Jean Ash
Here is where you may find out what extra experience and context I can bring to your trip to China! To contact me, please email me here.
I lived in Beijing from 1993-1995 and while working at China Radio International, I was selected as the “foreigner” for three segments of the 26-part TV series, China Through Foreigners’ Eyes. I and a TV crew spent a week each in Tangshan, Anshan and Changzhou, taping 20-minute travelogue/promotional programs shown many times each on CCTV. Besides appearing in the footage on-site, I also wrote and narrated the shows for the English versions.
During my year at CCTV and after returning home, I was a correspondent for Video News International (which had since been absorbed by the New York Times) and did various short features in the Beijing area plus one about Americans adopting Chinese babies, which was just getting underway at the time. For that, I managed to gain access to an orphanage in Tianjin and flew to Hefei, Anhui, to try and interview adoptive families. CBS News optioned my exclusive video footage from the orphanage.
While living in Beijing I took many weekend trips sponsored by the Foreign Experts’ Bureau to places not generally on the Western tour map, like Mt. Taishan, Qufu, Luoyang, etc. I also became friends with many accredited Western journalists and was able to accompany them on reporting trips including the early construction of the Three Gorges Dam (I wrote an article on this for a journal and will forward to you), to Dongbei which included an interview with Li Yuqin, the “fourth concubine” of Puyi and she gave me a piece of her calligraphy. (She died at age 73 in 2001.) Thanks to frequent flier miles, I’ve also been able to travel to China completely on my own many times to see old friends there and spend more time in interesting locations, especially my favorite province, Yunnan. Another highlight has been taking a tour led by an acquaintance who is an expert in textiles and embroidery to Guizhou and Guangxi minority villages in 2008.
I have conducted some tours on my own as well, when PDT assignments were unavailable, and unique opportunities presented themselves. As my husband is a professor at the University of Tennessee, I was able to lead two groups of the university’s pre-med students on study tours coordinated with Suzhou Medical College. I also led a small group of area private school students on a Spring Break trip to China. In addition, contacts in the travel field asked me to lead tours for Harvard Business School alumni and alums from Georgetown University. For the Harvard trip, the organizer had me performing the duties of the local guides, which required me to prepare and then deliver all the descriptions of the places we went in Beijing and Xian as well as a lot of information about all aspects of Chinese culture and current affairs.
I got to know many accredited foreign correspondents and I still have friends—both foreigners and Chinese–there whom I visit at every opportunity and keep up with what’s going on. I regularly check several blogs and internet news and opinion sites daily to stay current with events that don’t make the local paper or the evening news.
My Chinese name
China Travel – for details please click here.
Of course, I have been to all the destinations that PDT Gold and Red tours have included over the past 15 years and, as mentioned above, have been fortunate to have had many opportunities to go “off the beaten path” as well. I was able to visit Tibet twice, once for a week in 1994 on a trip sponsored by CCTV (Lhasa and Shigatse) and the other for three days as TD for PDT (Lhasa only) in 2001.
Other Travel in the region:
- I joined a 10-day trip to North Korea in 1995 that included Pyongyang, Kaesong, the 38th parallel DMZ on the South Korea border and Mt. Paektu, the “birthplace” of Kim Jong Il in the far north.
- Thailand (Bangkok and north in environs of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai)
- A couple of unplanned overnights at Narita, Japan, one of which allowed me a brief visit to the town.
Other Travel:
Russia (by boat from St. Petersburg to Moscow), England, Scotland, Wales, France, Italy, Greece, Monaco, Canada, most of the US, upcoming Mediterranean cruise.
Interests
- Chinese minorities’ cultures and arts/crafts
- Chinese history, particularly 20th century and current events
- All aspects of Chinese culture including philosophy/religion, economic development, changing society
- Cooking – have attended two days each at Hutong Cuisine in Beijing (hutongcuisine.com) and Yangshuo Cooking School in nearby Chaolong Village plus took a 6-segment course offered by the wife of the Chinese History professor at UT who had studied at a cooking school in Taiwan
- Amateur photography but I feel I have a good “eye”
- Voracious reading of everything relating to China
Qualities
Organized; follow direction well but resourceful if unusual circumstances arise; optimistic and positive; friendly and enthusiastic; tolerant
