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Kentucky and China get all officially buddy-buddy. If you happen to live in KY, this relationship could be a chance to absorb some Chinese culture, start some kind of China-related something or maybe even swing some kind of official travel thing. Who knows?
They just had a conference, but it’s part of a deeper relationship, or at least it wants to be….
The Kentucky China Trade Center that opened in Beijing on July 1, 2006 is promoting Kentucky business in China, Cao said. The trade center also supports Kentucky’s sister state relationship with the Jiangxi Province.
Participants also discussed the similarities between the areas and the peoples of the corresponding parts of Kentucky and China.
Jeffrey Richey, of the Asian Studies Program and the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Berea College, said he tries to teach his students to stray from the extremes of thought about Chinese citizens – rural inland citizens in particular.
“(The extreme beliefs are) they’re just like us and they’re nothing like us,” Richey said.
Populations in rural inland China are similar to most of the students he teaches because they come from typically poorer communities, Richey said. Mining disasters also frequent these areas of China just as in Eastern Kentucky. This is related to the lack of safety regulations and the careless thought of the mining companies, he said.
This gives the southern rural students Richey teaches a distinct advantage in studying the Chinese culture in these areas.
Go, Kentuckians!
And in other not-really-adoption-related news, yes, they’re adopted, no, they’re not.
OK, I hate it when other people do this, but yeah, it’s a story about pandas, not human beings. They were either sent as a gift by Beijing to Hong Kong, or else Hong Kong asked to “adopt” them. But still, pandas. And the inescapable question: is Hong Kong China, or is it not?
Last year, these baby panda cubs were yet another successful breeding attempt at The China Panda Protection and Research Centre in Wolong, Sichuan. Later this year, two of the centre’s pandas will be on their way to Hong Kong, to go on display at an amusement park in time for the 10th anniversary of handover. But there is confusion over who first approached the topic of panda adoption. The China Daily says the Hong Kong government requested the pair last September. The South China Morning Post says the pandas are a gift from Beijing. Either way, Audrey Eu from the Hong Kong Civic Party says while the gift is nice, it’s not what the majority of 7 million Hong Kong people are looking for from Beijing.
