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Sister Rivers Build Cultural Bridge Between US, China

   Two great waterways, a world apart, face similar conservation issues

   Mike Simonson | Boscobel, Wisconsin 28 May 2010
   The  River  Spirit  Exchange  took students down the Kickapoo River, a
   tributary of the Mississippi, past towering sandstone outcroppings

Photo: Yan Yue

   The  River  Spirit  Exchange  took students down the Kickapoo River, a
   tributary of the Mississippi, past towering sandstone outcroppings

   The  Mississippi  is  the major river system in the United States. The
   Yangtze is China's longest river.
   Although  a world apart, the two waterways share conservation concerns
   that  provide  a cultural bridge between students in the United States
   and China, as well as from around the world.
   Cross cultural experience
   The  Mississippi  flows  almost  3,800 kilometers from a small lake in
   Minnesota, gathering the waters of 250 other rivers and streams before
   reaching the Gulf of Mexico.
   In  mid-May, as spring flowers began to open, about 41 students from a
   dozen colleges, mostly in the Midwest, explored a section of the river
   in Wisconsin and Iowa, to learn about the environment, and each other.

   The  students, from the U.S., China and around the world, came to join
   the River Spirit Exchange program.
   The  cross-cultural  educational experience - set up by the University
   of  Wisconsin, Madison-based Environment and Public Health Network for
   Chinese  Students  -  focuses  on  the Mississippi and China's longest
   river, the Yangtze.
   The  International  Crane  Foundation  is one of the groups supporting
   this sister-river program. Jeb Barzen, the foundation's chief wildlife
   biologist, gave the students a tour of the preserve.
   She  told  them that, to successfully breed and produce healthy young,
   the  giant birds need to stop in the middle of their long migration to
   rest,  eat,  socialize,  mate, and build their strength for their long
   flight  north.  The  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  provide  that
   sanctuary.
   Barzen  explained  while  these  students  learn  about  the  problems
   challenging  the  Mississippi  and Yangtze, they will also learn about
   the challenges - and importance - of bridging each other's culture.
   "Americans in the Midwest, they're very funny," he told them. "They do
   things  very  differently  from  what you might expect in China. Or if
   Americans interact with you in China, they might think, 'Whoa, they do
   things very differently in China.' But what's important is that we are
   more similar to each other than we are different."

   A larger lesson
   This  three  day  get-together featured story-telling, hiking, camping
   and  canoeing, all part of a larger lesson about conservation projects