In the summer of 2006, I read in a newspaper about a robbery happened on a bus in Chongqing, China. Three robbers held up passengers at knife point. According to newspaper reports, the fifteen passengers were terrified yet silent. An American traveler in the back of the bus phoned the police on his cell phone, but the police officer on the line could not understand his English and simply hung up. The robbers escaped with their loot in hand.
The event provoked widespread discussion. I talked with several American travelers who tried to persuade me that China should have English-speaking policemen at every station. As one college student from Cambridge told me, “China is holding the Olympic Games in 2008. People all over the world are rushing in, so China must have policemen who can provide security and services for us.”
I remained unpersuaded. In the regions that are isolated, the police officers there may not encounter an English-speaking person for years. “It seems a waste of resources to train an officer merely to let his skills fall idle,” I told the traveling American, “When foreigners come to China, they should be encouraged to learn the basic language skills necessary to make do in China.” I conceded to his argument insofar as the government should equip certain major cities’ stations with English-speaking officers.
Rather than insisting that the Chinese government train numerous people to offer English services, it may prove practical and culturally valuable for foreigners to have some basic Chinese phrases under their belt. Appreciating that the government has neither the will nor the resources to blanket the country-side of China with English-speaking police, I decided to create a website with some basic Chinese phrases that would be likely used in an English-speaking traveler’s daily life. As I live in the city of Jinan, which does not have any English newspapers or tourist information bureaus for foreigners, I created my own tourist guide in English for the city I know and love. I wrote descriptions of both the tourist attractions and, adding a personal touch to my new project in which I was carrying out with great pleasure, I reviewed my favorite restaurants of the city. I also carried out interviews with the shop-keepers of my local favorite stores, libraries, museums, and restaurants.
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Hello! My name is Morgan Payne and I am helping to create a website called XploreU.
It is the mission of XploreU to help students find the many ways in which exploring the foreign can become an inner journey, an education, advancing the detailed experience of travel as an enemy against egotism. XploreU emphasizes cultural exploration as a crucial complement to travel, showing students that they can forge their own meaningful ties to our unavoidably interconnected world.
For right now we just need people who are willing to write articles and submit phots of either places they've traveled or their homes, it will be a while yet before we need these things.
What I need from them right now is thier full name and email address so we can contact them, along with their year (first year, junior, etc) and their major so we can get a general idea of what types of people are interested so we can better tailor the site to suit their needs. This information will be kept private.
Do you know anyone who might be interested?
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