Doing the field trips in Germany 2005 and 2007 with Sun Yat-sen geography students and teachers was both a privilege and a challenge - for students and teachers alike. 

　　For most of the Chinese students it was the first opportunity to travel abroad, i.e. to get to know first-hand both landscapes and people, structures and processes, most of them are seemingly familiar with after years of media contact... The real encounters were much more surprising and rewarding. Sometimes - let's admit this frankly - they could also become disappointing, even disturbing. Just one example: Many of the carefully refurbished houses in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin are highly appreciated by most German residents and visitors, and the endeavour to read this urban text is like a time travel into our country's (and Europe's and beyond, for that matter) history from the late 19th to the early 21th centuries. A recurring question of the Chinese students, however, was during both trips: Why do Germans love these old houses when they also have the opportunity to move to nice, modern high-rise residences?

　　From the German teacher's perspective it is a real challenge to cope with these and other very different ways of experiencing the world around us, a task that goes far beyond the pure knowledge transfer of Germany's regional geography to visitors from abroad. In addition, the particular objective of the 2007 trip, to study globalizing processes in Germany's small cities (compared to the mega-cities of the Pearl River Delta the students are familiar with...), turned out to be no easy exercise either: Chinese geography students are, as their German counterparts, used to link globalization processes almost exclusively to the impacts of multinational companies in so-called Global Cities. So, it was not easy at all to adjust to the insight, that Turkish immigrants in Cologne or the seemingly insignificant Richard Wagner Festspielhaus in Bayreuth must be regarded as globalizing actors (or actants) as well...

　　Another particular event took place in Bayreuth 2007 in front of the Youth Hostel, inducing us to act in a globalizing way, and we, the small group of Cologne students and myself, were particularly touched to be integrated: The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated by the students who had brought colorful lanterns and moon-cake. Happily enough, the cloud cover opened up for a few seconds, so the moon became visible to enable everybody to connect with the distant families...Other guests of the Youth Hostel were wondering what was going on out there, of course.

　　The 2005 and 2007 field-trips to Germany were the 2nd and 3rd Sino-German excursion jointly organized by the Geography Departments of Sun Yat-sen University and University of Cologne.  I'm particularly grateful to all my Chinese and German colleagues as they made these trips to become extremely rewarding professional and personal events, characterized by excellent co-operation, friendship and exchange: These were, in 2005, professor Xue Desheng, professor Zhou Suhong and Dr. Yuan Yuan, as well as professor Liu Yungang in 2007 (all of them from SYSU) and, last but not least, professor Christian Schulz (then Cologne University, now International University of Luxemburg) in 2005. I also would like to thank all students for their interest and commitment. And all of us are particularly grateful for financial contributions awarded not only by our universities but in particular, and in a most substantial way, by DAAD/ German Academic Exchange Service (Bonn). I would also like to say a heartfelt thank you to Professors Xue Desheng and Frauke Kraas (Cologne), both since many years co-organizers, supporters and real pillars of our joint ventures. We really do hope that we will be able to extend and intensify our co-operation in the years to come.  

　　Thank you, xie xie!

　　

　　Dietrich Soyez      

　　Guangzhou, May 6, 2008