Mike Foley's blog
[Story and photos by Mike Foley, who accompanied the group: Published originally in the BYU-Hawaii “Newsroom” in July 2006]
Eleven BYU-Hawaii students and alumni, accompanied by two International Cultural Studies professors and their respective families, recently returned to campus after spending four weeks studying intensive Mandarin in Shanghai and another week visiting historic sites in Beijing. One of the faculty members called the trip a “life-changing experience.”
Blog entry and photos by Mike Foley
[NOTE: In this previously published blog entry, I describe part of my 2006 trip to Shanghai and Beijing as part of a BYU-Hawaii Study Abroad trip. In Shanghai our group of 11 students, accompanied by Drs. Chad Compton, David and Yi-Fen Beus and members of their families, stayed at the six-story Fudan University Guesthouse [picturted at right], which is located next door to the international student language center.
The guest house is essentially an old hotel (sorta’ like the former Laie Inn). I thought you might be interested in a few details about our lifestyle there: [Read more…]
Blog entry and photos by Mike Foley (containing excerpts from my previously published China journal, July 2009]:
When our BYU-Hawaii study group was there in July 2006, Shanghai — and I understand many of the other major urban areas of China — were (and presumably still are) undergoing a tremendous building boom. There were immense construction projects underway everywhere, some in time for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and others for the World Expo, which is scheduled to take place in Shanghai in 2010. All of this makes for some interesting contrasts. [Read more…]
[Blog and photos by Mike Foley: Originally published July 17, 2009]
Shanghai, 2006, with the Yellow River and Bund in the foreground
In July 2006 a small group of BYU–Hawaii students, professors and family, and I participated in the China Study Abroad program that took us to Shanghai for four weeks of intensive Mandarin and other coursework at Fudan University, followed by a week of touring around Beijing.
Though I have already forgotten most of the Mandarin we learned, the rest of the experience was unforgettable for me. I published quite a few of my impressions in the BYUH Alumni Blog at the time, but those are now well buried . . . and I thought I would reprise some of them here.
[More photo caption: The central commercial district pictured is just a small part of Shanghai’s skyline which, with a population of approximately 17 million when we were there, was said to be punctuated with over 2,000 high-rise buildings.] [Read more…]
[Story and photo by Mike Foley, originally published online in the BYU-Hawaii Newsroom, March 14, 2006] One of Hawaii’s leading corporate attorneys shared some of the learnings and business philosophies he has incorporated into his own and other ventures in the March 14 entrepreneurship lecture series. Gregory R. Kim, Esq. [pictured at right] worked at […]
[Reprinted from the September 2013 issue of IMUA Polenisia, the Polynesian Cultural Center newsletter: Story and Maori photo by Mike Foley] Some people at the Latter-day Saint Church-affiliated Polynesian Cultural Center only know her as Sheena, a part-time Maori musician, but to 600-plus students as well as the 52 faculty members she oversees every week-day, […]
[Story and photos by Mike Foley: Originally published in KALEO, February 12, 1998] Several hundred kupuna, kuleana neighbors, VIPS, community and business leaders, residents, keikis, students and guests gathered in old Po’ohaili on Feb. 7 to participate in the large-scale restoration of taro to Laie. The sounds of the pu shell and Hawaiian chanting by […]
Speaking of Samoa, where I served as a Mormon missionary in the mid-1960s, one day a number of us were traveling from Upolu, the main island in Western Samoa [now just called Samoa] and Tutuila, the main island in American Samoa. In those days Western Samoa maintained a World War II-era grass landing strip at […]
