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Me “China Revisited" on October 29 at the Planetarium

The first in this year's agenda of fund-
raising activities organized by the Natural
Sciences Division is a lecture on "China
Revisited" by Keith Wade on the evening of
Wednesday, October 29. This lecture/slide
show will be held at the Vancouver
Planetarium General Auditorium, and the
Natural Sciences Division cordially
invites the college community, and their
families and friends to attend the event.
Admission is $5 per person or $12.50 per
family, and tickets may be purchased
through Natural Sciences or at the door.
All proceeds from the lecture will go to
scholarships for outstanding high school
students from the college region enrolling
in a full science program at Capilano
College.

Background on the lecture

by Keith Wade

In June 1981 I had the good fortune to
visit China as a member of a Canadian
Botanical delegation, the first such to
visit China. During a most memorable month
our delegation, under the auspices of the
University of British Columbia and Canada
Department of Agriculture, visited a number
of botanical gardens and other botanical
institutions in Beijing, Chengdu, Kunming,
and Guangzhou. In addition, we experienced
some of China's famed natural scenery and
diverse vegetation in the western provinces
of Sichuan and Yunnan. The trip made a
great impression from all aspects—human,
geographical, and botanical.

The opportunity for a second trip to China
arose when the Vancouver Botanical Gardens
Association identified China as a country
its members were very interested in
visiting. Roy Forster, Curator of VanDusen
Botanic Gardens and a member of the 1981
delegation, and myself acted as co-leaders
for this second trip. It took place during
May 1986. The trip proved a great success,
as will be presented in my lecture, both
from the many fascinating areas we were
able to visit and from the standpoint of a
comparison with conditions five years
earlier.

In 1986, we entered China through Shanghai

via Hong Kong, and spent the first week
visiting some of the famous eastern Chinese
cities, such as Suzhou, Jinan, Wuxi, and
their botanical and classical gardens. Mt.
Tai, or Tai Shan, one of China's great
sacred mountains, was also visited and its
diverse plant life enjoyed. From Jinan we
travelled by train to Beijing and from the
capital by air to Xian, known for the
recent discovery there of the great
underground Terra Cotta army of the Qin
Tomb. Chengdu, on the western edge of the
Great Red Basin of Sichuan province,
followed on our itinerary. This old
university city is the gateway to the
botanical riches of Mt. Omei 120 km to the
south, and to other mountainous regions
famous among botanists for their incredibly
rich and varied plant life. Kunming, in
Yunnan province, and its floristically
rich surrounding hills also proved very
interesting, even more so as the region is
also known for its strangely shaped
limestone karst hill topography. This
unusual topography was also experienced in
Guilin, along the beautiful Li Kiang river.

May was chosen as the best time to see as
many native plants in bloom as possible in
all these various locations. Our choice of
months proved a good one for we saw a vast
array of interesting and beautiful species,

some of which were already familiar to
many of us on the tour as our gardens .in
the west have been much enriched through
the introduction of thousands of Chinese
plant species over the past hundred years
and more. China is changing very rapidly,
and my lecture will touch on some of these
changes as we perceived them, in addition
to exploring the scenery, natural history,
and people of this great and diverse
country.

Squamish project cont.

was to work in the community to stimulate
tourism and small business development."
Workshops were held on such subjects as
Marketing and Advertising for Small
Businesses, and Osborne worked with an
Advisory committee of local businesspeople
and municipal government reps, which
included our Board Chairman, Hilda Rizun.