I recently received some information from Tom, our friend from the Library Project, sent us some fantastic news about the Library Project and its latest developments.

“The past three months have far exceeded the The Library Project’s goals and expectations. There is so much to share - from our new home in Xi’an, China to an incredible list of schools benefiting from our support - so let’s get started.

“In September, The Library Project donated our first library to a Chinese countryside elementary school. The Xin Xing Elementary School is located an hour outside of Xi’an, in the ShaanXi Province. Over 500 students in grades 1-6 attend the Xin Xing Elementary School. During our pre assessment we discovered the school library’s uninviting environment and general lack of age appropriate books. Most of the books in the existing library were written for high school or university students with a total of less than 50 children’s books for grades 1-3.

“The Library Project provided 500 children’s books for grades 1-3 and a child-safe reading area with comfortable and colorful furniture. We provided a wide range of children’s books including: history, science, short stories, fairy tales, “pinyin” books for very young readers, children’s dictionaries, children’s reference books, and an assortment of comic books. We also provided a full set of children’s encyclopedias for older students. Every book was in full color and of the highest quality. The Library Project provided colorful child-safe tables and chairs, posters and a globe to populate the previously empty room. Once the library was completed, we held a party to celebrate our accomplishments with the children. Twenty “star” students were chosen to participate in arts, crafts and games. One of our activities had the children draw their “dream library”. We learned that most children want a library located outside consisting of colorful books which float in the air. (We’re working on that concept for a future library.)

“Without a doubt The Library Project has improved the level of education that the Xin Xing Elementary School provides to its students.

“We didn’t stop there. In October The Library Project completed a phenomenal feat of donating three libraries in three days. The libraries are located at three different elementary schools in the countryside of Xi’an: the Si Qing Elementary School, Bai Lu Yuan Elementary School and Mi Cun Elementary School. Furthermore, all the items donated were upgraded from our previous library. We provided higher quality books, better seating, sturdy wooden tables and bookshelves custom made at a local factory, and we even found cacti and plants to put on the tables and shelving.

“Providing three libraries in three days pushed us both mentally and physically. We had a team of over 20 volunteers helping with the delivery of the materials, setting up furniture, sorting books, and playing games with the kids in their new library. Through our experiences we learned this one simple fact: that when The Library Project arrives in a countryside school, the students go absolutely crazy. The madness usually begins when we pull up in our large truck and the children come running out of their classrooms.

“For our next goal, I need your help. In the past we have benefited one school at a time and now we are looking to help an entire school district. We want to make a clear IMPACT on the level of education an entire school district will be able to offer its students. Our first school district we would like to help will be the Ba Qiao School District (the same school district where our last three elementary schools were located).

“The Ba Qiao School District is an hour outside of the Xi’an city center. This area was hit very hard by the closure of state run factories over the past twenty years. Because of the closures and the lack of work, the average annual income is less than 2,000 RMB ($266), and there is very little hope that things will change for the better in the future. To learn more about the Ba Qiao School District, please click here.

“If you are interested in Adopting a Library or adopting a group of schools through our Adopting a School District programs, please click here for more information. You can also send me an email at [*tom@library-project.org* ] to ask any questions about the library adoption process.

“Furthermore, our website has been updated and improved to help both large and small donors have a better idea of exactly how their financial contributions are put to work. We also added an Adopt a Library page for those who would like to provide an entire elementary school with a library. The page also contains information on the Ba Qiao School District. Everyone who donates to the Adopt a School or Adopt a School District programs will receive a Library Completion Report for the specific library that you supported, along with a beautiful hardcover book celebrating our past libraries and the communities and schools we have worked in.

“I am very happy to announce two new additions to The Library Project’s team. Jenny Wang is our first full time employee in China. Jenny is from Hunan Province and has lived in Xi’an for the past ten years. A short list of some of her accomplishments these past few months have been getting us a 20 - 65% discount on children’s books at the country’s largest chain of bookstores, managing our growing list of partners in China, spearheading the completion of our first four libraries in Chinese countryside elementary schools, and doing non-stop assessments of schools and orphanages. Welcome aboard Jenny!

“I am also very happy to announce that Kevin Kruse has joined our Board of Directors. Kevin Kruse joined in August and has been an incredible addition to the team. Kevin has been instrumental in helping create a solid business foundation for The Library Project. He was also our first donor to support our Adopt a School District program. To learn more about Kevin, please check out his bio by clicking here. Welcome Kevin!

“Lastly, please check out some of our new products for the holiday season. We created 50 book, 100 book, 250 book and 500 book gift cards available at $1 a book. Each card also has a beautiful picture of a past library we have donated. The gift cards are a perfect holiday gift idea. To check out our new online store, please click here.

