China Blog - Our First Day

What an exciting evening!
 
An hour or so prior to our first official event I took the liberty to walk the streets sightseeing.  Our hotel is a few blocks from Tiananmen Square.  The Grand Hotel Beijing is on a major thoroughfare which, if you were to look quickly, resembles a major thoroughfare in most East Coast large city business districts. However, like in most cities, the real flavor of the city lies beneath.  Two blocks from our hotel I found the most amazing Chinese market filled with vendors offering noodles and other soup dishes to mitigate the edge of the cold.  Lots of dishes served on a stick: from fruits to vegetables to meats.  On this market street there was even a Chinese street theater performing!

As I walked, a tall Black man in a suit and tie with a camera, I stuck out like a sore thumb.  During my walk I had three Chinese women approach me for conversation in an attempt to strengthen their English.  In the US there is substantial media about the Chinese “closed society”, but my experience was that Chinese people are engaging and open to new experiences.  Of course, my experience thus far has been with university students and travel business professionals.  I headed back to the hotel to board the bus for our first official delegation event.
 
Our delegation was greeted this evening by C.H. Tung, Chairman of the China-United States Exchange Foundation.  Mr. Tung, an influential government official rumored to be a contender for the next President of China, hosted a formal dinner at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.  I was amazed by the openness of the conversation.  More than the words spoken, there was a strong spirit of seeking understanding among Chinese and African-American peoples in the room.  More than once, delegates from China and America spoke of this as being just the beginning of Chinese and African-American relations.  There is a real hope that we define our opportunities and work on their execution.  We’ll see how far we move in this direction over the next few days.