JIE

On Monday, October 21, Jiangsu Institute of Education held its 50th anniversary celebration. For the past year, a new building has been under construction, with the target date of completion to be on this anniversary date. In addition to the new building, many areas of the campus were under renovation throughout the summer, in particular, the front gate, which was totally redone. Over the past few years, the school has been developing, old buildings renovated, new buildings built, and the program expanded. Finally, on October 21, the big day came. The main celebration was in the new gymnasium. The campus was festooned with colorful balloons and inflated arches, a typical Chinese festive promotional feature.

Students, alumni, former teachers, representatives from other provinces and universities, and assorted guests arrived for the morning celebration.

Flowers were also used in abundance to create a bright welcome. The flowers on the hillside, above, say "warmly welcome," which is the standard Chinese welcoming phrase. The flowers at the front gate spelled out 1952 and 2002, along with the new school symbol. The old style Chinese building is the building where all my classes are held, along with those of many other departments.

The front gate has been totally replaced, and the buildings on either side of the entrance have been renovated. The new sign is to the left of the entrance. Coinciding with the celebration is the announcement of a new name: Jiangsu Institute of Education Science and Jiangsu Institute of Education. I am not clear about the meaning of the new name (the new part is JIES) but according to a student, it means we will be able to issue graduate degrees. In the center photo, across the entrance, the guard office can be seen, along with a couple of shops and a city Post Office. Behind the sign, with entrance on the back side, is the campus Post Office, which only contains the school mailboxes; there is no mailing function. Just inside the front entrance, the view of the flags, the inflated arch, the colorful flowers, a permanent arrangement of trimmed bushes in the shapes of four Chinese characters stressing the importance of being a teacher. Outside my teaching building, the art department displayed some student work in the field of graphic arts. Since that was my undergraduate degree, I enjoyed looking at what today's Chinese students were doing.

The new building is a combination of two main buildings, one a sports complex, including a gymnasium and stadium seats, the other an arts building, to house the arts departments, both music and visual arts. The big celebration was held, logically enough, in the gymnasium. The platform in the center was covered with chairs and tables for a slew of VIPs. The front row held the highest ranking VIPs, several of whom gave speeches. They represented the provincial government and educational hierarchy. Additional representatives who spoke included a Japanese visiting arts professor, a faculty member, and a student. The speeches weren't too long individually or collectively. I didn't try to listen; I figured they were fairly predictable in content: congratulations to Jiangsu Institute of Education on its great achievement and contribution to the development of education in Jiangsu Province, etc. There was a military band in the far left corner that played on some key occasions. Maybe you can see the confetti that was shot from some tube device as an opening dramatic touch.

After the speeches, there was a ten-minute break while the stage was cleared and then the music department presented about 45 minutes of music: dance, traditional Chinese instruments, an accordion ensemble, solos, and choral presentations. All were quite good.

After the performances, I headed out to take photos of the rest of the campus, but had not gotten very far when a young man came up to me and pointed to the big coach in the photo and said I had been invited to lunch. I didn't have plans, and decided it was a happy occasion, and that I should go. It turned out that a Chinese-Australian woman and educator, with long-time connections to my school, had come for the celebration (she was already in China on business) and had seen me walking along and had sent the young man to invite me to lunch. It turned out that this was the big official luncheon for anybody who was anybody, and I ended up at a table with the woman, my foreign affairs officer, and a couple of vice-presidents of the college (one of whom lives above me in my apartment building) and other upper level folks. The food was good and I had a good time. Most of the VPs had to go around toasting everyone, so we three women enjoyed the good food and chatting. The person in the photo above is a president of the college.
Later, I visited the art gallery in the visual arts portion of the new building. An exhibit by the art faculty was on display. I was impressed by what I saw.
There were many other events related to the anniversary, but they have generally been smaller and aimed at fairly specific audiences. This one day was the primary activity in which I was involved.