Tracking Changes in Photoperiod Around the Globe

Introducing Mystery Class #5

Our class is from the Yunnan Education College Attached Secondary School for Nationalities (Minorities). Just four years old, it is the only school of its kind. It was established by the Provincial Government to educate students from Yunnan's 25 distinctly different minority groups. Most of the students come to the school from poor families in rural areas. Some of their villages are reached only by dirt lanes. Before coming to Kunming, some of the students had never seen a train before, or an airplane up close.

Today, this class is one of the most Internet-savy in all of China. Students have e-mail penfriends in the United States, have designed their own home pages, and have participated in worldwide educational projects such as Journey North and World Class 97. It is the third secondary school in China to have Internet access. You can read about us in the February issue of China Trade Journal and, we are told, within a month in Asia Week magazine, which probably will include photographs.

Our Internet teacher is John Hedin, a Research Associate at California State University Monterey Bay and a Chinese language/culture student at The University of Vermont. The English name of our teacher of Chinese language is Sarah. Most of our students speak native tongues. For them, Chinese is a second language; English a third. We are in what is the equivalent of American high school Junior and Senior grades.

Tibet, Burma, Laos and Vietnam border our mountainous province, and Thailand is very close by. Some of our nationalities are of the same race as those in these neighboring countries. Others are Han (the most populous nationality and China, and some are Mongolian whose ancestors came here centuries ago.

We are especially friendly toward Americans. In Word War II, American volunteers named The Flying Tigers flew out of Kunming and nearby places to bomb the Japanese who had invaded China. An American general led Allied and Chinese troops in retaking northern Burma from the Japanese. This allowed the opening of Burma Road, which leads to Kunming, and which was an important lifeline to China during the war. Some American pilots and crews lost their lives, flying over the Himalaya Mountains from India to Kunming to supply the Flying Tigers and to help defeat Japan.

In 1999, Kunming, with some 4 million residents, will host the World Horticultural Fair with more than 100 countries represented. Flowers grow here the year around, and Yunnan is also famous even in China for its tea, mushrooms, and -- sorry to say -- tobacco. It is known as The City of Eternal Spring.

Our American teacher is the first Westerner (wai guo ren) most of the students have ever met. Although his Chinese is poor, he teaches without a translator. This year, he appears in two Chinese television movies and is writing a third. If accepted by the producer, he will appear in a movie about his relative Sven Hedin, who explored China for Sweden at the turn of the century.

Nimen lai le Kunming, women dou gei ni reqing de huanying. (You come to Kunming, we all will give you an enthusiastic welcome.) Zai Jian (Goodby).