Isn’t Xi lovely! Iowa high school students visit China on personal invitation from Jinping – 39 years after communist leader fell in love with the tiny town of Muscatine
Students from the Iowa city that Chinese President Xi Jinping visited nearly 39 years ago were invited by the communist leader himself for an all-expenses-paid trip to China, showing that the city of Muscatine has a special place in his heart.
In 1985, Sarah Lande organized a group from China to visit Muscatine for an agricultural research tour of America, and one of the participants was Xi.
The two have remained in touch over the years, and Lande decided to engage Xi in his remarks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November, when he expressed a desire to host American students in his country.
Lande, who calls Xi an “old friend,” wrote the president asking him to include students from Muscatine among the 50,000 foreign exchange students he said he would like to receive over the next five years. Des Moines Register.
On January 10, the China Daily reported that Xi had sent a personal invitation to the students and staff of Muscatine High School to visit China.
“I think there’s something about ‘Iowa nice’ because he never forgot about us. It looks like it stuck,” Lande said.
Students from the Iowa town that Chinese President Xi Jinping visited almost 39 years ago were invited by the communist leader himself for an all-expenses-paid trip to China
Sarah Lande, who calls Xi an “old friend,” wrote the president asking him to include students from Muscatine among the 50,000 foreign exchange students he said he would like to receive over the next five years.
On January 10, the China Daily reported that Xi had sent a personal invitation to the students and staff of Muscatine High School to visit China.
The official invitation came three days later, on January 13, and on January 22, 24 students and four staff members were on a plane to China.
Xi said he hoped that “more young Americans will visit China, observe China with their own eyes, listen to China with their own ears and measure China by their own footsteps, so as to get a glimpse of a real China .’
The official invitation came three days later, on January 13, and on January 22, 24 students and four staff members were on a plane to China.
“Isn’t that the damnedest thing? But I think it shows that if (Xi) decides he wants something to happen, it will happen. “When China wants something to happen, they put their mind, soul and money behind it,” Lande said.
During the all-expenses-paid trip, the group spent eight days visiting local students, exploring landmarks such as the Great Wall of China and taking part in a conference for students learning the Mandarin language.
Photos posted by the Muscatine Community School District show the group did activities such as visiting Fudan University and discovering details about ancient Chinese paper and writing, and learning to make dumplings and eat Peking duck.
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco in November, Xi expressed his desire to host American students in his country
Photos posted by the Muscatine Community School District show the group did activities such as visiting Fudan University and discovering details about ancient Chinese paper and writing, as well as learning to make dumplings and eat Peking duck
Photos posted by the Muscatine Community School District show the group did activities such as visiting Fudan University and learning about ancient Chinese paper and writing
Muscatine High School student Cole Loos shared Voice of America, ‘I was lucky that I had my passport with me. It was very spontaneous.’
Ann Edkin, the physical education teacher who supervised the trio, said, “The fact that he came here is cool. But to have that ongoing relationship, it’s not just a blip, but an ongoing relationship that makes it so unique and special.”
‘I’m actually very proud of them. It seems like they have grown super fast in just a few days,” said Heidi Kuo, a Mandarin teacher at the school.
Xi fell in love with Iowa during his 1985 visit as a 32-year-old, leading the Hebei Shikiazhuang Prefecture Corn Processing delegation on a 12-day visit to rural Iowa.
They toured farms and production facilities as they researched American food production systems.
They were bewildered at times. After driving along a four-lane highway, one of the delegations wondered how they would ever turn around and go back.
Xi fell in love with Iowa during his 1985 visit as a 32-year-old and led the Hebei Shikiazhuang Prefecture Corn Processing delegation on a 12-day visit to rural Iowa
Gary Dvorchak bought back his old family home last year for $250,000 and plans to turn it into a museum designed to celebrate Xi’s visit and improve US-China relations
Xi slept in a bedroom with green fluffy carpeting and cutouts of Star Trek characters on the walls. He ate eggs with a spoon because his host forgot the chopsticks.
He enjoyed his time so much that in 2012, when Xi returned to the US as vice president, he specifically requested a visit to Iowa.
Gary Dvorchak, whose bed was used by the future Chinese president all those years ago, has bought back his old family home with a plan to use it to improve relations between the two nuclear superpowers.
“Our vision is to really use it to run it as a nonprofit, and make it a positive presence in an otherwise very negative relationship,” he said.