Dear KidLeaders: Well... as some of you have probably already figured out, I have returned from Beijing, China where I attended the U.S./China Joint Conference on Education. It was an interesting trip and I will try and give you some kind of report. When I wrote this, I figured out it was a bit long for people who might not be interested, so I uploaded it and it is available via archives. Here goes... To save money, I decided to do as much free flying to get there as I could. This meant that I would ride in the cargo planes of Federal Express. This is one of the professional courtesies which is extended to pilots of other airlines like myself. I have a friend in Hong Kong, so I decided to make my 'base' there. To get to Hong Kong, I left my home by car in Guilford Connecticut at 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 31. Two hours to the airport, I caught an American Airlines flight to Chicago where I would change to Fedex. Unfortunately, were were delayed leaving Chicago for 5 hours and, after stops in Minneapolis, change of planes in Anchorage and Tokyo, I finally arrive in Hong Kong about 8 p.m. on Monday November 2... about 40 hours of traveling! Well obviously it was easy to sleep when I got there so I had very little jet lag going over. I spent 4 nights in Hong Kong. While there, I visited the International School in Tai Tam which is a private school attended by 60% Americans and 40% other nationalities. I demonstrated KidShow for the resident computer guru there (Dr. Karl Ostheller, a math teacher) and left him with the names and numbers of two contacts at the University of Hong Kong who might be able to provide very low cost Internet connections. The International School is apparently on line with AT&T Mail but, as this is not a free service, Dr. Ostheller confided some staff concern that they not get into a wholesale 'penpal' thing. For this reason, I concentrated on focusing on the KIDFORUM projects as a means of getting involved for a short project or two. Later in my journies, I met another teacher from this school (a 'Gifted and Talented' teacher) who showed some interest in the project and promised to push KidLink a bit more on her return to Hong Kong. So I am hopeful that we may have some participation from Hong Kong some time soon. Partly to kill time, partly to see the country, and partly insanity, I decided to try and take a meandering train ride through China as a means to get to Beijing for the Conference. I would leave Thursday morning in order to be in Beijing Monday afternoon when the rest of the attendees were to arrive. If I stayed on the train, I could get from Hong Kong to Beijing in about 42 hours. Well... that didn't seem like too much fun, so I decided I would try to stop along the way and see some of China. There was only one problem with this concept: In China, you cannot buy a train ticket between two cities unless you are *in* the city of departure and I could not buy a ticket from Hong Kong (or Guangzhou) to Beijing and then get off and on the train as I pleased (a la Eurailpass). I have reasoned this policy as some sort of government control of movement, but beyond that, it makes little sense and is very incovenient. So... while I intended to make 2-3 overnight stops along the way, I was actually able to only make one and it really wasn't a night stop. Oh yes... I forgot to tell you one other aspect of this trip which made life interesting for me: I don't speak or read Chinese! (Dui bu qi, Wo bu hui, shuo zhong wen!) The train is interesting. Foreigners generally travel 'Soft Class' which is the real world equivalent of 'semi-coach', but is First Class in China. You get a seat in a 4 bed berth which has a reasonably standard and funtional layout. The dining car is in the next car (there is only one Soft Class car on the train) and they have a nice variety of wholly Chinese food. I stopped in Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) for about 5 hours waiting for the train to my first point of intended overnight stay, Changsha. Guangzhou is a fully developed city with enough western influence and signage for me to make my way to the China Hotel to have bite of lunch while waiting for the train. Plenty of cellular phones in use in this busy city. I spent my first night in China aboard the train from Guangzhou to Changsha arriving at 5:45 a.m. Think about how much luck you would have trying to check into a hotel in the western world at 6:00 a.m. and then think about how much fun I had that morning. I had not made any reservations and that just made it all the more interesting. Actually, I was able to ride the coat-tails of a Dutch agriculturalist who shared my train car with me. He was met at the train station by his government host and car and allowed me to ride along to his hotel. I slept for another hour or so and then got up to set about the task of buying my train ticket for the next day to the next city on my chosen 'visit list.' Well... I was in the right city to buy the ticket, but the only problem was that they were sold out... for three days. By 5 p.m. all they could tell me was that they *could* get me a ticket direct to Beijing that night which would get to Beijing on Saturday night. I called the conference hotel in Beijing to see if the could take me two days early and they said "yes." I thought about it for about 5 minutes and realized I was lucky to be as far as I was on my own and I needn't push my luck and get stuck in some other city and be late for the conference... so I bought the ticket to Beijing. While in Changsha, I was able to take a nice along walk around the city. In Guangzhou, westerners get little more than a casual glance. In Changsha, people were quite curious. Passing youth, mostly