mzhang's blog

I have always wanted to take my students to Study Abroad in China. After so much preparation, I  finally got to take a group of very passionate, smart, and lovely students to Xi’an, China. We stayed there for a full month from June 25th to July 25th.

During the time of studying in Xi’an, they did not only take business classes with me to learn how to conduct business in China, but also many cultural lessons with host university professors to learn Chinese paining, calligraphy, kong Fu, and tea ceremony.

In their spare time and during the weekends, they also got to travel to many famous tourist places to see the cultural sites, such as:Terracotta Army, big goose pagoda, Cuihua mountain, great wall, and temple of the heaven, forbidden city in Beijing, etc.

Xi’an is also the heaven of Chinese food, here are just some of the food pictures taken while we were in Xi’an and Beijing.

The trip is such a wonderful experience for both me and my students! I hope they had not only had a fun time but also learned a lot from this program!

I can’t wait to take more students to Xi’an in Summer, 2018!

Should anyone who reads this post interested in going to Xi’an next Summer, please contact me at: mzhang@bgsu.edu

There are three most famous treasure houses of stone inscriptions in China. They are Longmen Grottoes, Yungang Caves, and Mogao Caves. Although I was born in Henan, where the famous Longmen Grottoes are located, I’ve never visited until this summer. The Grottoes are located in the south of Luoyang, between Mount Xiang and Mount Longmen and face Yi River. The grottoes were built around the year 493 when Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) moved the capital to Luoyang.  The scenery measures 1,000 metres (about 1,094 yards) from north to south. There are over 2,300 holes and niches, 2,800 steles, 40 dagobas, 1,300 caves and 100,000 statues.

The grottoes and niches of Longmen contain the largest and most impressive collection of Chinese art of the late Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties (316-907). These works, entirely devoted to the Buddhist religion, represent the high point of Chinese stone carving.

The caves, stone statues, steles and inscriptions scattered in the East Hill and West Hill at Longmen have been well preserved. But some of the statues were destroyed during the war. The property area and buffer zone retain their natural landscapes and the ecological environment that have existed since the late 5th century. The works of humans and nature have been harmoniously unified and the landscapes possess high integrity.

India is such an amazing country. It is on a different continent, with a totally different culture. It is a place that amazes your senses and lets you discover your surroundings as if you were just born. The food is amazing, the sarees are gorgeous, and the people are so generous that it melts your heart. I was so lucky that I got a chance to visit Bangalore, India in June. I went there for a conference but I chose to stay for a few extra days to explore the culture. It was a great decision to take the “Heritage of Karnataka” tour.  I got to visit Hospet, Hampi, Hasan, and Belur. What impressed me the most are the mythical landscape at Hampi and the Temples at Belur.

Below are some pictures of the mythical landscape. For most visitors to Hampi, whether pilgrims or tourists, the first thing to be noticed is the remarkable scenery in this part of central Karnataka. Granite boulders of varying tones of grey, ochre and pink dominate the landscape, distributed either as hills and long ridges or as piles of rock that seem to have been thrown down by some primeval cataclysm. The terrain is one of the most ancient and stable surfaces to be found anywhere on earth , its unique rocky appearance caused not by earthquake and upheaval, but by some three thousand millions years of erosion.

The following pictures are taken at Belur where you can find the most magnificent specimens of South Indian temples. The facade of the Temple is filled with intricate sculptures and friezes rising one above the other.

Indian people love flowers. They use fresh flowers to decorate their homes and for rituals activities. I went to a local flower market and saw piles of fresh flowers on sale everywhere.

One last very important thing to talk about is the Indian food. It is lauded for its curries, mouth-burning spices and complex flavor pairings. With its use of cardamom, cayenne, tamarind and other pungent ingredients, the resulting taste combinations are unlike anything found elsewhere around the world.

Traveling internationally is one of the most exciting things for me. I had a wonderful trip in China, my home country, in summer. This trip was especially fun because I got to meet some people I know at BG in China. One of them is my student, the other one is a good friend’s daughter. The world is so small !