Experience China as you've never imagined!

In March of 2008, a group of 30 students and teachers from Hartford, Connecticut and Central Connecticut State University traveled to the city of Yinchuan in the province of Ningxia (actually, its full name is Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region), one of the provinces and regions that make up the northwest geography of China. According to an article published in the Yinchuan local People's Daily newspaper, it was the largest delegation of American students and educators to ever visit this city, which lays claim to being the northern gateway to the ancient Silk Road. The response of the people in the city of Yinchuan, and the culturally and historically rich experience enjoyed by the students and teachers, made this journey as memorable as any they have ever had.


In July, we launched our Ningxia Dragon Student Ambassadors Camp experience as a group of students from Waterbury and Newtown, Connecticut took an extraordinary trip to northwest China, visiting the mausoleum of the Terracotta Soldiers in Xi'an, and the many sites and people of interest. Here, on these pages, you can become part of the community and share in the experience of these students and friends from the US and China. We're now putting together a series of Camp experiences for 2009. These Camp experiences are being designed to give students a complete educational and cultural immersion into a part of China rarely seen or visited by western tourists.


The goal of these exchanges is to give students who are soon going to college or early in their college careers, an opportunity to experience the possibilities for cultural ties and learning that will represent a real building block in creating the future, in a global economy, that they will want to live in and make a positive contribution to. The relationships they build through these programs with their fellow travelers and the students and people of northwest China, will stay with them for a lifetime. Our Camp experiences will take American students into the heart of northwest China. Students will stand on the ancient Great Wall and peer out onto the steppes of western Inner Mongolia, with the yurt homes of a still nomadic culture dotting the horizon. Students will visit ancient Buddhist shrines and holy mountain retreats of the Taoist religion.


They will visit the beautiful and grand mosques that are the pride of the Hui and Uyghur peoples who make up 30% of the population of this ethnically and religiously diverse region. They will visit the rural countryside and see a China that may very well disappear as modernization takes root in every province and village. They will stand on sand dunes 500 feet high and look out over the great and forbidding Gobi Desert, where camel caravans still make the long march to ancient oasis stops on the old Silk Road. They will travel high up into the Kunlun Shan Mountains that separate the Plateau of Tibet from Xinjiang and Qinghai provinces.


They will have a chance to come face-to-face with cultural groups under great pressure as a result of modernization and globalization. Students will also visit classrooms at universities and high (middle) schools as part of an educational exchange. They will share dormitories and meals with Chinese students and visit overnight with a Chinese family in the city of Yinchuan. They will participate in kite festivals, visit the parks and museums, and stand before the 10,000 soldiers of the Terracotta Army in Xian. Students will return home with an authentic experience unlike any they have had before.



This website contains all the information needed about our educational and cultural exchange programs. This site also contains forums where anyone can ask questions and where discussions can occur between interested participants. Slots in each program are limited so please follow the instructions below to register and express your interest in future educational and cultural exchange programs.