What a great and informative session today! If you see Dr. Morris on campus be sure to thank him for his time.

Today’s session forced me to re-think a number of things about myself, culture, society, history, globalization, China, the US, etc. I found the slide and his discussion re: “Which Wang — the globalized basketball star or the nationalistic fighter pilot — will China promote in the future?” to raise a lot of interesting questions. And I must say that EVERY time I hear about Admiral Zheng He’s armada and his 440 foot Treasure Ships I am blown away. Can you imagine being a farmer or carpenter standing on the coast of East Africa or on the coast of India watching those ships sail by? Amazing. In college I took a number of world history classes (one of them was a military history class in college). Not a single one of these classes or their textbooks even mentioned Admiral Zheng and his armada, not even in a footnote. I think they talked about China for 5 minutes in the course and might have had 7 pages total in one chapter in a textbook on China. Unbelievable. I should ask for a partial refund!

What about you? What where some of the helpful takeaways you learned from today? Is China starting to come to life for you? Try to think a little about, read a little about, and talk a little about China each day between now and when we leave in June and by that time you will be surprised what a solid foundation you have built up for the trip to help you better connect the dots when we arrive — but I emphasize that a stronger ability to connect the dots once we get there and fully get your monies worth depends on the time and effort (and the quality) that you put in between now and then (including making this cental blog a meaningful part of your learning experience and discussions with each other to learn and grow).

FYI — here is Thomas Friedman’s “The Two Wangs” NY Times article [subscription may be required] that Dr. Morris mentioned. Also, click here for a great post on the China Law Blog re: the state of blogging in China that nicely relates to our discussion today about Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. and the accessibility of information in China.

I will also post his presentation on the “Docs” section of this blog (password protected) once I receive them.

Professor Carr July 17, 2007 Addendum:  For an excellent modern day follow-up to Dr. Morris’ discussion of Admiral  Zheng He’s fleet and Treasure Ships, read this related Wall Street Journal article [subscription may be required], As China Grows, So Does Its Long-Neglected Navy.