September 2008 | By Jane Leung Larson
With the high-beam focus on China this summer, Committee members and staff were sought out by the media on a variety of topics.
Urban design expert Weiming Lu explained how the Beijing Olympics present both challenges and opportunities for China in terms of city planning in an article (in Chinese) published July 1 in Taiwan’s Global View magazine. Lu was a member of the international review committee for designing the Olympic Park. (Read This Article)
On BBC World News America, August 4, Frank H. Wu, a visiting law professor this academic year at the University of Maryland, joined Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria and BBC correspondent Katty Kay in a discussion of views of China, as revealed in a recent Pew Research Center global poll. BBC World News also interviewed member Chi Wang, co-chair of the U.S. China Policy Foundation, on August 6 about President Bush’s attendance at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.
Former Washington Governor Gary Locke ran with the Olympic torch on the final leg of its journey before Beijing, in Chengdu, Sichuan on August 5. Locke told MyNorthwest.com’s Jamie Griswold, “I feel very privileged and honored to have been invited by the Chinese government to participate in this torch relay--because it's the sister state of Washington state and I'm the first Chinese-American Governor in the history of the United States.” Locke wrote C-100 that he “toured some of the nearby cities devastated by the May earthquake, delivered handmade gifts from a child in Seattle to children in one of the many temporary housing camps, and reported to government officials on the extraordinary amount of fundraising in the U.S., including by C-100 members.” Executive Director Alice Mong helped assemble information for Locke on American contributions for earthquake relief and reconstruction. (Read This Article)
Ya-Qin Zhang’s personal story was the subject of a Seattle Times article on August 8, “Ya-Qin Zhang, Microsoft's Leader in China, Prospers in Changed Nation,” with a photo of Zhang running with the Olympic torch in Beijing. “The 42-year-old man who now leads Microsoft in China remembers the day 30 years ago when Chinese history changed course and the path ahead of him brightened. He went on to study electrical engineering at age 12, then the youngest college student in the country. By age 23, he had earned a Ph.D. in the U.S.” (Read This Article)
Committee of 100 Executive Director Alice Mong shared this eye-catching photo from the Beijing opening ceremony on Weekend American Flickr and was contacted by the public radio show, Weekend America on August 16 for her extended audio caption. Here is part of what she said:
“My name is Alice Mong and I am from New York. I'm currently the Committee of 100s executive director--it's a membership organization made up of Chinese Americans. I'm currently attending the Olympic Celebration here in Beijing and I've attended the Olympic Ceremony this past Sunday.
“The photo is of the Tai Chi Masters. When the performers came out, everything was synchronized and when they started performing the Tai Chi in slow choreography--it was just stunning and it was just very magical and it was almost surreal, in terms of the color and with the white and the scroll. It just was very stunning. It was one of the high point, I think, of the ceremony.” (View the Photo Slideshow)
New C-100 member Michelle Kwan was one of seven dignitaries in the U.S. presidential delegation attending the Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony. Kwan, the decorated figure skater who has won silver and bronze Olympic medals, was invited to join the delegation because of her role as Public Diplomacy Envoy for the U.S. State Department. Her boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was to have headed the delegation, but the crisis in Georgia intervened and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao took her place.
Kwan appeared on the Today Show on August 20 and told Ann Curry that she was pondering competing in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Kwan graduates in political science from the University of Denver this November and will need to choose between a job in the State Department or going for gold in 2010. Kwan said, “Dara Torres is amazing. She’s a mother, she’s in the best shape of her life and she’s in the Olympic Games. She’s shown age doesn’t matter.” (Watch This Video)
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