Garden Delegation Visits Chongqing 重庆 and EXPO

The four-member Garden delegation – Seattle deputy mayor Darryl Smith, Seattle Chinese Garden vice president Jim Dawson, Washington China Center president Scott Heinlein, and Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects co-founder, Ilze Jones – attended the 8th China International Garden Expo opening ceremonies on November 19th in China's largest city, Chongqing.  

Robert Pong, Scott Heinlein, Darryl Smith, Ilze Jones and Jim Dawson in the "Seattle Garden" at the EXPO (Robert Pong is a sister city board member who owns a spectacular new restaurant under the Three Gorges Museum).

They were there to see the Seattle Garden, designed by Ilze Jones, constructed in collaboration with our two sister cities as part of China's Garden Expo and to visit the city of Chongqing as guests of the Foreign Affairs Office.

Ilze Jones inspecting the Seattle Garden at the Chongqing EXPO

Before the opening ceremonies, the delegation was met at the airplane door by the Foreign Affairs Office (FOA) and whisked off to the VIP arrival lounge. Reports from Jim Dawson indicate that the FOA have had to do this for over 125 delegations from around the world. They were very attentive and interested in the Seattle delegation, particularly because of Seattle deputy mayor Darryl Smith's attendance. The FOA made a special effort to host and showcase Smith's visit.  

The second day, the delegation went to a briefing at the headquarters for the Two Rivers Development Zone. Smith was immediately engaged in discussions with Chongqing officials because of their interest in gaining his perspective and ideas on clean energy and Seattle's potential involvement in business opportunities.  

Charles Ragen, Ilze Jones, Darryl Smith, Scott Heinlein, and Jim Dawson at the Dazu stone grottos.

Darryl Smith with artist Liu Nenfeng

The delegation was then taken to the famous Baodingshan Buddhist carving site outside Dazu which is about two hours from Chongqing.  In Dazu they met with the artist Liu Nenfeng at Mr. Liu's stone carving studio where they had a chance to see the Guan Yin carving that Mr. Liu has donated to the Garden.  Great discussions ensued about the logistics of shipping the sculpture which from the photo on the left seems incredibly large.

On the Friday before the EXPO opening, the delegation spent the morning at the ancient street on the Jialing River followed by a lunch at the Foreign Affairs Office with deputy director Zhang Haiqing who was very interested in talking with Darryl Smith.  Zhang Haiqing emphasized that the FOA will be helpful in setting up the upcoming March delegation, a "Seattle Week" of activities to take place in Chongqing early spring 2012.

Scott Heinlein is spearheading the business activities and board member Sandy Marvinney will be organizing the cultural delegation for that week (see previous blog entry for details).

More photos and stories to follow in my next blog posting.  Thanks to Jim Dawson for the updates and his incredible photos.