Welcome to any first time Travvie (Travel Blog Award) visitors. I thought it might be good to share with you the brief history of the Dreamblogue and how it came to be.

The Blog of Dreams began innocently and with a very small scope: Yanzhi and I were teaching in Macau, and as part of a class project in Global Internet Marketing we organized a blog project. Both of us and our students were frustrated by the stereotypically negative and uninformed commentary found on so many blogs about China–no this week is not new in perceptions if western media coverage. In the spirit of creating a positive voice for China and raising some money to help with charitable causes, we created The China Dreamblogue,. It was to be a site that focused on creating 100% positive China content and a mission to create educational opportunities for Chinese students and a chance for an international audience to find out more about what is right with China.

Soon the “Dream Team” team exploded with ideas for promotions and getting people around the country involved. We worked on a Technorati campaign to get favorited, participated in contests, and held our own photo contests to get people involved. Everyone was excited and happy that we were brainstorming creative ways to engage, not isolate China and its people.

During this same time in China, Yanzhi had become connected to a group of women he began to call, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, cancer survivors who had banded together to provide each other with strength, support, and encouragement during a times of deep t crisis. Yanzhi also introduced me to his former student, Coffee, who I later taught. She was and is a remarkable woman who has overcome bone cancer and a leg amputation to train for a professional UN translator certification program in French and has been an intern with the blog for over a year.

Entranced and empowered by the positive force of these women living their lives with freedom and courage, Yanzhi and I decided to take inspiration from these women and other people who were willing to live out their dream. As a part of our pro-China campaign, the two of us had a mission: we as two American teachers would travel around the country for a year on sponsorship from ethically responsible businesses and institutions. Our plan was to visit every province an interview someone from each province and at least one person from each of the fifty-six ethnic minorities in China.

As we began our travels, we also planned to use the Dreamblogue to do good in China. Knowing about the remarkable number of students and new graduates in China who struggle to find jobs, we agreed that we would begin an internship program that would teach students about online marketing, digital media, and professional/corporate blogging, all skills which are extremely important in China’s growing Internet environment and a skill set which few people in China have. So far, we have trained a number of interns and worked with them to develop their skills and knowledge in regards to digital media. We have focused on finding and working with students of remarkable ability who have little chance to take part in the remarkable changes and opportunities available in China.

As an additional part of helping people to achieve their dreams, we have continued to seek out schools and regularly post information on the blog about top schools around the world that are well-equipped and suited for Chinese students, such as the Cal Poly Orfalea School of Business. To this day we have had a number of students who were part of the Dreamblogue get in to top schools around the world, including the University of Michigan, UCLA, Columbia University, Ohio State, Purdue, and others.

To this day, Yanzhi and I have completed about a third of our journey, taking time to continue to accumulate material on the Dreamblogue about different aspects of China, running our photo contest here, and continuing to work with our interns to help them find schools and develop skills in digital media.

China MBA: Cal Poly State University

MBA留学：Cal Poly

中文:

China MBA Admission Info, Cost Info, and Deadlines

Cal Poly Masters in Industrial Technology

Masters in Industrial Technology Admission Info, Cost Info, and Deadlines

Pound-for-pound we think the Cal Poly MBA is the best in the world….

Created by The Greatest Living American

Read on »

The Library Project is the easiest charity on the planet to support: They have a clear purpose, a verifiable track-record, a vision for the future and they ask so little with which they accomplish so much.

Make some space on your blog or website and show that you care by placing a visual link to our friends by going here: LIBRARY PROJECT

Their mission is clear, their dedication extraordinary and their cause a most important one. To support the Library Project is one of the most cost-effective ways you will ever have to make a real difference in a lot of young lives….

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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 or if you or your organization are interested.

Keep Dreaming.

Thanks, everyone. We’ve gotten dreams sent in from all around the world. We hope these dreams inspire you as much as they inspire us.

tdgardens‘s dream:
That every child have a book to hug, hold, and carry them to a dream all their own.

hailvict’s dream:
To become someone who makes a difference every day of their life.

mmhalim’s dream:
travell to china i cannot imagine what is the great system that can organize all this people and in the same time they are be one of the great country in the world

Taitai‘s Dream:
My main dream right now is that the lumps found in my mother-in-law’s lung are benign. That would be lovely, thank you.

kevin’s dream:
I hope the project of “Blog of dreams” will be successful.

