Day 9 (8/3) – Suzhou Silk Factory, Suzhou Museum + Backalleys of Suzhou

The drive from Shanghai to Suzhou was a good one to two hours, so many people took this chance to quickly take a nap. I was especially excited for the trip to Suzhou because it is reputed as being China’s own little “Venice.” Once we arrived, the first thing we did was visit a Silk Factory (apparently Suzhou is known for its luxurious silks).

This is not wholly environmentally related, but the whole silk process was very interesting, so I will talk about it shortly. Silk is made from silk worms, who are apparently the pickiest eater in the world – they only eat from Mulberry leaves. They are fed these leaves until they make a cocoon – which is actually where the silk is from. A portion of the cocoons are allowed to hatch so more silk worms will be born, but a large portion of them are picked out by quality and then boiled in hot water.

This boiling (yes, sadly) kills the silk worm inside, but allows the workers to take one single strand of the cocoon and spin it into silk. I have attached a picture of just how cool the silk spinning looks. Afterwards, the silk threads are all put together to make anything from clothes to pillows.

Afterwards, we visited the Suzhou Museum, which was designed by Mr. I.M. Pei. The design and architecture of the buildings is both contemporary and traditional at the same time, and I have attached a picture of it. Inside the museum, there are many exhibits on Suzhou history along with many artifacts by the people that used to live there. Overall, it was a very educational experience and a very, very nice museum.

At this point, I am reminded to share about the difference between Chinese bathrooms and American bathrooms. Many Chinese bathrooms are squatting only, which means there is no raised toilet but rather just a “toilet” on ground level. Although the bathrooms at the museum were not like this, many of the bathrooms in China also limit the amount of toilet paper they have. Even though I must concede that this serves as a rather gross fact, this does allow people to conserve toilet paper – instead of overusing toilet paper when you are in public restrooms, many Chinese people always carry some with them. And, I believe, because they are paying out of their own pocket, they probably use less of it.

Additionally, the flush button in China has two modes – one for liquids and one for solids. This is also a way to conserve water in China because different amounts of water are used to accomadate the situation instead of wasting away water when not necessary.

Lastly, we visited the backalleys of Suzhou by riding on a boat similar to a gondola (it wasn’t, because it was very oriental, but similar concept). Through this, we were able to see the lives of the people living next to the river – they often hang their clothes out to dry, and had baskets on the sides of their houses facing the river for trash. 

A saddening fact about this is how dirty the water was. When Lucy asked our conductor if people fished here, he said rarely, if ever, because all the fish here taste so bad – yeah, probably because the water is so polluted. Actually, I didn’t get to take a picture but there was also this boat structure made ENTIRELY out of plastic bottles and other plastic material. This surprised me a lot and hopefully somebody else got a picture of this. The “boat” smelled rather bad, so I’m not quiet sure if it is often used.

Luckily, there is a brightside to this. Coming back, I managed to take a picture of two workers on the river picking up trash from the sides of the houses and from the river itself.

This is a bright and hopeful sign that change is occuring in China, and perhaps even around the world – people are beginning to mobilize, just like Green Team America, and this is essentially the intiative that we all need to perserve and better the Earth.

Keep fighting GTA! I can’t wait to see what next year’s Green Ambassadors will learn and contribute.

Ruoxi

Day 8 (8/2) – Houston Day at Shanghai Expo

Today was by no exception also a hot, hot day in Shanghai. Luckily, we were able to skip the admissions line and several lines thereafter, so I and the rest of the Ambassadors are no doubt happy about that.

We quickly entered the USA pavilion to join the celebration of Houston Day at the Shanghai Expo. Again, we met many of the wonderful people from last night, Mrs. Ping Sun Leebron, Mrs. Rogene Calvert, Mr. Peter Brown and Mr. Nick Lampson. The latter even stopped by to chat with us at length and gave us some rather inspiring life advice, so thank you very much, Mr. Lampson!

After the reception, we traveled with the delegation to several other pavilions. Luckily, we had VIP status during these visits and were able to skip the lines. First up, we visited the USA Pavilion (because this was where we were originally). The USA pavilion was a 3-part wonder: first a film about the American dream/message, second a short music video about a girl enlisting the help of her (at first unenthusiastic) neighbors to build a garden, and a third room with American brands and creations.

The second room of the USA Pavilion.

