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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.