Justin takes this lesson to heart - while in the restaurant.
21 June 2007 - Everyone is quite amused by this...
21 June 2007 - ... including Justin.
Today was my farewell to the program - back to Michigan for me
tomorrow morning.