We then visited the Canadian Pavilion. The outside is shaped like a C and made from special Canadian wood that can be easily taken down to reconstruct other structures. I thought this was a great innovation because it really speaks in the spirit of recycling. The inside of the Canadian Pavilion was designed by Cirque du Soleil and it had a fantastic structure of orange “ribbons” that went down along the roof.  We were able to ride bikes there that took you through a virtual tour of a “Better City, Better Life,” which also spoke to me sort of as a message for the environmental friendliness of bicycles. Seriously! Zero exhaust gases! Go bicycles!

Inside the Canadian Pavilion.

Following, we went to the France Pavilion. They had a large building structure that spiraled around on the inside, so that the middle was hollow and there was a fountain and mini-garden growing on the side. I’m rather bad at describing pavilions, it seems, but it also focused a lot of France’s economic contributions (there was a whole section related to Louis Vuitton).

Inside the France Pavilion.

After, we went to the Spanish Pavilion, which was one of my favorites by far. The first part was a large cave that played an amazing animation focusing on Spanish culture on the walls of the cave. The second part was also a film and the last part was focused on the babies. Yes, babies. The last thing you see in the Spanish Pavilion is a GIGANTIC GIGANTIC baby with very realistic facial expressions. I have attached a picture of it below.

One other thing about the Spanish Pavilion is that the outside is made out of these mats of different colors, probably made from a rather organic material. I asked one of the workers there what it was, and apparently it is a material used commonly in both China and Spain. You can see it in the background of the giant baby picture.

We were then left on our own to explore, which meant that we had to begin waiting in the lines. Four of us decided to stay and visit other pavilions. So, we headed to the Italy Pavilion (and not because of my love for Italy or anything).

The Italy Pavilion was not a long wait (20 minutes for us, I think) and the inside was like a HUGE museum. Most of it focused on Italian Culture (such as pasta, wines, nice cars, shoes, clothes, etc.) but a section of it was dedicated to talking about the next World Expo in 2015, which would be in Milan. I took a picture of one of the structures in there, because the whole presentation was geared towards a greener and more sustainable future.

Inside the Italy Pavilion.

Needless to say, I hope GTA will be taking its Ambassadors to Italy in 2015, possibly to stop by the Milan World Expo as well. Additionally, I took much more pictures than the above in the pavilion, but they are not so environmentally related, sadly.

Next, we visited the Poland Pavilion, which was also a 20 minute wait (we were going to go to Germany but it was over an hour wait and we didn’t know if we wanted to commit to that). The Poland Pavilion is very, very pretty in architecture but rather small on the inside. They had a video about the economic development of Poland on the inside that was very cute.

Inside the Poland Pavilion.

We then took a bus which took us all the way to the Asian section of the World Expo (which was nearly at the OTHER end of the expo). We decided not to visit China but Japan first, not knowing how long the lines at Japan would be. By the time we were commited to the line, we realized it would be a 2-3 hour wait. And so, we waited (this is actually a good/fast time, because the average time is 6 hours for Japan).

It is worth noting that all over the expo, under the waiting tents, there is a timed and automated mist sprayer. I believe the purpose of this is to relieve the heat, and perhaps it helped, but it really harmed visibility while waiting in line. When it got later at night (around 8 or 8:30 pm, probably), the mist machine stopped spraying.

Once we got into the Japanese Pavilion, they actually said “no pictures” or had those signs on the wall. Of course, we had to wait nearly 3 hours to get in, so I couldn’t help taking some pictures. Many of Japan’s exhibits were green in nature, so it would be helpful to note some of it now.

Japan talked a lot about new house structures that would preserve electricity and water, and talked about the community effort required for “Better City, Better Life.” I wasn’t able to take many pictures of these displays because of the constantly moving crowd, but they did have one invention that generated power by the people stepping/stomping over the ground. I thought this was a rather ingenious idea. Perhaps we can install some of these at the gym or at parks for people who run, and then use that power to heat water or to light lamps?

This is a robot from the Japanese Pavilion. It moved and talked.

Japan was the last pavilion we visited because it was almost 10 by the time we got out of there. We quickly went to take pictures of the Chinese Pavilion and then got a Taxi back to the hotel.

Thus, I have attached a picture of the China Pavilion. For those that will be visiting Shanghai in the future, you will have a chance to visit this pavilion at any point in time! I believe they are not taking this one down. : )

What a long and tiring day!

