Our time in Fujian has come to a close, and while we are looking forward to going home and reuniting with family and friends in Portland, we’ll miss our newly-made friends in Fujian.
We’ve had a remarkable time with our Fujian colleagues and we look forward to sharing what we’ve learned from them with Oregon libraries. This trip will be a lifelong memory for each of us. Goodbye, Fujian – we hope to see you again!
Now that the exchange is drawing to a close, there are some threads that cut across the libraries we’ve seen that we want to share. At moments we’ve been wowed by the innovations and ambitious library programs Fujian Province and probably China as a whole are undertaking. There is an earnestness and sincere desire to pull library service forward. This was evidenced many times by the intense interest in our presentations and even directors saying that they wanted to do their best to learn from us. Granted, sometimes we could tell that attending our presentations was a mandatory staff activity and many in the audience spent the time playing with their cell phones. But many times, once the discussion got going, young staff members would stand up with questions or comments that showed a hunger for new ideas and answers to some of the same questions Oregon libraries are thinking about.
We sometimes wondered privately what we had to teach when faced with state of the art technology that we lust after in Oregon. But then we would think about the other aspects of the libraries we’ve seen. Such as the fact that they have a very strong relationship, even dependence, on vendors to build collections in what seems like a carte blanche way. New municipal library branches are often established because someone gave money, a building, or a collection and the library took on the responsibility to operate without new staff. It’s our perception that this phenomenon has a lot to do with the popularity of RFID. It seems that most libraries accept and keep everything they are given or they buy. Reputation is still tied to the number of volumes and there is an abundance of space.
Staffing seems slim and some libraries rely very heavily on volunteers. Working in a library is a government job that you get by taking a general exam and then are appointed to the library. Once in, you’re there to stay and transferring to other government departments does not seem to happen. One group of young staffers asked us many questions about promotion and evaluation in American libraries, and admitted that there are those among them who feel stuck. Even many of the library directors we met seem to have gotten their job this way. That may explain some of the great interest in learning from the exchange librarians and the dependence on vendors. We had the feeling sometimes that there was sincere desire to improve library service but not necessarily the knowledge of what that might mean or professional opportunities to learn. It’s interesting to note that many of the directors who had new buildings to show described a design and planning process where they personally created the design and made the decisions. Very often the new library would have state-of-the-art features and all the expected elements of a contemporary library. But then there would be some detail such as a huge space with nowhere to sit or no OPAC stations near the book stacks that would make us scratch our heads. It’s also interesting that two of the Chinese exchange librarians who were in Oregon in April said that the thing they noticed most was the degree to which American librarians love their job and are committed to their work, implying that this is different from their experience in China.
Throughout the trip we tried to understand the relationship of libraries and citizens to today’s Communist Party. One great benefit of the cultural exchange aspect of the trip was the opportunity to spend lots of time with our Chinese hosts and have long conversations about their lives and views on the world. It was a revelation to see how open China is today compared to our outdated notions about “Red” China. It’s a free-wheeling, highly commercial country now and people feel the same stresses Americans do about educating their kids, finding a job, buying a home, and making ends meet. There are an unbelievable number of luxury cars on the road – Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, and Porsches are common. Another stereotype dashed about what a Communist country is like! We had some times when the Internet did weird things with our email if the message contained certain words but we also learned that VPNs are in widespread use and that many young people get their news from sources outside China by using a VPN.
Many libraries have a Party member on the management staff and the major universities seem to each have a Deputy Director who is also the designated Party Secretary. It took a few conversations to understand that these universities have a prestigious designation to a national program called 211 which seems to be guided in some way by the government to meet certain standards. It seems that making sure the library is complying is part of the job of the Party Secretary on staff. Our friend, Ms Liu, indicated that this was more administrative than ideological and was only one of the many roles she plays. The provincial library has a Party disciplinary committee and this was explained to us as having an oversight role with management (not staff), particularly regarding use of funds. There is a large national frugality and anti-corruption campaign underway, which is another indication of the directions current leaders are taking the country.
If there is one big idea we will bring home, it’s a greater respect for China and a better understanding of why China is on its way to being one of the world’s most important superpowers. We’re so thankful for the opportunity to experience China personally and we will think about what we’ve learned for a long time.
The second World Heritage site visited was Wuyishan, or Wuyi Mountain. We took a long train ride to get there from Fuzhou (about six hours), but it was well worth the trip!
Wuyishan is known as a resort area and we could definitely see a difference in the care that they’ve taken to make this area tourist friendly. Lots of shuttle buses are available to take you to a variety of local cultural sites, a walkable “downtown” with lots of shops, restaurants, and hotels, and even a light and music show at a local amphitheater.
In the morning, we took a bamboo raft ride down the Jiuquxi river. Definitely a highlight of the trip – beautiful scenery and great experience.