Roxi Copland‘s Dream:
touring worldwide as a vocalist and pianist

Dream Updates:

We have posted stories before about Ms. Yue, who needs a life-saving drug called Herceptin that costs approximately 45,000 USD a year (approximately thirty-seven years’ worth of wages for as a bookkeeper in China). However, she’s in luck. A group of dreambloggers has pledged to bring a year’s worth of the drug for her.

Ms. Yue says thank you.

Blog your dream:

If you could save lives and provide needed educational opportunities to rural and orphaned children for a few minutes of your time and for free, would you do it?

The dream is to travel in 2007 to every mainland province in China. During this journey, the China Dreamblogue will chronicle the everyday lives of ordinary Chinese citizens. The motivation for this trip came from a group of women known as the League of Extraordinary Chinese Women. The LOECW was comprised of 5 women from various walks of Chinese life—wives, semi-professional women, a bookkeeper, and a student. The one thing they had in common was advanced-stage cancer. These women, with little access to formal education and less information from outside sources about the disease they had contracted, naturally and courageously combated their disease with friendship, enthusiasm, meditation, and the medical care they could afford.

Around this time, Yanzhi and Dawei also met Thomas Stader, an expat who has devoted his time, talents, and treasures to Chinese people educationally and economically left behind by giving them access to life-changing education. The Dreamblogue is an attempt to unite the strength, courage, and stories of people around China and channel it into a force that will help realize the dreams everyone carries.

All of the money generated from the advertising on this site will go directly from Feedburner and Blogads to the charities we support, The Library Project and The Reading Tub. No one at the Dreamblogue will never directly handle the money.

The Blog of Dreams will have videocasts, podcasts, a China picture contest (to be turned into a coffee table book) , a weekly Chinese horoscope, weekly Chinese recipes (also to be a book), and most importantly, the daily dreams of people from around the world. The Dreamblogue has been created to be a tool of understanding and a place where dreams can be spoken into reality.

To help:

1. Use the logo here or on the blog’s sidebar and click on the little green box that says “favorite this blog.”



2. Follow the instructions on Technorati. This will take you less than one minute.
3. The Technorati favoriting website may send you back to the blog of dreams. Click the “favorite this blog” button one more time to finish.
4. Link to us on your blog.
5. Let us know that you helped by e-mailing me or sending a comment. We’ll return the favor by favoriting your blog. Invite your friends to favorite and link to this blog. We will be creating a Dreamblogue blogroll in the future and will include you.

The other part of the journey is about creating a space on The Dreamblogue where people can blog their dream—they can write about a dream they have for themselves, a dream they have for someone else, or an educational dream they want to fill. There is a Chinese superstition that if you talk about bad things, they will come true. Instead, the Dreamblogue’s vision says that if you share your dream with others, you are willing it into being. Send your dreams to the blog of dreams, and we will post dreams other people want to share with the world.

Help change lives. As Yanzhi and Dawei travel throughout the year, the blog will able to give away a variety of products from different corporate sponsors as well as scholarships to study in China.

Read on »

The Dream:

Our dream is to travel in 2007 to every mainland province in China. During this journey, it is our intention to chronicle the everyday lives of ordinary Chinese citizens. Our motivation for the trip came from a group of women known as the League of Extraordinary Chinese Women. The LOECW was comprised of 5 women from various walks of Chinese life—wives, semi-professional women, a bookkeeper, and a student. The one thing they had in common was advanced-stage HER2 breast cancer. These women, with little access to formal education and less information from outside sources about the disease they had contracted, naturally and courageously combated their disease with friendship, enthusiasm, meditation, and what medical care they could afford.

One member of the original group has survived, and a newer, younger member has been added recently—a 22-year-old student who lost her leg to bone cancer. Both of the survivors lack the financial wherewithal to apply standard medical treatment to their illness. We devoted time and energy from our blogs and lives to raise money for members of the league. As a result of our initial efforts, we were able to extend the life of some members, and we enabled the student to purchase a prosthetic leg.

