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A context to work in…
“We must carry on tradition while creating something new…”
These words of a young 24 year old Chinese ballet dancer from Hubei
Province, featured on mainland China’s international, English
speaking television station CCTV9 [5/10/02], seem to embody the views
of the students I have met in my work teaching design in Shanghai.
When working with these children of the affluent, upwardly mobile
in the dynamic meta-city that is Shanghai, I have tried to develop
an awareness of the past here in an attempt to understand where these
people have been and where they want to go.
There seems to be a great responsibility attached
to teaching the design process to a country perceived by the world
– and itself, as the superpower of the 21st Century. As one of
the oldest cultures on the planet China is complex and somewhat mysterious,
frustrating and very challenging at all levels to the “alien”
foreigner. It is also fascinating and beguiling.
Ian McArthur 2002
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Photograph:: In the classroom,
LDHU, Shanghai, PR China, 2003