We also got to see a part of the mountain called “Thread in the Sky” where you can walk between two massive rocks and see a small slit toward the sky – not exactly a trip for the claustophobic, but an interesting phenomenon to see.
In the afternoon, we hiked up Heavenly Peak so that we could look down to the tea canyons below (and the river we floated on earlier that morning). It was quite the hike up and we were feeling victorious to have made it to the top (there’s a half-way point where you can turn around – but you know that’s not the librarian way).
Finally, that evening, we watched an outdoor theater production called Da Hing Pao, a wonderful show about “cha” (tea). The 1800-seat theater sat on a 360-degree rotating platform, so during the show, the audience was turned “en masse” to different portions of the stage, including a tea plantation, tea house, the river, and more! The show used over 100 performers and was a spectacular light and music display. We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the show – so we can’t share the event with you visually, but it will stay in our memories for a long time!
On Sunday, we visited Wuyi College and Lori presented on Academic Library Design to a sizable group of students and staff (or at least we thought it was sizable for a Sunday morning @ 9:00!) There was great interest in our presentation, as the library is currently renovating some of its areas and we had some great questions and discussion about making the academic library a comfortable learning space.
Then, we were back on the train and headed back for Fuzhou…
An area of Fuzhou has a high concentration of universities all within a few miles of each other, hence the nickname the locals have given the area: “University Town”.
We visited five of the universities and their libraries: Fuzhou University, Fujian Agriculture & Forestry University, Fujian Medical University, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Fujian Normal University. Each university campus was impressive in its size (especially their large libraries!), but as we visited all of these places in the space of two days, it was a bit of a whirlwind tour. Most of the libraries are either quite new or are being renovated. Almost all have a large, professional-level auditorium/theater for lectures and staff development forums. They tend to have grand lobbies, lots of glass, a large HD multimedia video display screen showing events or other messages and windows or doors that open wide to the air. Here are individual the highlights:
Fuzhou University: Established in 1958, “Fu Da” has risen to the level of a highly ranked school and a member of the national 211 Program for higher education. The library is beautiful and state of the art. After Lori’s presentation on getting feedback from patrons, we took special note of a panel display outside the entrance promotlng the Library that was covered with handwritten post-it notes. They told us it was library promotion month and the post-its were comments from students about the library service.
Fujian Agriculture & Forestry University: This was an older building of very institutional style. In China that means cold floors and white walls, little decoration and large functional rooms. The Director said that they were in the middle of a project to “improve the environment”, which he said means making it more cultural and pleasing. He mentioned hanging pictures on the wall and painting as part of the project. Pat gave her presentation on Managing Digital Libraries to the library department heads and it was followed by a discussion in which they said they get most of their digital library materials from vendors. We think they meant databases rather than books but sometimes we just weren’t sure!
Fujian Medical University: This was a newer building, built in 2011. One of the common features of most of the academic libraries that we’ve seen is the number of print items they have – this is due to their accreditation process which requires that they have a certain number of volumes within the library. At the medical library, this posed a unique issue, as they needed to keep their older print items for volume count, even though they have found that not many of their users use things that are older than 15 years. They also had an interesting Museum of Life collection (no photos allowed) that let students and scholars study “real” human body parts and physical abnormalities in formaldehyde.
Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine: This university served about 10,000 students. They also offer some of their classes in English and you don’t have to be a full-time student to take their classes – so we briefly considered enrolling in a class. 🙂 What was most impressive about this campus was their wonderful herb garden.
Fujian Normal University: This is a large university that has a broad scope and a big student body. The Director wanted to show us two things: a glitzy touchscreen exhibit in the lobby of a book he published on the history of the school and the important rare Qing Dynasty books in the Special Collection Department. Lori gave her presentation on Library Promotion through Social Media and got many questions on how their library could use similar social media tools available in China to market their library services.
Since we’ve been here, we’ve met people from a variety of provinces, municipalities, and villages. And what we’ve found is that even though the Chinese language in written format is consistent, the spoken language varies greatly, with many dialects. Which leads to the story of the Lori/Pat dialect.
While in Shanghai, Pat and Lori began practicing some Chinese words that we could use to break the ice with the people we would meet during the exchange. Pat had downloaded an e-book on her iPad that contained basic vocabulary words (e.g. hello, numbers, yes, no, thank you, etc.). The best part (at least what we thought was the best part) was it has an audio function that allows you to hear a word pronounced — very important for a language that has four distinct tones (at least for Mandarin speakers – Cantonese has more!) What this means is that a single “word” can have four different meanings, depending on the tone used when speaking the word.
