The China International Publishing Group (CIPG), China's prime
international news-publishing house, hosted a New Year's reception
for its foreign employees on December 27 at the Great Wall Hotel in
Beijing.
The group has a tradition of extending New Year's greetings to its
foreign expert employees during the period between Christmas and
China's Spring Festival. The upcoming Spring Festival falls on
February 1, 2003.
The reception gathered over 40 foreign experts and delegates from
publishing houses, magazines and news agencies under the group's
jurisdiction and the China Internet Information Center
(china.org.cn). Guests included the group's top experts Israel
Epstein, Sidney Shapiro and Ione Kramer from the United States,
Nguyen Quang from Vietnam, Yokobori from Japan and Paul White from
Britain as well as fresh blood Hugh Davey from Australia, Andrei
Bourouk from Russia and Dorian Liedtke from Germany. These foreign
experts, from a variety of backgrounds, without exception love
China and are full of curiosity about the country. They have all
done, and are doing, indispensable work for the group.
Cai Mingzhao, CIPG President and deputy head of the State Council
Information Office, and Chen Yangjin, deputy head of the State
Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs attended the event.
"Year 2002 is a year of great significance in China's history. We
have achieved much. The company's business has improved much and we
began to make breakthroughs in distribution. From January through
November, the circulation of the group's foreign-language magazines
saw an increase of 15.45 percent over the same period of last year.
Foreign-language book titles increased by 18 percent and
circulation enjoys a growth of 20.7 percent. The page view of the
group's china.org.cn
has increased by 125 percent. It has done a great job to tell the
world a real China and promote mutual understanding and friendship
between the Chinese people and people of other countries," said Cai
in an address to the reception.
"The CIPG would not have been able to make this progress without
the support from all sides, especially the hard work and efforts of
our foreign experts," Cai continued. "Foreign experts have made
outstanding contributions to and played important roles in the
international communication. All our foreign experts are actively
engaged in the world of book and magazine publishing, and the
operation of china.org.cn. The experts have offered valuable
suggestions and comments in regard to subject selected, news
coverage, editing and designing. Your roles are irreplaceable."
At
the reception, Ms. Kramer, the uplifting white-haired senior
American expert for the Beijing Review, talked of her great
astonishment at the tremendous changes which have taken place in
China over the past several decades.
"I've lived here for several decades, and spent many Spring
Festivals here. The great changes taken place in China each year is
really surprising." Kramer plans to meet friends during the Spring
Festival this year. They will go to Beijing's streets for
sightseeing, have dinner together, and talk about China and
Beijing.
"I'm lucky enough to experience two Spring Festivals in China,
that's really unforgettable," the young English expert Michelle
Lara from China Pictorial expressed her unique favor for
Spring Festival. She thinks that it was quite good to travel in
China during Spring Festival, for people can see different
landscapes and experience different customs in China. Over the past
three years, Michelle has been to Yunnan, Gansu and Xinjiang, but
Beijing is still her favorite. She stresses that Beijing is
typically metropolitan, perfectly combining ancient Chinese culture
and modernization.
The Russian expert Andrei Bourouk from china.org.cn feels very
satisfied by his work in China. For many years Andrei has been
searching for a job that really interests him. He didn't expect he
would find it here in China, with china.org.cn. Andrei, who has
studied in the United States and traveled through many places
around the world, said that working in China is much better than he
imagined. He is very much looking forward to the Spring Festival in
2003 and considers it a very significant occasion as friends from
Russia will be coming to China to spend time with him for the
occasion.
There are always some new faces which appear at the annual New Year
Reception for foreign experts. Every year, a group of foreign
experts come to work for the CIPG and enjoy their lives in China.
When they leave, a new group of foreign experts will come to
replace them. All will take with them a piece of China which they
can then introduce to other parts of the world. They find
themselves becoming "Chinese experts," speaking Chinese and eating
Chinese dishes, before they even realize it. During the past 50
years, every page recorded during the history of the CIPG bears the
footprints of foreign experts. No matter how long ago they returned
to their countries, they will never forget the time they spent here
in the building located in west Beijing: A place where they receive
a warm welcome the first time they arrive from their faraway
hometowns and which will forever be their home in Beijing.
(china.org.cn December 30, 2002)