Summer Palace

This morning we had a lecture by Dr. Jian who spoke on the Chinese system for developing top athletes (appropriate for the start of the Olympic Games where China really wants to beat the USA in the medal count, and especially the gold medal count). One interesting note is that the man who has been acting as our interpreter, ... who produced the Opening Ceremonies, was wearing his WKU polo shirt that we had given him as a gift the previous time we met. It turns out that he had worn it to the Opening Ceremonies and had a lot of people ask him ... what is WKU? He told them it stands for "We Keep Understanding, We Keep United" ... and then went on to explain to them about our group and the students who are here from Western Kentucky University.

In the afternoon we spent a few hours at the Summer Palace. It is a place where the Emporers went to essentially vacation, a beautiful location surrounding a lake that seems to go on forever. I could see why these rulers chose the location and wish we had more time to take it all in (as with everything else we have done, it's hard to understand and appreciate thousands of years of culture in a couple of hours). A side note, they had a giant projection unit set up on the grounds playing the China vs Spain women's basketball game ... funny to see a spanish couple surrounded by hundreds of chinese and watch the reactions of everyone.