Ruoxi

Day 7 (8/1) – Wind Farm, River Cruise with Houston Delegation

As our first official day in Shanghai, we spent the morning driving all the way to Donghai Bridge, which is the second longest bridge in the world (the longest being also rather close to said bridge). We weren’t going for the island it would lead to or the bridge itself, but rather for the wind farm that would be the first of its kind located in the body of water between the mainland and the island.

This is the first windmill we saw. Of course, this one is on land and not offshore, but these are huge when we were close up!

I have taken several pictures, but we were not able to get off the bus and the visibility while we were over the water was really bad (ocean fog, perhaps?). This is rather unfortunate because the weather over there was really quite nice, and once we got to the other side (the island), the sky was perfectly blue.

This is somewhat hard to see because of the fog, but you can make out the windmills on the water on the right hand side.

You can see more of them in this picture! Again, I apologize for the bad pictures, we were on a bus and moving. : (

Dr. Pei gave us many facts about the wind farm -
1) The wind mill structures are built vertically and horizontally spaced apart so that the turbulence generated by one wind mill will not affect another one. This maximizes energy output.
2) Although the wind mills will be able to receive a lot of wind as it is right next to the coast, the overall cost of building wind mills in the water is rather expensive, which is why the idea cannot easily spread. (Consider the difficulty of maintenance and repairs.)
3) Each of the wind mills runs on its own turbine and generator.

Personally, I feel that this is a great way to harnest one of nature’s most prolific abiotic factors – the wind. However, wind is fickle and, no doubt, such a wind farm is incredibly costly to build, so I can understand why this is not seen all over the place. All is not lost though, because the emergence of this offshore wind farm only gives me further hope that human beings are continuously thinking of new solutions to the energy problem, which includes innovating our sources of power.

In the afternoon, we did a little shopping at old Shanghai. However, we were all the more excited for the cruise in the evening on the river with the Houston Delegation. We arrived at the ferry line early and were quickly given access to the boat.

We were able to meet Mayor Annise Parker again, who graciously greeted us once again and encouraged us to keep up the good work. After several speeches by both Chinese and American speakers establishing a framework of possible future economic collaborations between Shanghai and Houston, we met with Mrs. Ping Sun Leebron of Rice, Mrs. Rogene Calvert of the Asian Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Nick Lampson and Mr. Peter Brown.

The Green Ambassadors of Houston with Peter Brown and Nick Lampson.

We also took pictures with more people, but they are not on my camera; I apologize.

Thus, thank you very much to City Council, the Mayor and the Mayor’s office for designating us as Houston’s Green Ambassadors and giving us this wonderful trip to interact with Chinese students as well as learn so much about China, both historically and environmentally.

I have also attached some pictures of the Shanghai Skyline, on both sides of the river. : )

This is the new side of the river. You can tell from all the high buildings.

This is the older side of the river. You can still see a lot of European influence in the architecture (especially of the front buildings).

Ruoxi

Day 6 (7/31) – Hongjiu Manor + Miyun Reservoir

We arrived in Miyun County the afternoon the day before, but I took a couple of pictures to document the Chinese style architecure of our hotel rooms. The hotel rooms were modeled after traditional Chinese Housing.

It had rained early that morning, so the sky had somewhat cleared up. The smog was a lot better, whether due to the presence of the rain or our distance from downtown Beijing, but we could see blue sky as we were nearing the reservoir! It was an exciting sight, especially after so many days of not seeing blue sky.

This is the view of the countryside from the Hongjiu Manor.

The main focus of our trip to Miyun County is for the Miyun Reservoir, so I have taken many pictures of the reservoir itself. We drove past it and were not able to see much from the bus, but this saddens me because, years ago, villagers were able to see much of the reservoir from the side of the main road. Apparently, the government did some rerouting of the reservoir to prevent floods, and subsequently the water level went down and has never quite risen to the same level again.

The brightside of this change is that the farmers are able to grow crops in the areas that used to be covered by water, so there are a lot of thriving corn plants in the area. However, the question still remains on how long the water source will last, given the current conditions, as water is more important than corn, I would hope.

This is the Miyun Reservoir; the green areas you see  on ground level used to be the reservoir as well.

I did the presentation on Miyun Reservoir, so I knew quite a bit about it. It was surprising to see the same sight that I saw in a picture I put in my presentation, and I am glad to announce that the contrast between these two pictures is that there is now crops and vegetation growing in the areas that used to be just dirt after the water level dropped.

The height of the structure in the foreground suggests that the water level used to be so high that one would need to build the little house that high. However, you can tell that now, the water does not ever reach that level anymore.