During this first effort, we began to think about other Chinese people left behind in the wake of this huge industrial growth. Around this time, we also met Thomas Stader and Laurie Mackenzie, two expats who have devoted their time, talents, and treasures to Chinese, educationally and economically left behind, by giving them access to life-changing education. Our meetings sparked Yanzhi Liu’s interest, as he was (and still is) a board member for the US-based group The Reading Tub. Because we are educators and bloggers actively involved in search engine marketing optimization and education, we sought to find a way to organize the entrepreneurial energy of the people we met and turn it into a force that would help us, and other people, realize the dreams we now hold dear.

We decided to experiment, via the Blog of Dreams, by asking students in our global internet marketing class to take a hands-on approach to global marketing by contributing to a positive world awareness of China while aiding worthy causes. Students immediately drove a brand new blog to the number 23 position (out of 75 million) in the Favorites section of Technorati, the premiere blog aggregator in the world. Students ensured that one of our blogs was nominated for and eventually won Best Asian Blog in the Annual Weblog Awards. This blog already held dozens of top ten slots in search engine slots for keywords related to China business. So, with this kind of early momentum, student commitment and huge volunteer support, we knew we could create a project that would make a difference in other people’s lives via the Internet.

The Dreamblogue is a simple concept. We will contact people through PR Web, Blogger News Network (BNN, for whom we write), Google News, Social Networks like Facebook and our volunteer network. We will also promote an Internet MEME that asks people be to share real dreams for themselves or someone else. After a specified period of time (maybe once a month or once a quarter), we’ll select a contributor who will win a prize donated by one of our charitable sponsors. We hope to give away vacations to China, scholarships for study abroad, equipment, Software and cutting edge gadgets that will appeal to our broad demographic. We want to attract a Postsecret-type (http://postsecret.blogspot.com) interest in our blog that will drive enough traffic that we can generate advertising revenue to give to educational and medical concerns.

The blog will use Feedburner and Blogads as its primary advertising revenue resources. The number of ads that we allow will be limited: no more than 1 ad in our feed, 1 ad in our posts, and 1 ad in our blog ads. All of the money generated from these sources will go directly from Feedburner and Blogads to the charities we support—we will never directly handle the money.

The other advertising that we will be present on the site will be for other corporations and institutions that sponsor our adventure, and those ads will be top listed display ads in the sidebar of the blog of dreams.

Any educational concerns that join us as sponsors for the trip will have direct links on our site to translated pages or individual websites that will advertise to Chinese students and more importantly, their parents. We will do all of the search engine optimization and translation and ongoing support for these.

The Blog of Dreams will have videocasts, podcasts, a China picture contest (to be turned into a coffee table book) , a weekly Chinese horoscope, weekly Chinese recipes (also to be a book), and most importantly, the daily dreams of people from around the world. In all, the Dreamblogue has been created to be a tool of understanding and a place where dreams can be spoken into reality.

We will be telling you more in the next few days. Right now? head for the siebar and please favorite us in Technorati and add us to your blogrolls!

ABOUT US: Read on »

I had thought this story was lost, but thankfully:

January 4th, 2006

Ms Yue will have her final chemo’ treatment tomorrow. She will then be eligible for experimental treatment. The experimental treatment will cost 40-60,000 US dollars: 30-40 years of salary in China.

The Pearl River Delta in China is not unlike the area devastated in Louisiana and further East or the hard working towns in West Virginia that the coal industry depends on. It suffers through typhoons, floods, mining disasters, and lives are forever changed by devastation, and death. I am pained for people on both sides of the Pacific. I grieve for the families that twice suffered in West Virginia.

Like the Mississippi Delta, the Pearl River Delta is in the midst of a class four silent storm. It is a cancer zone. It is the dumping ground for every industrial success above it: a slow moving sewage system for dozens of cities.
It was the victim of a cadmium spill far north that made the long journey south. The Pearl River, so beautiful at night, is dark and foreboding in the day. No one would dare eat a fish caught from its banks in our city–and there are thousands of more factories on its shores as it meanders to Hong Kong from here.

When industrialization began I am sure most people in China had no idea that its economy would grow so fast that its infrastructure could barely barely hold on to its hat as the winds of change howled, and continue to howl, past daily. I am also sure that they had no idea that their environment would suffer as much as it has and their people with it.

America has had her growing pains and fights with the environment and governmental ineptitude: coal Mining and the recent immense tragedy in West Virginia, deforestation, erosion, Katrina.

