Xi’an, once called “Chang’an”, ranks the first among the seven ancient capitals in China. And it is regarded as one of the “Four Ancient Civilizations of the World”. It has witnessed the rise and fall of 15 dynasties, including the Western Zhou, the Qin, the Han, the Sui and the Tang. It is also the starting point of the Silk Road.

photo credit: kevinpoh

There are a great number of historic relics in Xi’an, such as the Terra Cotta Warriors, the City Wall, the Famen Temple, the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower.

Xi’an has been one of the favorite destinations of tourists home and abroad.

Edited by Mengying Hao

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Lake Kanas lies near the Altai mountains,in Xinjiang,China. It is China’s deepest freshwater lake. About 117 different kinds of birds live along it.

There is a large population of  Tuvans in the area.

There have been sightings of large lake creatures in the waters. A video was taken and shown in the local Chinese media where numerous unidentifiable creatures can be seen. And the water’s colour of the Kanas lake changes incredibly oftentimes.

Wolong National Nature Reserve  is a protected area located in Wenchuan country, Sichuan Province.Wolong National Nature Reserve houses more than 150 highly endangered giant pandas.On 5.12 earthquake,3 pandas were missing,5  staff members were killed,14 houses were all damaged.

Here is a picture of a panda seeing a policeman after the earthquake.

Though the other 86 pandas in Wolong had no casualty,the origin place of the pand’s  food,bamboo,was affected by the earthquake.

The wild giant pandas are still at risk.Concern about the lovely ancient animal,giant panda.

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    It is said that there are two Chinese Valentine’s Day,one is on  lunar July 7th,the other one is on lunar January 15th which is celebrated as Lantern Festival.

    It was an interesting 15th day this year. The full moon appeared larger and brighter than usual because it has come closest to the Earth than at any time since 1957. It was about 305,000km from Earth as compared to the average distance of 350,000km.

Lantern Festival often marks the end of the Chinese New Year.This day’s important activity is watching lanterns. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll with on the streets, extremely excited.

    In the daytime of the Festival, performances such as a dragon lantern dance, a lion dance, a land boat dance, a yangge dance, walking on stilts and beating drums while dancing will be staged. On the night, except for magnificent lanterns, fireworks form a beautiful scene. Most families spare some fireworks from the Spring Festival and let them off in the Lantern Festival. Some local governments will even organize a fireworks party. On the night when the first full moon enters the New Year, people become really intoxicated by the imposing fireworks and bright moon in the sky.

Here is a fireworks shot in Harbin.

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is often called the Lunar New Year, especially by people in mainland China and Taiwan.

Here is the picture from Tom Carter,taken in Beijing

2009  is “The year of  the ox” according to the Chinese animal sign.Ox ,牛,is pronounced NIU in Chinese，the same as the NEW.So Happy Niu Year to the world!

China photo from Robert Daboss

Photos from Guangxi

Taken in Jiansu and Shanghai these are two pictures by China Photo group member Richard Duarte.

Taken in Shanghai, China:

Beijing Bikes:

I never stop being astonished at what Thomas Stader and the Library Project accomplish. TLP is a testament to the power of good social marketing. More importantly the group delivers more than it promises.

Here is a letter from Thomas about their recent work:

I am so proud of what The Library Project has accomplished over the past three months. We have far exceeded The Library Project’s goals and expectations. There is so much to share – from an incredible and growing list of elementary schools which have benefited from new libraries to how you can get involved in helping to improve the lives of China’s rural children.

Before we start sharing our library’s successes, I would like to discuss how The Library Project is providing assistance to the people affected by the recent earthquake in China. On May 12, 2008 China experienced a 7.9 earthquake in Sichuan Province, located in central China, 70,000 people died, and over five million people were left homeless. Thousands of elementary schools were damaged in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi Provinces. The Library Project will continue to do all we can by providing books and libraries to elementary schools and orphanages by way of our new 2008 Earthquake Program. The Library Project will be providing our first libraries to six “tent schools” located 25 km from the epicenter. To learn more about this program, please click here.

Over the past three months The Library Project created twenty-five school libraries and donated more than thirty thousand books. Each of the twenty-five schools received a wide range of high quality children’s books including: history, science, short stories, fairy tales, reference books and comics. We also provided a full set of children’s encyclopedias for older students and pinyin language books for the kids just learning to read. The Library Project also provided colorful child-safe tables and chairs, posters and a world globe to all the classroom and/or library rooms.