I wish we had a chance to see the Miyun Reservoir with the students from Beijing, so they could have talked to us about just how much typical Beijing residents concern themselves with the water problem, or their usual knowledge of the Miyun Reservoir.

Ruoxi

p.s. Please expect days 7-9 tomorrow. : )

Day 5 (7/30) – Temple of Heaven + the Great Wall

Today, we would visit the Temple of Heaven, which used to be a place where the Emperor would come several times a year to pray for good harvests and a prosperous year. Nowadays, it is a leisure park where one can find many retired invidiuals spending their free time playing cards or dancing. We were lucky to have visited on a Friday because there were many elderly individuals there. Our tour guide tells us that this is because in China, many admissions to parks are free for people above the age of 65 (I belive it was 65, if not, around there).

The Temple of Heaven!

There were definitely plenty of trees in the park, and this is one of the things I appreciate about Beijing is that, like New York, even though it is a large, large, large city, it still manages to keep maintain its parks and historical landmarks. Sadly, the smog was still there and the weather was hot and humid like the past couple of days, so the park was not at its utmost enjoyable. However, the group dances and the chatter of the elderly in the park was an enjoyable sight.

We then had lunch near the Great Wall. This restauraunt was quite interesting in that we were eating INSIDE a greenhouse. The decorations in the restauraunt were also very jungle like, so I found it to be a rather “green” way for the Green Ambassadors to dine.

The section of the Great Wall that we visited is called Mutianyu, which is a less popular area than the most well known Badaling section of the Great Wall. On the way up, we rode the cable cars; on the way down, we decided to walk down. The steps on the Great Wall are huge and uneven, an example of how it was created by a group of people so long ago. Since we were pretty high up, we weren’t able to see much around us. Whether this was because it was just a cloudy day, or the smog, or the height, or a combination of those factors, it almost seemed like we were climbing a stretch of paved road, heading to nowhere in particular. 

You can see Sara (left) and Nina (right) climbing the Great Wall. : )

It was nice to see all the different types of plants that still resided high up in the mountains – it’s always nice to see growing vegetation. The climb down was arduous and Nina even fell (but, luckily we were able to recover the memory card she had dropped from her camera), but the experience was that of a lifetime. I think being able to say “I climbed the Great Wall” is an accomplishment for anyone.

Another interesting fact about popular sections of the Great Wall is, on the way to the actual “wall,” there are many shopkeepers along the way who are very, very persistent about you purchasing their products. They often make the prices much higher than the should be, but I’ve observed that foreigners are often very good at haggling. : )

I’ve attached a picture below of the typical shop you would see heading up to the Great Wall. The only thing missing is the variety of shirts that many shopkeepers had with the Great Wall on them.

Ruoxi

Day 4 (7/29) – Tiananmen Square, Forbidden Palace, + Meeting with Beijing Students

Today, we woke up early once again (this would become a recurring ritual for the next couple of days) in order to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace in the morning. While driving there, it can be noted that many people carried umbrellas with them everywhere they went – the umbrellas were not meant for rain, but rather to prevent UV rays. In Houston, even when you do see people walking on the streets, you rarely see them with umbrellas.

The hot weather was continuing, and this was noticeable through the number of people carrying fans, or on several rather unsightly occasions, men with their shirts halfway on. At Tiananmen Square, there were many people – as usual. I’ve visited the place before, but never cease to be amazed by how big the area really is when you’re standing in it.

We were unable to visit General Mao Zedong’s memorial hall, because the line for it was at least two or  three hours. However, we were given time to venture around the square. Facing Tiananmen Square, the Green Ambassadors, along with our tour guide Amy, took a group picture for two albums that we will be gifting to Green Team America and our sponsors as a thank-you for the trip.

I am in front of Tianamen Square in this picture. Sadly, the smog makes everything look gloomy. : (

Then, we took an underground pass to get to the other side of the road in order to reach the Forbidden Palace. Actually this is another interesting point about large cities in China. I believe since the traffic is so bad and so many people walk across busy intersections, much of the pedestrian traffic is diverted underground shortly so crossing automobile traffic is not slowed down. I’m not sure if this occurs in big pedestrian cities in the US, but this would be a smart idea to implement to prevent extra pollution from cars and trucks stalled in traffic.

