Location
“If you have time for but one province in China, Yunnan should be it.”
—the Lonely Planet
Yunnan, “South of the Clouds” as the name means, is a fascinating province to explore. Bordering Tibet, Sichuan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, this frontier region has served for centuries as a gateway between China and Southeast Asia. No province in China could rival Yunnan in its cultural and biological diversity. Of the 56 ethnic groups in China, 26 are living in Yunnan. Hailed as the world’s most recent “biodiversity hotspot”, Yunnan’s terrain spans from tropical rainforest in the south to snow-capped mountains in the north. The Chinese believe northwest Yunnan to be the location of the legendary land of Shangri-la. Yunnan features also a dynamic scene of international and domestic NGO activities in the field of environmental protection, public health, education and social work. The province boasts the highest number of NGOs in the nation.
Kunming, capital city of Yunnan province, is known as “the Spring City” due to its abundant sunshine and mild temperature. Although Han Chinese population constitutes the majority, there are many ethnic peoples residing in the city, among whom are Hui (Chinese Muslims), Dai (Chinese Thai), and Zang (Tibetans). A city of six million, Kunming is surrounded on three sides by mountains and adjacent to Lake Dianchi, one of the largest lakes in China. The city’s history dated back to late Bronze Age and came briefly under French colonialist influence in the 19thth century. During the Japanese invasion of China in the 1940’s, China’s top intellectuals were forced to flee to the southwest. Kunming became a wartime center of China’s intellectual life, with many scientific institutions and universities founded in the city.
One of the universities established during the war was today’s Yunnan Normal University (Yunnan Teachers University), the host university of DSIC spring program. As a training institute for teachers, YNU offers leading programs in educating teachers in teaching Chinese language to foreigners. YNU contains a college, the Institute of Chinese and International Studies, where international students from all over the world are enrolled in its multi-leveled Chinese courses. The DSIC spring semester program is privileged to have the best Chinese teachers from the YNU faculty serve as its language instructors.
