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Silky Smooth Progress of Student-Exchange Program

The subject of peace dominated this yesr's annual and educational exchange--titled "2002 Silk Road in the New Millennium" --between 500 visiting American college and university students and an equal number of Chinese counterparts. Also in attendance at Beijing's China Millennium Monument venue were US university presidents and leading scholars, who had been ordained "Ambassadors of Peace" in Chinese and American educational circles.

Introduced last year, the exchanges will continue until 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympics. All are co-hosted by Beijing Foreign Cultural Exchange Association, Beijing Gehua Culture Development Group, and two other bodies.

This year's get-together concluded on August 10 after each of the1,000 students handed over silk paintings done by themselves, a tradition that will continue until the exchange's conclusion six years from now. At that time, the total of 8,000 paintings (1,000 from each year) will be sewn together to form a 10,000-meter strip that will be presented to the Beijing Olympics' organizers for display.

The students took this year's paintings to the Juyongguan section of the Great Wall, where they were displayed to symbolize the hope of Chinese-American friendship lasting forever. This event was of special delight to the American students, few of whom had dreamed of ever having the chance of visiting this most famous of Chinese constructions. The students also visited Tsinghua Unversity and Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.