I was excited to return to China as a member of UNT’s June 2009 China delegation to help explore in more detail the possibilities for collaboration between my university and department and counterparts in that country. Having been to Beijing in 2008 to premiere The Global Rivers documentary at the CILECT Congress, it was a privilege to now travel to other parts of this rapidly developing country. Since the delegation participants represented a number of academic areas, we had somewhat different small group itineraries within the various cities we visited, but traveled across China as a group. In addition to touring different universities, I was delighted to finally see the Himalayas, temples, regional artistic and cultural performances and the varied geographical regions of northern, southern and central China.

While we visited several universities in Beijing, my first visit to a media-specific academic institution was at the Communication University of China, a top-tier media program in China and in Asia. CUC is the premiere university for broadcast, cable, journalism, new media and documentary media modes. At CUC, I spoke with He Suliu, a professor and the deputy dean and director of the Documentary Study Center in the School of Television and Journalism. We had a long discussion about collaborating, specifically in the area of documentary and news production, in both the United States and China. The Department of Radio, Television and Film at UNT houses both the Master of Fine Arts degree in Documentary Production and Studies, as well as the Electronic News undergraduate degree, both of which were areas of CUC interest for collaborative research and teaching.

The timing of the CUC visit allowed me to be present at Tiananmen Square on June 4th, which was the 20th anniversary of the 1989 student protests. There wasn’t much of an acknowledgement of the event, as China’s government and news publications do not publicly discuss it. This lack of any public commemoration could also have been caused by the government’s censorship, as it was reported by Jacqui Cheng in Arts Technica that the Chinese government had blocked the use of social networking sites such as “Twitter” and “Flickr,” in the days before the anniversary. CNN International is available in many large hotels in China, but the government blocked out news stories specific to the Tiananmen Square anniversary before returning to regular programming.

After Beijing, we travelled four hours by plane to Kunming and then on to Dali, both in Yunnan Province. Dali is a beautiful modern city with an historic city center surrounded by ancient walls. It sits on a beautiful mountain lake, and Dali University literally sits on the side of a mountain, with building clusters designed to be seen from above in the shape of butterflies and flowers. Like UNT, Dali University is very environmentally minded, with sustainability programs in the arts and sciences. I was particularly interested in some of the overall research going on at Dali. The university has funding from the Ford Foundation to help poorer Yunnan Province youth attend college as well as short-term Chinese language and culture immersion programs. Faculty and students at Dali University have done work protecting lakes and other waterways in the region. Yunnan University in Kunming has a vibrant media program, with student and faculty work in environmental documentary, new media and animation. We are in the early stages of planning a joint teaching/production opportunity for UNT and Yunnan students and faculty, concentrating on documenting indigenous and environmental issues in the mountainous Tibetan autonomous region of China.

After spending a couple of days in the mountain trekking outpost of Lijiang City, we travelled back southeast to Chang’an University in Xi’An, Shaanxi Province. Flights in China depart early in the morning, so we often travelled several hours by plane and bus before arriving for formal delegation meetings with university officials, faculty and administrators. At Chang’an University I met with several of the arts and media faculty who are interested in sending their students to study for two years as part of their undergraduate program. My UNT faculty colleagues had separate meetings at a variety of Chinese institutions, including music and arts conservatories, business programs, information and technology departments and others.

Our last visit was to East China Normal University in Shanghai. Their Radio, Television and Film Department seemed very similar to ours in that they have a combination of both media theory as well as culture and production courses. Like UNT, they also emphasize interdisciplinary work. We discussed many exciting possibilities for collaboration, including one in particular that may start in summer 2010 and would give students the opportunity to go to both study and attend the Shanghai International Film Festival and Shanghai Television Festival, which take place back to back.