“Your help is greatly appreciated. Click here to make a donation and help give the gift of education and opportunity to a child in Asia. As a result of your donation you will receive photos and a Library Completion Report on the library you helped make a reality. Your donation truly does make a difference.

“The Library Project is a non-profit organization. Your donation is 100% tax deductible. Thank you in advance for your kind support of our efforts.”

Sincerely,
Thomas Stader
The Library Project
Founder

This week’s photos come from Ken Yip, a blogger and photographer based in Shanghai.

This is a photo of South Station Shanghai, one of the two train stations in the city. Though the station was originally constructed in 1908, it was recently closed for rennovations and reopened in 2006 as the world’s first circular train station. The station now services all passengers heading to locations south of Shanghai, including the increasing popular Hangzhou, though Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong are always popular destinations.

To see your photos here, send them to [*photos@blogofdreams.com *] or [*dawei@blogofdreams.com *].

Shanghai Signal House: A Daily China Photo

This week’s photos come from Ken Leaf, an amateur photographer and architect-to-be living in Shanghai.

This is a photo of the old signal house in Shanghai. Originally constructed in 1865, the signal house is a symbol of Shanghai’s vitality in the earlier part of the century. Moved in 1993 and restored in 1998, there is now a museum at the bottom of the tower’s spiral staircase that provides pictures of the Bund and other key documents and memorabilia that display Shanghai’s rich and complex history.

To see your photos here, send an email to [*dawei@blogofdreams.com *] or [*photos@blogofdreams.com *].

中文

This past weekend I traveled to Shanghai in order to attend the 2007 China Education Expo, an annual traveling expo showcasing international study abroad opportunities for Chinese students. While there, I also had the chance to catch up with several bloggers, speak with Steve Feld, the Executive Director the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, and spend some time with Christine Lu of the China Business Network. I have to admit that serendipity seemed to follow me as I met up with a number of people, from a helpful and friendly group of Casablancan businessmen on the plane to the Chinese watch salesman that helped me find an Internet Bar when I needed it most.

This week I’ll be writing stories about my adventures and some of the fantastic dreamers I met in my few short days in Shanghai. Photos and maps will follow. Unfortunately, my camera battery died a quick, painless death on this trip, but others have been generous enough to donate their own photos.

Photo courtesy of Ken Yip.

PS–My regrets to missing Chris Carr of Cal Poly MBA Trip’s latest visit. He was in Beijing and I was not able to meet up with him to hear about the latest on his MBA program in California.

Read on »

In a series of articles about our sponsors, we’ve decided to begin with The China Business Network, a website devoted to helping entrepreneurs in China make important business connections and create exciting opportunities here in China. Created by Christine Lu, The China Business Network has a large media, podcast and content network it uses to promote businesses seeking to operate in China. Now that network can help our sponsors, too.

The China Dreamblogue has partnered with The China Business Network, and now our sponsors will have the opportunity to enjoy an interview on their networks, and readers can look forward to regular updates about the Dreamblogue on CBN.

Interested in helping to sponsor the Dreamblogue? There are several things you can do.

First, WE DO NOT ACCEPT DONATIONS. If you are interested in donating money, please contact one of the charities we support, The Library Project (run through the 501(c)3 charity Nomadic Marketing) or The Reading Tub. The China Dreamblogue offers services-for-fee and service-for-service exchanges with sponsors. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, we are looking for the following things:

• Individuals and Businesses: Link to us and favorite is on Technorati by clicking on the tab in our sidebar!

• We badly need 2 laptop computers–One of the current computers running the Blog of Dreams, Yanzhi’s prized Macbook, suffered a cracked screen and our second laptop caught a fatal virus, SO we are searching for laptop computers that will help us continue to create the Dreamblogue and maintain its content and projects for you while we travel.

• 2 high quality cameras to help us document the beauty of the people and places in China we encounter.
• 1 high quality digital movie camera to help us record the stories of the dreamers we meet along the way
• audio and video editing software to help us present the dreamers’ stories to you
• Educational institutions in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand interested in attracting talented Chinese students to their universities
• Travel insurance to help keep us and the dreams we carry safe as we travel
• Airplane flights and acomodations from a travel company willing to help us arrange the legs of our journey
• Quality English-language training centers to help students prepare for their journeys to study abroad
• Other businesses willing to help individual dreamers achieve their dreams

Please note that we will give away all of the equipment and extra supplies at the end of the China Dreamblogue travels to our supporters and dreamers.