Pat and Lori began to practice with each other by listening to the dulcet tones of our audio e-book instructor and carefully repeating after her. We thought we were doing well until we met up with Angela and began practicing our words on her – she couldn’t understand us at all! Neither could the Mandarin speakers that we’ve met from various libraries – but we were able to understand each other – so we determined that we had inadvertently created our own dialect, in a country that already has many.
What’s been most humorous about this attempt to “learn” a little language is that we continue to practice words together – often muttering repeated words or people’s names to each other in the car or other random times – as we try to speak in the appropriate tones, which likely makes us sound a little nutty to those around us. Can you imagine hearing someone repeating the word for library several times to themselves? While we have made some progress in recognizing certain words in conversations, we still struggle with the pronunciation of many words, but we’re determined to keep working on our Lori/Pat dialect until it becomes recognizable to others…
As we approach the end of our time in China, we’ve been reflecting on the fact that when we return home, it may take some adjustment back to our “normal” lives – not for the reasons you may think – but because the Chinese hospitality is amazing and makes us feel like Rock Stars!
Typically, when we arrive at a library, there’s a group of people to meet us, such as the Library Director, staff members, and always a photographer who documents each moment of our visit. Thus, getting out of the car, we are “bombarded” with camera flashes as people greet us. This must be what Madonna feels like when she gets out of a car.
Speaking of transportation, we have the great benefit of having a driver take us to various locations (which is probably for the best, as we wouldn’t want to attempt to drive here where lanes are merely a suggestion and turning into oncoming traffic is a frequent and common occurrence). The best part is, when it’s time to leave a place, our car and driver magically appear, ready to help us with any bags or luggage and whisk us away to our next scheduled stop.
Typically, during a library tour, we have an entourage of library staff that follow us and offer to hold any bags we may have and they’ve even offered to take pictures for us with our cameras, so we don’t have to do it ourselves!
We just can’t say enough about our appreciation for our wonderful hosts – they are incredibly gracious and attentive and have made our stay unforgettable. Sigh…it’s going to be tough going back to regular citizen status. 🙂
We’ve had the fortune of visiting two World Heritage sites this trip – our first one was the Nanjing Earthen Houses – an amazing site to see, especially since it provided a different perspective on the modern day China than we have seen so far.
The Nanjing site is famous for the unique round multi-story structures that were built by the Hakka people over 100 years ago for defensive purposes. About 10 remain today surrounded by village clusters where clan descendents still live. The oldest one we saw was built in 1380! We drove about two hours from Xiamen up into the hills to get to these structures and in that time we went from modern day China back to an older, simpler life. We stopped in a small village and had a “country” lunch, then passed several banana, tea, and palmelo farms before reaching these early homes.
All of the structures are either square or round/oval shaped with a outer cement-like layers and wood on the inside. Each contained an open-centered roof and a well within the structure.
Today, very few of the original families that lived in these homes still live there, but a few still do! Now, most of the people there are vendors who rent space to sell tourist souvenirs, but you can still get a good idea of how people once lived, as they still have active gardens, chickens, and grains that they harvest outside the home.
We visited the Xiamen Municipal Library, which can truly claim to be the “center” of its community, as it is located near a shopping mall with nearby restaurants, hotels, a sports complex, and other community buildings. The library is a former warehouse facility that has been renovated to fit a library and includes an open-air garden in the middle of the library. There’s also a museum within the library.
The library makes extensive use of RFID for self-check circulation and automated materials handling. This technology makes it possible to operate the extensive renovated building with minimal staff. This was a common situation in many of the newer public libraries. One brand new neighborhood branch in the Xiamen sysfem has only 2 staff persons total who spend their time helping patrons in other ways. Most libraries we visited either were already depending heavily on RFID or were making plans to do so. The self-check machines were nearly always the first thing the libraries wanted to show us. Interestingly, this was not the case at the universities and even the glitzy new Tan Kah Kee campus library at Xiamen University was not using RFID.
We also liked the use of the big screen readers that patrons can use to read the daily newspaper – several are available in the lobby, which is open past library hours.
Another very impressive service at Xiamen Municipal Lilbrary is a self-service 24 hour collection in the lobby which can be accessed using the natIonal ID card. There are approximately 20,000 books in the small glassed-in room, as well as a few nice work tables and chairs. The collection is both fiction and nonfiction. Patrons can come around the clock to take what they want and check it out on the self-check machines. The shelves have removable spacers which can sense misfiled books and can be used to produce a shelf report later during inventory.
Pat and Lori both gave presentations to the XML staff on Friday afternoon, when the library closes its doors for weekly staff development time. We’ve noticed this is a common practice among libraries in the Fujian province – one afternoon each week the library is closed for staff development and it’s also a time for weekly maintenance of the facilities.