little boys, would actually say "hello" but I don't think they knew much more. In many cases, especially with girls, they giggled endlessly when I replied "hello." I went to a museum there they have the artifacts from a 2100 year old tomb of royal princess... including the very well preserved body! It was a rather strange thing, but they had the actual body (as well as most internal organs) in a specially sealed display area in the basement of the building. Well... I saw it. I got to Beijing at 8 p.m. on Saturday night and it was cool but also snowing lightly. After about 20 minutes trying to figure how to get out of the train station, I was outside in the snow. Feeling pleased with myself for getting this far, I must have just wandered around in front of the train station for 5-10 minutes with a silly grin on my face. What I was actually doing was tring to nonchalantly figure out where to get a taxi to the hotel. Finally I saw big sign that said "TAXI." I figured that was the place. I went to the hotel and went to sleep. The next day I went to the Beijing Zoo, saw the sleeping Panda bears, and wandered around for quite a while. It was quite cold and windy (although it was also clear enough to see the Great Wall off in the mountains from my hotel room). The hotel we stayed at was first rate. Most of the staff spoke enough English to help me along and that was refreshing to say the least. We stayed at the New Century Hotel which is a joint venture with the Japanese airline ANA. Like I said, it was first rate in every sense. Later I would see many hotels of equal and better quality, but I was very happy to be where I was supposed to be. The conference was attended by about 230 American educators. There were also two Canadians, an American teacher from Hong Kong, and a teacher from Tasmania Australia. The Chinese counterparts did not stay at our hotel. Most of the Americans were on a flight which had big delays and they arrived at the hotel around 4 a.m. on Tuesday, the first working day of the conference. It must have made a long day for them, but I was quite relaxed and content. The actual conference was set up like this: 1st day Tuesday: Opening Session in afternoon, then Opening Banquet. 2nd day Wednesday: Working Sessions. Our group, Computers in Education met for ths first time this day. There were about 30 people in total at the session. Much of the morning session was taken up with introductions. The Chinese participants delivered four formal papers during the day, while the Americans preferred informal discussion of issues. 3rd day Thursday: Field Visits. The Americans were given tours, in groups divided by subject area, of different schools and facilities. We (the computer crew) visited a Middle School, an experimental Primary School, and a High School. We also visited the Central Institute for Educational Research (CIER). 4th day Friday: Poster Presentations Sessions and Closing Ceremonies. I stood by my Kidlink Poster (1 meter wide x 2.5 meters high) which had the basic information in large English and Chinese type. Interest was high. The closing session was much more informal than the opening and featured entertainment from performing artists representing both parties. 5th day Saturday: Tour of the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. 6th day Sunday: Tour of the Forbidden City and shopping. Now... my review of the highlights: Day 1. Largely symbolic and fairly dry. The U.S. Ambassador to China delivered a speech (in English and then in Chinese) at the Opening Session. Day 2. Good to meet some of our 'counterparts' finally. I was the only non-professional in attendence at the whole conference so I tended to sit back and let them handle it... NOT! The Chinese treat this sort of thing with a great deal more formality than most Americans were ready for I think. They take this stuff seriously and had prepared papers to deliver while we were more disposed to frank discussion of important issues. After one participant told us that 8% of schools in China now have computers, he went on to say that they had plans to introduce computers in all the schools. I asked the rather blunt question of how long they expected that to take. They were a little embarassed I think, so I explained that this was a problem in the U.S. schools as well and I was curious how they were dealing with it. This tended to become the best way to get them to be forthcoming with information which had the possibility of making them look inadequate. I found that if I confessed a problem, they were much more open about discussing theirs. Day 3. We saw one classroom with working students. They were programming in BASIC... sort of. It was BASIC with Chinese characters! China has taken the Apple II technology and written entirely new EPROMS (a kind of computer chip) for it along with a modified video output (to make bigger characters), and they have a functional BASIC program language in Chinese! It was great! At the same school, we saw a classroom which was not being used. They had about 30 Mac Plus computers with floppy drive only and no network. At the front of the classroom was a Mac II. They had developed their own version of Microsoft Word (I think that's what it was) which used Chinese characters. It was pretty ingenious the way it worked: 1. The user types the Roman letters which form the _sound_ the character makes when spoken. 2. The user is then prompted with a series of all Chinese characters which sound the same as the Roman letters typed in. The use of Roman characters like this is referred to as Pinyin. 