Experiences of working with China via the
Internet
Geoffrey Scott-Baker MBCS, CITP, FIDM, MIIE
and Mirandanet Fellow
With nearly thirty years international experience under my
belt you would think that I should have learned about the
vast cultural differences that make our world so interesting.
So when I began a project to promote the web site of a Chinese
Middle School attached to Northern JiaoTong University in
Haidian District, and then link them to Cheam School in England,
I should have had all my intellectual bases covered. My subsequent
experience of working with the Middle School, and visiting
China itself, taught me that old dogs still have many new
tricks to learn.
The story began in London when I met Wentao Zhang at a Mirandanet
reception where a Chinese delegation of educationalists presented
some very impressive Powerpoint slides. From their example,
and my own observations in country, I quickly learned that
they have a natural sense of the aesthetic which they carry
over into all aspects of their lives, even in he poorer areas.
Wentao - alias 'Jean', her chosen western name - who was a
teacher at the Middle School, presented a page about classical
opera masks, costumes and characters. Although only a single
page it contained all the menus of the site they ultimately
intended to produce which made it clear that this was to be
a major undertaking.
My wife, Head of Pre-Prep at Cheam, was also very impressed
with Jean's work and wanted a copy of her page to use with
class projects on China. So shortly after the delegation's
visit Jean did indeed send the files neatly zipped but on
second viewing I decided that they deserved wider exposure.
So I offered to put their page onto the internet and Jean's
response was an enthusiastic 'yes please'. Creating a web
site, especially a personal one, is a daunting and exciting
experience. The thought that people all over the world might
be reading your material, sharing in your hobbies, or in Jean's
case admiring the graphical prowess of your students is guaranteed
to bring a tingle to the spine. For a School in China who
has had virtually no contact with the outside world the idea
that people in the west would be viewing their work enhanced
that feeling considerably.
I have a personal site already that contains all of my literary
output so I decided to use some spare web space I had there
to host the School's page. I carefully uploaded the files,
rejigged the html to make the graphics point to their new
homes, and proudly emailed the URL to Jean so that she, her
students and a friend in south east Asia could enjoy their
new found fame. Lesson one - the Chinese authorities limit
access to certain domains, especially those connected with
major ISPs, so everyone else could see the page, but Jean
and her students within China could not. At about that time
the Chinese country domain '.cn' was released and so I immediately
registered my name domain with them and uploaded a complete
copy of my site including the Chinese page. Success, the Middle
School could now see their page, everyone in the world could
see their page, and the email I received back from Jean was
ecstatic.
 The
story continued because I noticed that the copy of their page
in my web space was beginning to score between sixty and seventy
hits per week. Clearly other people had seen the same value
in their work and were using it as a means of learning more
about Chinese operatic traditions. Within a relatively short
period of time I was able to tell Jean and her students that
their site had received a thousand visits and was still going
strong - 1,630 by mid-April 2004. However, this all changed
when, at the end of February 2004, they released the full
English version of their site containing a mountain of information
about traditional Chinese crafts in addition to the original
opera content. I could see immediately why it had taken them
over a year to produce and translate the site. But this release
gave me a problem which needed careful thought. The existing
page clearly had a loyal following and every day someone new
was discovering it. Therefore I could not simply remove it
in favour of the new URL, and I did not want to change their
content into an auto forward page because the search engines
would lose it. So I took the middle path which gave me a lot
of work but was ultimately very successful in its execution.
The original menu on Jean's page did not point anywhere,
it simply cycled around the page. So I analysed their html
code and replaced the internal links with pointers to their
opposite numbers on the new site. This meant that anyone who
had already added the page to their favourites could still
access it, with the added facility of the expanded site. And
new visitors could explore the new site transparently without
knowing that they were walking through a virtual door. If
this approach was right then I predicted that the numbers
of visitors to the original page would plummet as they found
the new home page and bookmarked that instead. I am pleased
to say that I was proven correct and the visitor count to
the original page reduced to about a dozen or so a week as
soon as I made the coding changes.
 While
this was going on, the Art department at Cheam School saw
the Middle School page and decided to show off their expertise
as well. Not in terms of web building - yours truly received
that privilege - but in terms of the work that their students
had produced. Pages of material were gathered and a basic
design produced by the head of department which I assembled
into an Art and Design page within the Cheam School Pre-Prep
web site. Having worked on both projects it was interesting
to see the difference in approach between the Chinese and
British designs. The Middle School used a highly contrasted
colour scheme of white, black, blue and maroon whereas the
Cheam School page used predominantly grey, blue and red. You
will see this contrast reflected in everything China produces,
whether it be printed, modelled or architectural. Primary
colours figure widely and red has particular dominance because
they believe it to be a lucky colour.
So how does this all fit into the world of eCitizenship?
The answer is that it did nothing for students in this country
other than to spur the creation of an Art and Design page
which allowed some very talented pupils to show off their
work to the global forum of the internet. What this project
did achieve though was to show a class of students in a school
thousands of miles away that they were not alone. And that
there were other people in the world beyond the borders of
their immense and once isolated country who were interested
in what they had to offer. As westerners we are used to communicating
in this way and relating to other cultures, even if it is
by the simple medium of a holiday abroad. But for a country
that has kept itself at arms length from the global community,
whether by reason of distance or politics, this kind of exercise
has, and will continue to help bring such people into the
wider community and ultimately make them better World eCitizens.
References
China Middle School original page http://www.bardtoverse.cn/cfmu/cfmu.htm
China Middle School expanded site - note, response may be
slow on occasion http://www.bfjdfz.net/chineseart/index.asp
Cheam School Art and Design page http://www.cheamschool.net/preprepwebsite/artanddesign.html
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