After our presentations, we were escorted to the music library room. Silly us, we assumed this was the room where they kept their collection of music CDs/DVDs and music-related materials. Quite a surprise awaited us! We walked into a room with comfortable couches and a small TV, this was the karaoke room! It was also the place that musicians can reserve to practice their performances.
Then we were led past a sound room into a larger room with 15 leather recliner chairs that faced a wall-sized projection screen. The room cost $5 million RMB to build and was the idea of the local government leader, who wanted a place for people to enjoy music. Patrons can reserve this room to listen to music and watch videos of musical productions and concerts. We were treated to a video performance of Song Yuling singing Chinese folk music to a crowded Carnegie Hall. What a great way to relax after giving a presentation – comfy, plush chairs that allowed us to put our feet up while enjoying a cup of Fujian tea and beautiful singing!
Fujian province has many geothermal hot springs and consequently many spas. Although residents don’t enjoy swimming at the beach, they do enjoy going to the spa for a hot soak, especially in the winter. Massages are also popular and are considered a good way to maintain a healthy body. There are commercial spas that offer a wide variety of massage techniques and there are traditional Chinese medicine establishments that offer Chinese massage treatments as one option for medical treatment.
Our last morning in Xiamen was unscheduled, and Xu, our host, proposed going together for a massage. There was much discussion about where to go and what kind of massage have but it turned out that the Chinese medical clinic was the most convenient option on a Sunday morning so we agreed to give it a try in the spirit of having a cultural experience. Angela was delighted, as she goes for a Chinese massage each month in Portland. Pat was happy to have some kinks worked out of her back after hauling heavy luggage around for several weeks and Lori was willing to give it a go. We shared a room with 3 massage tables, 3 technicians clad in white nurses uniforms, a cup of tea beforehand, and then the experience of having intense pressure applied from head to toe and occasional moans and groans when one of us reached our pain limit and had to beg for mercy. Now we know what it feels like when a Chinese doctor works on opening a blocked channel in the body. It hurts! Final verdict on repeating the experience: Angela – yes! Pat – maybe… Lori – no thanks!
On Thursday, we visited the main Xiamen University library and the Tan Kah Kee library (a branch campus of Xiamen University). Deputy Director Wang Mingli was our very gracious host. As we mentioned in a previous post, the heart of Xiamen city is on an island, but the city limits of Xiamen extends to the mainland. The main campus of Xiamen University is on the island and one of the branch campuses that we visited (Tan Kah Kee) is located on the mainland. Since our hotel is located on the island, we took a ferry to the mainland to visit Tan Kah Kee, as it’s faster than driving.
Wang met us on the island side ferry terminal and explained that many of our fellow ferry commuters were Tan Kah Kee teachers who take the ferry to the mainland everyday to the college. Once we got off the ferry on the mainland side, a campus bus drove us to the campus. The campus is quite large and includes a golf course, amphitheater, several large buildings, and supports 15,000 students.
The library is a marvel – five floors of marble and glass. They have compact shelving on the first floor for less-used items and on floors 2 – 4 study spaces and open shelves with printed materials.
Wang helped to build the library and as its director, spends three days a week managing it and two days a week on the Xiamen University campus attending to his duties as a deputy director there.
The fifth floor has tables that seniors can reserve to use for the term, meaning they are allowed to leave study materials at their table in the library for their studies. They must check in with their library card every time they come to the library to use their reserved spot and if a student isn’t using their reserved spot regularly, they lose it.
After our tour of the library, we had lunch in the faculty cafeteria. The faculty cafeteria is on the first floor of a building that provides temporary housing (like a hotel room) for faculty who do not live in faculty housing on campus (i.e. those who live on the “island” vs. the “mainland”, should they need a rest during the day between classes or if their schedule requires them to stay on campus for an extended period.
Then, it was back on the bus and ferry to head back to the island to visit the main Xiamen University library. Again, it was a large space with many different departments and staff. One of themes we’ve noticed here is that libraries rarely say “no” to donations from people or organizations that offer them. Thus, many of the cataloging departments are swamped with work. At Xiamen University, they had stacks and stacks of boxes of donated books to be cataloged. We asked how they prioritize and Wang said the university librarian, librarians, and sometimes faculty or scholars within a field/discipline will help determine what should be kept by the library and added to the library’s collection. Those books that aren’t kept are sent to other libraries.
An interesting project that XU is working on is digitizing pre-1949 newspapers. They have two document cameras made by a company called TIZ that allow them to take pictures of them.
We then met the Xiamen University Librarian, Dehong Xiao, who has visited Oregon. He’s also the director of XU’s technology department, so he has a lot of duties on campus.
We ended the day with a meal at a restaurant owned and managed by a Buddhist Temple, so it was entirely vegetarian and one of the most delicious meals we’ve had during the trip.
Horner Exchange 2013 