3. Finally the user selects the correct character with a mouse. The BASIC programming language on the Chinese Education Computer (or CEC, which is a modified version [probably not licensed either] version of an Apple II computer) was handled in much the same manner, although it was less graphically sophisticated. In general, it was quite impressive. We also visited CIER, which houses several more advanced systems for research purposes. Most systems here were PC types. This is the site for the new IGC node which should be functional shortly (more on that later). We visited an office at Beijing Normal University ('Normal' used in this manner means that the core population is student teachers) which was attempting to develop standardized software for all computers used through out China. We heard from the various people there that they were pretty successful in doing this because there was little other off-the-shelf foreign software available which could be used. They had systems ranging from very sophisticated down to the less capable CEC. They had developed their own CAI software for most of these systems and were responsible for distributing this to the schools throughout the country. Day 4. The Poster Sessions. This was where I got to personally explain KidLink to all the people interested. I had prepared a 'poster' with eight pouches containing the latest info from these files: KIDLINK GENERAL, NEWSLETTER 3, KidLink in the Classroom, NATIONS, KID-92 NUMBERS, The new KIDFORUM Outline, KIDLINK PEOPLE, and KIDBOOK SYNOPSIS. The only problem was that this represented almost several hundred pages of one-of-a-kind material. People visiting the exhibit thought it was handout material and shortly dismantled the entire thing! Argh! I didn't really bring anything to hand out because I had no way of knowing how much of what to bring. In any case, the KidLink project was HEAVILY reviewed and there was a great deal of interest. All visitors clearly understood our mission of getting the kids talking to each other now as a really great way to bring the world closer together and build a better future. What many had problems with was with understanding E-mail. In a country which hasn't that many computers, the concept of modems and all that was a bit much, so I tried to keep it simple and forge friendships for future 'activation.' During ths closing ceremony, we were treated to several performances by musical, dance, and theatrical students. They even enticed some of the visiting American guests to perform impromptu musical an dance numbers. Day 5. The Great Wall and Ming Tombs. A long day... I'm sure you've all seen pictures. It was snowing the day we went and it looked a little different that day, besides which it was extremely SLIPPERY. The 'road' on top of the wall is *quite* steep in places and with a bit of an ice layer on it... it was downright dangerous! Nonetheless... it was quite interesting. Day 6. The Forbidden City. We had a half day in this place which could easily absorb one or two FULL days. Very interestingly simliar architecture which made it easy to get quite lost and disoriented; a giant maze. A huge place. I came home from Beijing via DragonAir (a Hong Kong based airline with very high quality 'western' style service) to Hong Kong, then hopped a cargo plane to Anchorage then to New York. It was considerably shorter coming home but I still have not recovered from the jet lag. Now... you all probably want to know when you can expect to start seeing some large scale Chinese participation in KidLink. Well... unfortunately, I think that is some time off still. Odd has been keeping in touch with some contacts there and I found that we overlapped nicely in places. This will, I'm sure, lead to a greater interest in the KidLink project. I left about 12 KidShow diskettes in China and gave another 12 to visiting Americans. I also had some KidLink buttons made up for the kids I would meet. Unfortunately, we didn't run into a group of kids of the right age where I could give them out directly, but I left about 50 at a school with the principal. I tried to give one to a boy in a school yard we (the group of teachers) were walking through, and, while he laughed and liked the button, he would not keep it. I experienced this 'problem' also when I gave the KidShow diskette to an interested teacher during the Poster Sessions. The interpreter told me that "She would like to know on what condition this is given." I explained that there was no condition and that she could copy it and give it to friends as well without any concern. They seemed surprised at this but *did* accept the diskette. I felt that the KidShow program will do a much better job (than I could do in my short time) of informing the Chinese what KidLink is and what E-mail is and how it all works. I also left my Poster presentation with Feng Guangbin of CIER. He has also been in touch with Odd and I think he represents the main source of any potential eventual 'mass' participation in the project. I also left some KidShow diskettes with him along with a dozen or so buttons. Incidently, you may be wondering about the buttons. I used the KidLink logo art and superimposed the word 'KidLink' over the upper part of the art while also writing the Chinese equivalent of KidLink below the art. This process was a rather interesting one which I thought you might be interested in. I wanted to have some material translated before the event so that I could include it in the Poster. I found a firm in Spokane Washington which was able to fax me (to my computer and, hence, to graphic files) the translated text. I only had a small amount done, but it included the four questions, "KidLink", "Global Networking for Youth 10-15", and "KidCafe"). The translators were not comfortable with translating "KidLink" or "KidCafe" since they are proper names. I asked them to do their best, explaining the meaning of the words. I asked them