As we entered the Forbidden Palace, we had the chance to visit many buildings, the highlight of which was the Emperor’s most important ceremonial chamber. For those that have watched Chinese historical dramas, this is the room that the Emperor meets all his officials and a bunch of kow-towing (or bowing) occurs. We learned from the tour guide that it was forbidden to look the Emperor in the eye unless specifically ordered by the big man himself, and that since 9 was a lucky number in China, the Forbidden Palace allegedly had 9,999 rooms.

 

The Forbidden Palace.

The Emeperor’s Ceremony Room.

Soon after that, we all got on the bus to drive to the New Path Foundation, where we would meet the high school students from Beijing. Most of them had either just graduated from high school or were going into their last year of high school. Unfortunately, the founder of Global Village of Beijing, Ms. Sheri Liao, was away on a business trip and could not meet with us. However, the students gave us a thorough and intriguing presentation about the work Ms. Liao and the Global Village have done. 

After the devastating earthquake in Sichuan a couple years back, Ms. Liao began an intiative to rebuild a village that had been destroyed in the earthquake. Instead of rebuidling the village the same way, Ms. Liao built the village with the concept of an environmentally friendly village in mind, creating a community that is able to give back to the environment. I was not able to get a copy of the students’ powerpoint, but hopefully, Dr. Pei has received some form of it on a USB drive. If not, we luckily got email addresses from most, if not all, of the students as we wanted to establish contact with them in the future.

After the presentation, we split up into mixed groups in order to create different poster presentations about issues that we noticed or cared about. My group consisted of Fitsum, Haotian, Sunyi and Rena, and we talked about the trash system in China versus that in America. We discussed the difference in the public trash cans as I had discussed in my previous post about Day 2. In comparing the pros and cons of the systems in both nations, some pros we pointed out were the recent requirement of bio-degradable bags for Houston garbage and the emerging education in China for recycling. Additionally, we talked about the trash collectors in China who are all very eager to find recyclable materials to sell back for profit.

Of the other groups, many talked about the eco-friendly nature of our hotel rooms, which required you to slide your door key into a slot in order to turn the power in the room on. This prevents lights that people would carelessly leave on, which wastes a lot of energy. Additionally, other groups talked about putting solar panels on top of roofs to boil water with as well as how, in China, many people grow low-maintenance grasses on top of their roofs in order to prevent leakage.

I did not manage to take pictures of the presentations, but I do have a picture of Lucy with one of the Beijing students, Joy. Hopefully, my fellow ambassadors will post some more about their presentations. : )

As the last task of the day, we visited the Bird’s Nest, which was the site of the opening and closing ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. I am attaching this picture as a STRONG testament to just how bad the smog was that day, especially. 

Ruoxi

Day 3 (7/28) – Summer Palace, Beijing + Tsinghua University

We woke up EARLY in the morning the next day to visit the Summer Palace. Luckily, our hotel had a complimentary breakfast with a combination of western and Asian foods available, so hopefully everyone was well energized for the long day ahead.  One of the biggest distinctions between Asian and western breakfast foods for me is yogurt. If you visit China, I suggest trying their yogurt (or yoghurt, as they spell it), because it has a more sour taste than American yogurt.  : )

I have attached a picture of the view from our hotel room that I took around 7 or 8 AM in the morning. You can once again notice the lack of visibility because of the smog. : (

Amy, our tour guide, gave us a thorough run through of Summer Palace, which was a little summer retreat that the imperial family often visited, because the temperature at the Summer Palace was almost always several degress lower than the temperature in downtown Beijing. However, I suspect that the weather during the days we were in Beijing was absolutely horrid and not a good representation of the weather of China. The humidity was as high as Houston’s, except we couldn’t see the sun because of all the smog and we had to walk around everywhere.

At Summer Palace, we learned about the importance of the number 9 in Chinese culture. I forget why, exactly, but there was even a bridge with exactly 17 arches because no matter which end you began to count from, the center arch would always be number 9. We were also able to take a ride in a dragon boat across the water. From there I was able to take pictures of the structures and buildings high up on the hill which we were not able to visit. Apparently, it was common in ancient Chinese architecture to always build a hill higher than the most important building in order to block out evil spirits.

This is a picture of the Marble Boat. It doesn’t move and remains stationary – a symbol of the stability of the dynasty that built it.

The view of the hill and structures on it in Summer Palace. (Notice the smog, again.)

