A couple of weekends ago, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in town co-chairing the third U.S.-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) alongside China’s State Councilor Liu Yandong. They discussed and presented plans for increased collaboration and exchange between the two countries over a huge variety of areas. A couple of topics that really grabbed AsiaTravel’s attention were education and women.
China State Councilor Liu Yandong & U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton
On education, Secretary Clinton stated, “American students…are yearning to learn more about China, and you cannot learn that from a textbook. You learn it from sitting across a table, having a discussion, sharing a meal, learning a language. There is nothing that substitutes for being in each other’s countries.” We could not agree more. When students on our educational programs return from trip, the focus is typically on how much they appreciated the homestays with local families or giving lessons in English, art, basketball or the hokey-pokey to a group of Chinese students.
Students of CET Academic Programs teach at a school in Guizhou province
Concerning women, the story of women entrepreneurship in China certainly hits close to home, and it’s empowering to hear that conversations about the ways to improve opportunities for girls and women in both nations (and around the world) will continue. After all, as mentioned in this inspiring microblog:
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Photos by AsiaTravel & Michael Gross, U.S. Department of State & textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com