The 20 day trip took 2 teachers and 5 Interior Design students to 5 Chinese cities: Beijing, Wuhan, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. The focus of the trip was meeting and sharing educational issues with Environmental Design teachers and students at 4 Chinese institutions: Beijing Normal University, Hubei Institute of Art (Wuhan), Zhejiang University of Technology (Hangzhou), and Suzhou Art & Design Technical Institute. Additional activities were related to visiting cultural and historic sites, and also contemporary art, interiors, and architecture, such as: Beijing (in or near): the Great Wall at Mutianyu, the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the National Theatre, the 798 Art District, and the newer downtown area; Wuhan (in or near): the Yellow Crane Tower, East Lake Easy Park, and East Lake, newer downtown area; Shanghai: Urban Planning Institute, the Shanghai Museum, the Museum of Science & Technology, the French Quarter, the Bund, and Pudong; Hangzhou (in or near): West Lake, Buddhist temples, and Longmen Ancient Water Town, art galleries, tea house, a well-known book store, and the newer downtown area; Suzhou: the Humble Administrator’s Garden, the Suzhou Museum, and the old canal district. At the Hubei Institute of Art in Wuhan, the graduating students in Environmental Design (approx. 10 teams) presented their final 8 month studio work to us. Students met with many department heads and visited their various department studios, many with on-going student activities, such as ceramics, print making, metal work, and photography.

At Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou our students attended a 2 hour lecture I gave on Montreal’s Interior Pedestrian Network, the largest in the world. In attendance was the Department head of Environmental Design, some of their teachers and approx. 100 of their students. At Suzhou Art & Design Technical Institute we viewed the vernissage work of graduating Interior Design, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Ceramics, Furniture Design, and Photography students.
At Shanghai Normal University our students took a Calligraphy and Chinese painting class and came back to Montreal with their work.

One major observation the students made was that they have more in common (both personally and academically) with their Chinese student counterparts than differences.