Interested parties can read more about sponsorship details here: Travel China Blog Proposal. Contact [*dawei@blogofdreams.com *] or [*yanzhi@blogofdreams.com *] if you or your organization are interested.

Keep Dreaming.

To help our readers who aren’t as familiar with Chinese geography, we’ve decided to start including a daily Chinese map. Thanks to the University of Texas Library for helping to supply us with these maps. Maps will be both modern and ancient, and show famous geographic, travel, and historical locations in China. We will be sure to include maps of the 22 mainland provinces as well as the autonomous regions–Guanxi, [*Tibet*], and Inner Mongolia as well as the Special Administrative region for Hong Kong and Macau. We hope this series can be of use for China travelers, expats coming to China, for China business, and even for explaining to a new friend where you come from or where you’ll be teaching, whether it’s remote Gansu or downtown Chongqing.

Click to enlarge:

Readers are welcome to send their own maps in as well to be featured on the Dreamblogue. Send your favorite, most interesting, most curious, or most-useful maps to [*photos@blogofdreams.com *].

Keep Dreaming:

As some of our loyal readers have noticed, there haven’t been a lot of posts on the Dreamblogue lately. Much of this has been because we’ve been preparing for the trip, hustling back and forth between Shanghai, Guangzhou, Macau, and Hong Kong to find sponsors, dreamers, and others who believe that dreaming can make the world a better place.

As part of our journey, we’ll spend the next few days talking about preparing for our journey, introducing our sponsors, and talking about th experiences we’ve had getting ready for this journey.

The first thing I want to share is an old story from Yanzhi’s life. As we prepare to travel around China, I was reminded of this story we’ve told before about what to bring to China:

THINGS TO BRING TO CHINA These are things that you may want to consider bringing and items that you do not want to carry along regardless of what your mother, or neighbor stuck in the cold war, says:

1. A camera. But, unless you are the next Ansel Adams or have a need for a fancy rig, leave the big bucks at home. Bring a digital or film camera (there are tons of places that will put your pic’s on disk for little of nothing) that will take decent pictures. Use one that you are not afraid to lose or have lifted at a train station.
2. Bring an extra battery for any of your cameras. And pop for a a 220V charger while you are here. Anything you have that is 110V is liable to fry like an egg.
3. Medical Travel and Baggage Loss Insurance. Pay the few extra bucks! I have lost my luggage three times enroute to China (the U.S. carrier lost them all) and, even with insurance, only recovered about half of my losses. Medical insurance will ensure your evacuation to the U.S. shoud it be needed.
4. No-Doz if you are a coffee addict. Coffee is incredibly expensive and often not available in restaurants. Except fot the Thai restaurants the stuff you buy in the Jiffy Marts here is not very strong. You WILL get a case of Mao’s Revenge and it will be because of withdrawal, not the water.
5. I guess that #4 means bring some anti-diarrheal medicine as well….
6. Deodorant.
7. Dental Floss. Toothpicks are available at every restaurant.
8. Aspirin, if you prefer it to Tylenol, as it is hard to come by in other than miniscule doses.
9. Yuan/RMB. Two reasons: The dollar is free-falling against the Yuan and you will wait until retirement age in line to change money at most banks.
10. English Novels, Magazines or anything you want to read to pass the time. Hong Kong is about the only place with anything. Most stuff in China that looks English will really be Chinglish or government approved news and commentary–get over it: we have spin too.
11. The phone numbers for the English speaking/Western Medicine Doctors residing in the towns you will visit. You do not have time to be hand-signaling a Chinese physician no matter how good he is. The U.S. Consulate in those areas can provide these numbers. There are plenty of them but, they charge Western rates so:
12. Bring your credit card. China is 85% a cash economy but, the physicians do take plastic.
13. The numbers for your Embassy or Consulate. If you strangle a street vendor and get arrested the U.S. State Department can pretty much only come visit you (they are worse than useless) but, you will at least get a visitor. Keep the number in case you need a document notarized or need your friends interrogated by Homeland Security, prior to a visa, if you invite them to come visit you in the U.S..
14. It is better to bring the contact email and phone numbers of your government representives. Your Embassy may act more on your behalf if you call home first. Diplomats hate extra paperwork.
15. A couple of pens. The pens here are not the ones they export.
16. A muzzle on your need to spread the word for any religious or political views. It is against the law. And you SHOULD be spending your time learning about the culture you want them to replace before you preach about yours. The climate is changing but, don’t push the river.

