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Chinese Adventure
Mr D M Shaw
24th Sept 2009
Towards
the end of the last century David Shaw and his wife, two retired teachers,
went on holiday to
China
. Upon arriving in
Beijing
they were met by one of their tour guides a Mr Wang, Professor of English at
Beijing
University
, doing a part time job for the Jules Verne holiday company. It was Mr
Wang’s predilection to discover the profession of each of his tourists. When
he found out that David was a retired Headmaster he offered him a job at the
university. After some reluctance David eventually accepted Mr Wang’s offer
and there began his “Chinese Adventure”.
We
were fortunate to be recipients of David’s talk and photographs of his
“Adventure”. Starting in Tiananmen Sq in
Beijing
we saw and heard about many aspects of Chinese life, the very strong family
relationships, their food and the fact that at schools where English was
taught it was started with nine year olds. David Shaw ran twelve classes over
six months and became absorbed in the Chinese way of life. Interestingly for a
Communist Country people have to pay towards their education. There is a very
strong desire for education and improvement to better paid jobs so that their
families can benefit from increased wealth.
We saw details of the increasing wealth in
China
in the slides David showed of both
Beijing
and
Shanghai
. But the western influence of MacDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken also
has a detrimental effect on the Chinese diet which up to now had appeared to
keep youngsters slim and healthy.
From
China
we travel all the way back to Otley Chevin for the subject of our next talk.
On Thursday 8th October 2009 in Otley Civic Centre at 10-00am
Richard Marsh will tell us about “Chevin, Past, Present, Future.
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