These fabulous new libraries are located throughout China in the countryside of Shaanxi, Anhui, and Gansu Provinces. At each library site, The Library Project held book drives, which collected over thirty thousand quality second-hand books from local donors. We also purchased over ten thousand first-hand books from Xin Hua Books Stores at just $1 a book.

In addition to books and supplies, the school librarians received library management training. Since most rural elementary schools have never had a single book in their libraries our Librarian Training Program gets them up to speed starting day one.

The Library Project is very happy to announce that Scott Perkins and Nicholas Ingleton have joined our Board of Directors. Scott Perkins is President and CEO of Connectify Networks based in San Francisco, California. Nicholas Ingleton has lived in Asia for 50 years and currently is a director of Aston Holdings (Overseas) Limited in Hong Kong and Aston Associates Limited in Beijing. I am honored to have them a part of our growing team.

In addition to providing libraries to twenty-five elementary schools in rural China, we have had over twenty small awareness and fundraising events since March. Our volunteers hosted most of these events around Asia and the world. For example, Celia held an all women’s wine tasting in Beijing that raised enough funds for one library. Siok Siok Tan has been doing charity screenings of her new documentary on the 2008 Beijing Olympics, “Booming Beijing” and raised enough funds for five libraries. Sophia and Eric organized an event at Kommune (great Ozzie BBQ) and a lecture on ”rural education in China” at the Glamour Bar, both in Shanghai. We raised enough funds at these two events for libraries in two different rural elementary schools. I would also like to thank everyone that came out to our San Francisco, Phoenix and New Jersey events. We raised enough for seven libraries during that USA fundraising run! Finally, a huge thank you goes out to Napoleon and Marcel in Hong Kong for organizing our lecture at Web Wednesdays and the XL Results Foundation. We raised enough for three libraries at these events. Thank you everyone for your hard work and dedication!

WE NEED YOUR HELP

There are three ways to get involved:

Help by spreading the word. You can help out in so many ways. Forward this newsletter to your friends, family members and coworkers, make a post on your MySpace page, blog to help raise awareness for The Library Project, or join our Facebook Group by clicking here. You can also help by hosting a small event at your home, work or local restaurant. . If you need help organizing a fundraiser, please contact me anytime at tom at library-project.org. Thank you!

Help by volunteering. You can make a huge difference in the lives of countless children in the developing world by becoming a volunteer. There are so many different ways to volunteer: you can throw a wine tasting or dinner to introduce The Library Project to others, hang a poster above the water cooler at your office, or introduce us to your company’s HR Department.

Help by making a donation. Without money, we can’t buy books. At a dollar a book, most of us can afford to buy 10, 20 or even 100 books. Make a donation and help bring the gift of education to countless children. Our libraries generally contain about 500 – 1000 books, thus every donated book (or dollar) helps!

Lastly, please check out some of our new products. 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 library we have donated. The gift cards are a perfect gift idea.

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,
Tom Stader
The Library Project
Founder

This photo was taken in the city of Nanning by Robert Daboss, in which this billboard shows Chairman Mao, Deng Xiaopin and Jiang Zeming looking at the modernization efforts underway.

这张南宁的图片是Robert Daboss在南宁拍的,照片里的政治宣传牌描绘了毛泽东,邓小平和江泽民三代领导人展望中国的现代化发展的画面.

“Let’s strive together to revitalize Nanning”, the poster board reads

牌子上写着:”团结奋斗,振兴南宁”.

In China, tremendous progress has been made in reform, opening up and modernization, which was intiated by Deng Xiaoping over the past two decades.

在过去的二十多年里,在邓小平的指引下,中国的改革开放和现代化建设取得了卓著的进步.

Beneath the board, a sanitary worker is also on camera, watering the plants for use in improving Nanning’s urban landscapes.

在牌子下面,我们可以看到一个环卫工人了正在为城市的绿化植物浇水

While many of the National leaders in China have made a deep and lasting difference in the life of Chinese people, ordinary people like him are also performing their service to make China a better place.

很多中国的国家领导人为改善人民生活作出了很大的贡献,而像这位环卫工人一样的普通人民也正在为祖国的建设奉献自己的一份力量