SkywatchFriday: Washington D.C., Fulbright to China

A long way from Montana, I'm in Washington D.C. for an orientation to prepare me for being a visiting professor next year in China.  A Fulbright Award is a huge honor and going to China is a huge -- and daunting -- adventure. It's been an intense 3 day orientation and on a short break between sessions I walked outside the hotel to take in a view of the sky:

By global standards, even the D.C.'s oldest architecture is quite young. Like my home in Butte or like most American cities, many of D.C.'s buildings date to our nation's industrial development after the Civil War. A building like this would not be out of place in Butte, Buffalo, or Boise:

But buildings get old, maintenance becomes expensive, and sometimes they fall into disuse (National Union Building, 1890):

Eventually, like D.C.'s Webster School (1881-2; a classic red brick urban school of this period), they are shuttered up and slated for demolition. But in D.C. as in Butte, there is a powerful social movement to save such buildings:

Despite the sentiments of historic preservationists, if a city is healthy, it must make room for new construction that better meets the needs of business and current residents. I was curious about the huge hole in the ground/construction site across from my hotel--turns out D.C.'s convention center has been razed and will be replaced with a giant shopping plaza:

I'm not judging whether this is good or bad, but it does indicate a changing urban American worldview, with private commercial space replacing public space (though it was public space built for private commerce). 

My soon-to-be host country of China seems to have no qualms about this sort of thing. I'll be with Southwest University of Chongqing, a city of 31.4 million people. Yep. That's 31,400,000 or  four times the size of New York City. It seems that everything is bigger in China: the university has more than 50,000 students. And, like much infrastructure in China, most of it is new and a product of China's phenomenal economic growth over the past decade or so (this photo is from China Travel Tips):

As I know from the friends I made many years ago in graduate school, many Chinese are friendly and welcoming of Americans. This was affirmed last night in a sumptuous reception at the home of Dr. You Shaozhong, the China Embassy's Minister Counselor for Education:

By the way, it's a classic c. 1900 house:

As those of you that know me and/or who read this blog understand, this is going to be quite an adventure for me. Accustomed to the 4-season outdoor recreation of Montana (fish, hike, hunt, ski), what's a nature boy to do? Check back next year and I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, it's back to my beloved mountains.