Grand tour
Before we left on our trip, Ji referred to Qingdao as "the Woods Hole of China." Woods Hole, Massachusetts has a number of private and federal research institutions, so it's a destination for ocean sciences. The village population is also disproportionately dominated by researchers. Qingdao is very much the same. Of course, the comparison meant I was picturing a small town and was surprised to find a city of 9 million people when I arrived in Qingdao, but the analogy stands. Qingdao has five large research institutions and plenty of researchers to go around.
We took advantage of our time in Qingdao by touching base with each of the research institutions in the city. And let me tell you, we got quite the grand tour.
We spent one afternoon at the First Institute of Oceanography, where I got to tour the institute's deep-sea geological collection. Rocks and mineral deposits from all over the deep sea, particularly hydrothermal vents, were housed in cases and displayed on shelves in a precisely temperature-controlled room.
We were also shown one of FIO's ships that was about to leave on a cruise the very next day. The ship had a red banner with gold text hanging from an upper deck on the starboard side. When I asked what it meant, the others said it's a Chinese tradition to hang red banners, and the text translated to "Wish us luck!"
On the dock next to the ship was a buoy about to be deployed in the Indian Ocean. We met with a technician and a scientist in charge of FIO's oceanographic buoys, and I had a good conversation with them. As many of you know, I'm interested in studying island-like habitats. Well, buoys anchored to the seafloor in the middle of nowhere are essentially man-made island-like habitats, so I was eager to learn if anything grew on them. The technician said barnacles were common at the surface, but there wasn't much growing deeper. My cognitive wheels started turning, and I asked if it would be possible to deploy fouling panels at various depths on the buoy line to get more quantitative data on the growth. We traded e-mails, and I'll follow up with the FIO scientists later - it would be certainly interesting to get samples from the Indian Ocean!
We were also shown around Qingdao's brand-new National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology. Ji recalled that the lab was just one building during his last visit a few years ago, but now, the national lab occupies an entire campus north of Qingdao. There are laboratories and offices and living facilities for visitors. When I marveled at how quickly the campus had been erected, the others all shrugged and said "Chinese speed." I still didn't get it, so I pressed for an explanation. One of the Chinese scientists shrugged again and said that when the Chinese government wants something done, it gets done. Fast.
Our time in Qingdao is winding down, but it has been a very productive trip. We've had meetings and tours from morning until evening every day. I have a notebook full of ideas and a list of people to follow up with. I'm glad for the time I've had in China and look forward to seeing relationships between WHOI and the institutions in Qingdao develop!
We took advantage of our time in Qingdao by touching base with each of the research institutions in the city. And let me tell you, we got quite the grand tour.
We spent one afternoon at the First Institute of Oceanography, where I got to tour the institute's deep-sea geological collection. Rocks and mineral deposits from all over the deep sea, particularly hydrothermal vents, were housed in cases and displayed on shelves in a precisely temperature-controlled room.
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| The FIO ship at the dock |
On the dock next to the ship was a buoy about to be deployed in the Indian Ocean. We met with a technician and a scientist in charge of FIO's oceanographic buoys, and I had a good conversation with them. As many of you know, I'm interested in studying island-like habitats. Well, buoys anchored to the seafloor in the middle of nowhere are essentially man-made island-like habitats, so I was eager to learn if anything grew on them. The technician said barnacles were common at the surface, but there wasn't much growing deeper. My cognitive wheels started turning, and I asked if it would be possible to deploy fouling panels at various depths on the buoy line to get more quantitative data on the growth. We traded e-mails, and I'll follow up with the FIO scientists later - it would be certainly interesting to get samples from the Indian Ocean!
We were also shown around Qingdao's brand-new National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology. Ji recalled that the lab was just one building during his last visit a few years ago, but now, the national lab occupies an entire campus north of Qingdao. There are laboratories and offices and living facilities for visitors. When I marveled at how quickly the campus had been erected, the others all shrugged and said "Chinese speed." I still didn't get it, so I pressed for an explanation. One of the Chinese scientists shrugged again and said that when the Chinese government wants something done, it gets done. Fast.
Our time in Qingdao is winding down, but it has been a very productive trip. We've had meetings and tours from morning until evening every day. I have a notebook full of ideas and a list of people to follow up with. I'm glad for the time I've had in China and look forward to seeing relationships between WHOI and the institutions in Qingdao develop!
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