Forget About:

1. Toilet paper. They use it here too. BUT, do buy packs of tissue at a local store or you may be, uh, cleansing yourself with currency: most of the toilets in public areas do not have T.P..
2. Antibiotics. They sell them at local pharmacies and besides: unless you are a physician you shouldn’t be self medicating! If you do have medications that you take regularly bring plenty and bring it in the prescription or OTC container or you will need the phone number for #13 above.
3. Stationery. They are literate. And they make 90% of the cutsie stuff they sell at Walmart.
4. Mailing envelopes. And don’t do anything dumb like send valuables. The postal guys in your country will steal it because it is easy to blame on the Chinese.
5. Clothes that need Ironing or lots of clothes. They do not have dryers and you can buy anything you need here at a fraction of the cost in your homeland.
6. Any pre-concieved notions about this country. It will shock, bewilder, and wonderfully amaze you daily.

The China Dreamblogue is a project undertaken by two American teachers to provide educational opportunities for people in China. We are doing this because we want to help people to achieve the dreams that they haven’t been able to. Hence our name is The China Dreamblogue.

中国载梦博客一个由两位美国教师为了给中国穷人提供教育机会的计划。我们这样做是为了帮助人们实现他们如今还没有实现的愿望。因此我们的名字叫中国载梦博客.

Our project has 4 major parts:
我们的计划由个主要部分组成：

1. Traveling: First, Yanzhi Liu and I will be traveling to the 22 provinces of mainland China over the course of the next 12-16 months. We will visit and interview at least one person from every ethnic group and from every province to find out about their lifestyle, their beliefs, and their hopes and ambitions for themselves and others. We will post these interviews on the Dreamblogue for you to read.
2. Free Scholarships: Yanzhi and I are giving away scholarships that will allow students to study abroad in the UK and the US.
3. China information: Yanzhi and I will be posting regular information about China on this blog. Yanzhi and I have found that Westerners’ understanding of China is often darkened by news reports that focus on the negative parts of China. We will be putting up information here on the blog that seeks to find the interesting, curious, good parts of Chinese culture and highlight them here.
4. Money for Charity: Yanzhi and I are raising money for two charities, Thomas Stader’s Library Project and Terry Dougherty’s Reading Tub. We will be raising money by selling advertising on the Blog of Dreams and giving away the advertising money to Thomas and Terry directly through a Feedburner account. Yanzhi and I will never touch the money.

1. 行程:在接下来的12-16个月中刘彦志和我将会游历中国大陆个省份。在去到每一个民族的地区的时候我们将会最少采访一个该民族的人，了解他们的生活方式、信仰、愿望、理想等等。我们将会将这些采访刊登在“载梦博客”上供大家阅读参考。
2. 免费奖学金：彦志和我将会发放奖学金供同学们去英国和美国留学。
3. 中国信息：彦志和我将会定期发布关于中国的信息在这个网站上。我们发现西方人对中国的理解经常遭到新闻报纸的误导，因为它们专注于报导中国消极的方面的信息。我们将会把中国有趣的、奇特的事物或事件或中国文化积极的方面和它们最精彩的方面的信息放上这个博客。
4. 慈善基金：我们将为两个慈善机构筹集基金：Thomas Stader的图书馆计划和Terry Dougherty的读书俱乐部。我们将把载梦博客的广告收入通过账户直接捐给Thomas和Terry.

How you can help (and don’t worry, none of these cost you a dime):
你们怎样帮助我们呢？（放心，不需花费你们分钱）

1. Blog your dreams. It’s simple. Go the form the the bottom of this page (and at the end of most posts, and fill out your dream. You can send your dream as a photo, video, text, or any other medium you can imagine. It can be a big dream or a small one. We are currently looking for sponsors who will be able to help fund your dream.
2. Visit the site often. The more people visit, the more hits and pageviews the site gets, and the more money we can charge advertisers. More money will go to charity. We’ll be sure to have fresh content for you to come back to every day.
3. Send us your photos. Over the course of the Dreamblogue journey, we’ll be sponsoring a photo contest for both professionals and amateurs, with prizes for the photos who get the most votes.
4. Favorite us on Technorati. There is a little green button you can click on that says, “fave this blog technorati.” We are trying to generate publicity for our project by becoming the most favorited blog in the world on Technorati. Click on the button, register as a member (don’t worry, it’s free and spam-free), and click on the button one more time on our site to move us one step closer to our goal.