I grew up in a Steel Mill Town where every morning you could wipe orange residue off of the hood of your car. The government never helped–even when people were dying.

China is trying to heed calls from these deaths due to close mines, repair hillsides denuded of trees, and in one neighboring town where the cancer rate is so enormous, officials are finally forcing companies to adhere to strict standards.

The effects of the the issue in China invaded my life: The fight became personal.

Let me digress for a second:

The Japanese have an old ritual that they perform when someone leaves for a long time. It is Kagezen. They will set a place for dinner for the loved one until they return. The metaphor found me today when Yue Ying was being wheeled into surgery for a breast cancer biopsy, a problem that struck as fast and as fiercely as Katrina or West Virginia, they handed her slippers to her family. At the risk of sounding trite, I was struck by how small they were. I was taken over by just how tiny, frail and helpless I felt at that moment.

I went to the waiting room with Yue’s sisters. There were a dozen other anxious families there–all with shoes in hand or set neatly down on the floor in anticipation they would be filled again.

It was hard for me to believe that the delicate slippers I held had carried the weight of such an immeasurable heart, such monumental grace and extraordinary integrity. She is 45 years old and has made much of herself despite the lack of resources that were available for anyone who grew up in China when she did.

Yue’s were the last pair of shoes in the room when Dr. Wang, a wonderful, gentle, professor/surgeon/oncologist who did a fellowship at City Hospital in New York, announced that pathology had confirmed a pervasive malignancy and that she would have immediate surgery. Though I had seen the X-rays and read the reports and had taught at Medical schools/Health Science Centers and clinically directed a hospital in the U.S., I was unable to contain my grief. It IS different when it is you that are affected–even obliquely.

She was in surgery for over five hours. She headed for recovery awake, tearful and typically apologetic that she was trouble for those attending to her.

I went home to change, eat, meet with a few colleagues and head back to the hospital where I spent the night. Probably more to comfort her than me.

Kagazen has long been over. Prayers, good wishes and her determination sent death on his way and the unsinkable Ms. Yue has been back fighting an extraordinary fight.

But, regardless of how optimistic one might be, how tied to faith or hope, something beyond a part of your body is forever lost: A strong sense of mortality takes residence in its place. It has been a tough few months of chemotherapy, and uncertainty.

Her shoes are waiting by her bedside. And I am convinced that Yue will be back in them. She will be as strong, beautiful and grace-filled as before. She is now. She has lost her hair but, not her poise and power. If anyone can keep illness or death at bay it is her.

China has a long way to go, as does the U.S. in thinking less of government than it does of its people. And cancer treatment for women worldwide has even further to go. Here people commit suicide or die these days because of lack of protection with health care. They do not want to burden their families.

My heart goes out to the recent and ongoing victims of both Delta areas and the families who have twice suffered in West Virginia. Here is my wish that, one day, you will never do Kagezen for anyone because of pollution, senseless disease, industrial disasters government neglect.

China asia Blogging China Blogs China Blog Cancer Treatment Cancer Anti-Cancer Drugs Chemotherapy treatment Alternative Cancer Treatment West

The original League of Extraordinary Chinese Women lost one more member this week. Ms. 珍 (Zhen) , first from the left, succumbed to breast cancer that spread to her liver for want of appropriate treatment.

The unsinkable Ms. Yue is the remaining survivor of her chemotherapy group. None of the women to date have been able to raise the funds needed to acquire the very expensive drug Herceptin needed for a chance of staving off the disease. It is the only available agent that can treat HER2 breast cancer in early and late stage development, but is quite expensive. This blog has raised only a fraction of the monies needed for these brave ladies.

I was given great life lessons by Ms Zhen, woman who remained ever positive about her chances for recovery. I have no doubt that she survived long past expectations because of her zeal for life, the friendship of the other League members and Chinese traditional medicine combined with what western medicine she could afford.

Ms Zhen, a victim of cancer and an ailing health system in China, leaves behind a loving husband, a boy 14 years old and a girl now 19 year of age.

In memoriam Onemanbandwidth and The Dreamblogue will not post new entries for the next three days.

China Chinese Women Cancer Cancer Treatment Roche Breast Cancer Women Lonnie Hodge Cancer Treatment Hercpetin