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Introducing Mystery Class #4 Beijing, China 39.917 N, 116.417 E     Hello, and welcome from Fang Cao Di Primary School in Beijing! The old and new Beijing   Our School  Hello to all of you from Fang Cao Di Primary School. We are students in Mr. Bruce Buntain's class, and we enjoyed being a secret mystery class this year! Our school is a government-run primary school. The school has been open for more than 40 years, and it has had internatnional students enrolled here over the whole 40 year time frame. Do you know what the name "Fang Cao Di" means? In English, the school name translates to "fragrant grassland". This name is meant to let people know about the nurturing educational environment here at Fang Cao Di. We have class sizes here that average about 25 students. Because we are an international school, our class has students from several different countries, but none from China, the place we live. Can you guess what language is used to teach our lessons? All lessons are in taught in Chinese, except for English lessons. What if you don't know Chinese when you get here? Don't worry, students who cannot speak, read or write Chinese will have help with special "intensive language" classes in their first semester. In general, our regular extra-curricular activities include most sports, fine arts, and music. But this year, we just had some spectacular extra curricular games. In fact, they were so special that we even had a few days of class cancelled so we could get ready. It's true! Here's why. This year our city is preparing for the Summer Olympics which will be held right here in Beijing in 2008. In connection with the Olympic theme, our school held a "Small Olympics" Day , with over 8000 students and parents taking part. Modeled after the Olympics, the Small Olympics was complete with "opening" and "closing" ceremonies, as well as special performances for the benefit of several government officials and embassy staff that were also present. Our school and our principal wanted ceremonies to go well, so that's why we had classes cancelled so we could prepare for the "Small Games" --they actually turned out to be a "Big" deal (not small), but they were really fun! Our City Our school is in the city of Beijing. Do you know what "Beijing" means? In the local language, the name means "north town". It's location is actually towards the north east corner of China. Beijing is the capital city of China, and our population is estimated to be about 14,000,000 people. Beijing thrives today as the political and cultural capital of China as well as a center of international activity. Great changes have taken place since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Many of the city walls were demolished to facilitate transportation and allow for general expansion. By 2001, the population exceeded 12.5 million, and the total municipal area was increased to over 17,800 square kilometers. Tian'anmen Square   However , Beijing is still a place of great historical importance. At the center of the city is Tian'anmen Square and also the Palace Museum area comprised of the Imperial Palace or Forbidden City. Here's one of buildings in the Forbidden City The city is presently divided into 16 districts: Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chongwen, Xuanwu, Chaoyang, Haidian, Shijingshan, Fengtai, Shunyi, Changping, Mentougou, Tongzhou, Fangshan, Daxing, Huairou and Pinggu. In addition to these urban districts, the municipality is comprised of two counties: Miyun and Yanqing. More and more automobiles are coming to Beijing everyday. There are 1000 new cars registered every day in our city, and all of them in the traffic jam around you. Therefore, a traffic network of four concentric beltways, 28 radial roads, and underground and suburban railways are being further developed to link the city center with outlying areas and surrounding towns. This city is one of the few world capitals not situated on a coast or navigable river. So, if you like the ocean, you will have to travel about 90 minutes to get there from our city. Also, if you like the desert you can find that too, because not far to the north of our city, we have the desert; and it’s creeping ever closer. Our Country The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949, with Beijing as its capital city. With well over 1.3 billion citizens, China is estimated to be the world's most populous country and the fourth largest country in the world in terms of territory -- it is just slightly smaller in area than the United States. Although this is not a small country, there is only one time zone for all.   China has been going through rapid economic and social change and development. Political power remains centralized in the Chinese Communist Party. After 1978, the country's leader DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on economic development and by 2000 our economy was stronger. For much of the population, this meant that living standards had improved dramatically and the room for some personal choice had expanded. Since March 2003, do you know "who" has been our president? That's right, "who" is the president, but it's spelled differently -- it's President President HU Jintao. One of the landmarks people often think about when they think of China is the Great Wall. There is a myth that astronauts could see this wall from space because it is so large, but that is just a myth. The Wall is big, but not that big-- contrary to popular belief, you cannot see this feature of our country from outer space with the unaided eye. We hope you enjoyed your search for our Mystery Class, as much as we did.   Would You Like to Write to Us? If you want to correspond with us, you can write to our teacher Mr. Buntain at this address: bbuntain@hotmail.com