1. 将你们梦醒写在我们的博客上。非常简单，只要写在博客下方的方框里就行了（在每篇文章的尾部写上你们的梦想。你们可以把你们的图片、视频或其他媒体发送给我们。它可以是大的梦想或小的梦想。我们会寻找赞助商来帮助你们实现你们的梦想）
2. 经常登陆这个网站。越多人登陆这个网站，我们网站就会有更多的点击率和读者，然后我们就可以向登广告的人索取更多的广告费，那么我们就有更多的钱资助慈善机构。为了使大家每天都来浏览我们的网站，我们保证每天都有新鲜的内容提供给大家。
3. 把你们的照片发给我们。在这个“载梦博客”的旅途上，我们将举行专业级和业余级的摄影大赛，得到最高票数的相片将会得到丰富的奖品。
4. 在Technorati 上投我们一票。点击那个写着“fabe this blog technorati.”的绿色按钮。我们正在尝试通过使我们的网站在Technorati 上全球出名进而推广我们的这个计划。点击这个按钮，注册一个账户（别担心，它是免费的）然后在Technorati里点击我的网站，使我们更快地接近我们的目标。

Blog your Dream/把博客写在博客上:

The Chinese province of Guangdong is located in the southernmost part of the country. With its location on the South China Sea(南中國海), it is a natural entry point to South China. It is bordered by Jiangxi (江西) and Hunan (湖南) provinces to the north, Fujian (福建) province to the east, and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region (广西壮族自治区) to the west. Guangdong province also claims 651 islands, many of which are located in the Pearl River Delta (珠江三角洲). Many of the rivers in the area feed into this delta and flow out into the South China Sea.

The provincial capital, Guangzhou (广州), was known in the West as Canton. The word “guang” (广) means “expanse,” and “Guangdong” refers to “expanse east.” Guangond, together with Guangxi, are known as the “dual guangs” (两广). While Guangdong province got its name during the Ming Dynasty (明朝), the area had been a coastal trade area long before then. When the West began trading with China (via Portugese, Dutch, and British traders), Guangzhou and Guangdong province was a center of trade and the comprador (买办) system. The Opium Wars, begun as a result of the opium trade, flourished at Guangzhou and resulted in the loss of Hong Kong to British control. Guangzhou today retains its status as an important center for China’s international business and trade, and many of its famous businesses and areas, like the White Swan Hotel (白天鹅宾馆) and Shamian Island (沙面岛), highlight this internationalism.

Many Chinese immigrants who came to the United States and Canada in the 1800s left China from Guangdong province. While the majority of people who live in Guangdong are ethnically Han (汉), the largest single ethnic group worldwide, Guangdong does have a diverse multi-cultural makeup, with people from forty-two different ethnic groups all living in the province. Many Chinese dialects are spoken, though most people speak Mandarin or Cantonese.

[youtube]Enn_AjB6Iw8[/youtube]

Guangdong features a subtropical climate of high humidity and hot weather in the summer, so it is best to visit during the spring and fall months. Due to its geography and weather, Guangdong produces most of the area’s rice, tea and tropical crops. Less than a quarter of all the land in Guangdong is used to produce food, so the areas that are set aside for agricultural purposes are farmed intensively.

Light industry has brought an economic boom to Guangdong that has given the province the highest GDP of any province (over 12% of China’s total GDP, and reported by some sources as high as 33% percent of China’s GDP). Guangdong is also responsible for a total third of all the imports and exports occurring in China. Food processing, including sugar refining, as well as textile manufacturing and weaving, are all major industries here. Heavy industrial pursuits include shipbuilding and repair and machine manufacturing, among others.

Guangdong is famous for its Cantonese cuisine, and many of the foods that Americans and Canadians have come to think of as “Chinese food”—dim sum, fried rice, lo mein noodles, chop suey, bok choi, and wontons, for example—are based on foods and dishes that originated in Guangdong. While Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is quoted as saying, “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it,” Guangdong food (广东菜) is truly one of the most enjoyable parts of south China. Because Guangzhou was a major trading port, international visitors through the years have introduced a wide variety of foods to the city, adding to the diversity within the cuisine. The freshest ingredients, mildly spiced, are favored, and the flavors are brought to their greatest impact with steaming, stir- and deep frying. Seafood is also often featured.

Visitors to Guangdong province can enjoy the scenic beauty of the Danxia(丹霞山), Luofu(羅浮山), and Dinghu(鼎湖山) mountains. Traveling to Guangzhou allows for scenic visits to Yuexiu Park (越秀公园), as well as the ancient Buddhist Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (刘榕寺). Many other beautiful temples are in Guangdong, including the Nanhua Temple (南华寺) located in Shaoguan(韶关). And for history and culture, the Guangdong Provincial Museum in Guangzhou offers examples of Chaozhou(潮州) wood carving, ceramic figures, old Chinese pottery and traditional Chinese calligraphy posters. A trip here means you can enjoy the best of Guangdong culture, ancient and modern.