to make up a word-pair in Chinese which would mean the same thing. They did pretty good with "KidLink", but the "KidCafe" translation they gave me was deemed unsuitable by a professor of Far Eastern Languages at Yale University, where I had all the text verified. The problem with KidCafe was that the translation that they gave me had a literal meaning of "Youth Coffee House." To us westerners, that probably sounds sort of OK, but I felt, and was assured, that this would have little or no real meaning for the Chinese... for a variety of reasons. In any case I decided not to offer the "KidCafe" translation. The "KidLink" translation was better, though. I asked the Chinese teachers and students I ran into to explain what this (the chinese text on the buttons) meant to them. I found that the better their English was, the better the translation was. In any case, the most often given translation was "Youth Connection." I was very pleased with this. Two other translations I got were "Youth Team" and "Youth Effort." The second of these was given once by a woman who spoke VERY little English and was likely doing the best she could with her vocabulary. At the very end of this file is an ASCII estimate of what the Characters of "KidLink" looks like along with an approximation of how to pronounce it. The future of e-mail to China is looking better, but still not great. I will give my understanding of the situation. Several schools throughout China have set up relationships with schools in the west where they interact electronically on a specific topic for a given duration. Some of these are funded from within China, with others funded outside China. The bottom line is that E-mail is comparitively (compared to much of the western world *and* compared to pay scales in China) VERY VERY expensive. The infrastructure for Internet, as we know it, really isn't in place and, where it is, the government is controlling the cost at a prohibitively high rate. While a school on one side of the street in Beijing may be doing neat things with international e-mail, and the school across the street is also doing neat things with international e-mail, the problem is that they have no easy ability to interact *within* the country. Doing so would dramatically lower the international contact cost because they could get a 'quantity' discount by having a cooperative system in China to store and forward such e-mail in bulk form, rather than individually. Fortunately, there are some people with vision and money in the world and they are trying to illuminate this issue a little. Peter Copen, of the Copen Family Fund, has seen to the funding of the installation of a new BBS based in Beijing at CIER. The project is intended to support a specific project called I*EARN, in which 13 schools in Beijing are partici- pating. Since this BBS will has the capability to allow Internet e-mail exchange, we have been inquiring about using it for some KidLink participation. The answer seems to be that we might be able to do something if we help pay for the costs, since that is not is what the system was put there for. While I was in Beijing, I worked for half a day trying to iron out some of the technical problems they are having with this BBS, but it is slow going to be sure. When it is fully operational, I am sure we will hear about it, but I can make no guarantees that KidLink will ever be able to 'use' it. I don't recall where I got these figures, but I think they may be somewhat accurate: The general sense is that for a school to be involved with a project which generated 3 messages each way each week for 10 weeks, the cost would be about USD$60. It seems steep, but I think it might be well suited for a KIDFORUM project if one or more schools in our international group wanted to sponsor such a connection. Surely the details of such an arrangement would have to be worked out, but it seems within the realm of possibility to pull something like this off within 12 months. We'll see I guess. The price tag for sending and receiving e-mail from China is just about the only reason why you'll note that I have not mentioned the e-mail address involved and I hope you will understand the need for that kind of security. Well.... That about covers the picture. If you have any questions, please feel free to write me. Take care Mark Hunnibell Guilford, Connecticut GUILFORD@Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu ============================================================================ This is about what the characters meaning 'KidLink' or, more accurately, 'Youth Connection' look like: XXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXX XXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXX XXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX XX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXX XXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXX XX XX XXX XXXXXXX XXXX XXX XXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXX XX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX XX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXX XXXXXXX XXX XXX XXX XX XXXXX XXX XXXXXXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXXXX XXX XX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX In Mandarin Chinese, it sounds like this "shou nien-nien shi." This has a phonetic breakdown about like this: shou = like the english word shout except with the 't' nien = nee en shi = she The timing is also relevant, there are basically three beats: shou nien-nien shi 1 2 3 This requires that you say 'nien-nien' quickly. I *do* have a uuencoded version of a GIF file of the art I created to make the buttons (the chinese characters are quite sharp and easy to read) if anyone is interested, I will send it.