From there, we met the students attending Beijing University, as well as the next president of the environmental club there. They were all very courteous and showed us around the campus, along with the park that was also on the Beijing University campus. For those that do not know, Beijing University is equivalent to the Harvard of China while Tsinghua University is equivalent to the MIT of China. The best and brightest of China’s emerging youth attend these two schools.

We managed to discuss shortly during the walk around campus with the Beijing University students about current conditions in China. It seems that summers in Beijing are always hot but autumn is probably the best season to visit China.

Below is a picture of the library of Beijing University, which according to one of the students is one of the largest libraries in China.

I have also attached a picture of Tsinghua University’s gate with its name on the top. We visited Tsinghua second, so by this time, everyone was completely tired out.

As an interseting point of info, on most Chinese name plaques on buildings or locations (like the above), the words are read from right to left.

Ruoxi

p.s. Please expect Day 4-6 reports tomorrow!

Day 2 (7/27) – Arrival @ Beijing

To get to Beijing, we had to fly from Houston to Los Angeles, from Los Angeles to Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, and then from there to the Beijing Airport. Although this was a lot of flight changes, most of the flights were on time and we managed to get into Beijing early in the morning of 7/28 (China time).

I took many, many pictures at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport because it had so much cool architecture! Also, I have attached a picture of what the trash bins look like in the airport. This was a cool discovery for me because their trash bins had a “recyclable” option next to the “other wastes” option, so people can easily recycle when they are in public.

  

Shanghai Pudong International Airport = Amazing Architecture!

Lucy and the trash cans! Recyclable on right, Other Wastes on left.

When we got to the escalators, we realized that they had escalators that only moved when the motion sensors sensed someone approaching the elevator. This occurred to me as a easy to implement and wonderful idea since the airport could save power by having escalators that turned off when no one needed to use them.

Also, the Shanghai airport had a water filling station, which I thought was convenient for people who brought refillable water bottles (us!) as well as those who don’t want to buy plastic water bottles. There was a hot and warm water option, so many of the people were using the water to heat up their ramen noodles.

 Katya and the Water Station. : )

I’ve also attached a photo of the view in Beijing at the time we arrived. Given that it was around 12 or 1 AM, it is understandable that it would be dark. However, notice how you can’t see anything but your immediate surroundings! That would be the smog’s doing, of course. : (

Ruoxi

Day 1 (7/26) – LAX

Our plane departing Houston left roughly on time early in the morning a little past 7:00 AM. At the time, I had no idea that it would be about another 20 or so hours of getting off and getting on planes before arriving in China.

Luckily, I managed to grab a window seat on the plane from Houston to LAX (Los Angeles Airport). When we were nearing Los Angeles, I looked out the window and noticed many wind mills below me. I thought this was a good use of the environment of the area (no doubt it is windy there because there are so many mountains) as well as a good way to produce energy. : )

During our short 10-15 minutes of actually walking outside in LA, we managed to stumble across a filming crew that was shooting for an episode of NCIS Los Angeles! We were actually walking right along the car and stretch of road that they were shooting for that scene, so that was very cool.

No pictures for this post, because I didn’t manage to get a picture of the wind mills from the airplane. : (

OVERALL OF OUR TRIP

Ah, Summer what power you have to make us enjoy and like it .What a great summer we had in China .Here we are back to Houston after Ten days of Environmental trip. We have been visiting China’s Historical places. The people in China are so great and warm welcoming .At the River cruise in Shanghai I had a chance to see Yao Ming who is famous basketball player. I had no idea that he is going to join us .I was video taping at the time but when I sow him coming throw at the get I was quite shocked. I couldn’t hold the camera because I was shacking.I`m glad that I sow him. We also had a chance to meet High School Environmental Club members in Beijing. And discuss in our Environmental issues. We also exchange E-mails to stay in touch with them. I have seen POSITIVE and NAGATIVE in China around Environmental stuff. In China there are a lot trees, gardens.Even though the population is way higher then U.S .So we Americans should do same thing. And also all of the hotels that we stayed they have a good way of saving electricity. Which is if you did`t insert your hotel card (key) the light won’t turn on. Which means no one is at the room. I see this as a very good way of saving electricity. The other thing is most Chinese people smoke cigert.Which makes the air polluted but I haven’t seen NO SMOKING sign in a lot of place that they should have. But here in America we have that which we should be proud. And teach other Countries to take our POSITIVE action. Overall am glad that I had a chance to go to on this trip. I can’t wait to turn this to work once the school year start. Thanks to all the people who help us!!!!