Visitors from Far Away Places

ORIGINALLY POSTED Thursday, March 22, 2007

Nobody from China has visited me today. Already the afternoon is half over. I have regular visitors to my blog from Beijing. They never make any comments but I would love to hear from them.

There are visitors from other places as well but I think they may just be pop-ins. The people from Beijing keep coming back.

A couple of years ago, we hosted a delegation from China. It was a two day event. The mayor and other councillors had lunch and dinner with them and they had a tour of various facilities. My only involvement was in fielding a question and answer session for a couple of hours in the Council Chamber.

They were government officials in the main. In China, until then, the central government controlled all finances. Everyone who provided government services at every level was on the payroll of the central government.

At the time they visited us, the government was contemplating changing their system. They were planning to give people in the communities authority to manage their own affairs. In effect, they were planning to de-centralize government services.

What an enormous project that would be...considering the size of China... the population...the culture. It was very interesting to be the one listening to the questions and providing answers from my own experience. They wanted to know how we did things.

I could tell them about the changes we had experienced. The creation of regional governments - which was the first change in municipal government in over one hundred years. The patriation of our Constitution and the Charter of Rights. Not that I know many details about that. But that certainly was the most significant event in our National History since the country was created.

They wanted to know the most basic things. How we raised the money to pay for services. Different responsibilities at different levels of government. Elections. Who were the bad guys in the scheme of things. Actually, they probably didn't ask that question - I probably volunteered the information without being asked. They had an interpreter. Scott Somerville kept having to slow me down to allow time for interpretation. I was on a roll.

It was a very interesting afternoon and obvious at the end of the allotted time the delegation still had tons of questions they wanted to ask. I told them in these days they would have the opportunity to continue the dialogue from home on the internet. I'm sure they didn't need any help from me on that score.

I am not aware they ever did. But we do have our town web site. My web address is posted. It would be very satisfying to know if any member of the Chinese delegation who visited Aurora that afternoon was still popping in out of interest to find out what they might about bits and pieces going on in Aurora.

When I was in school, students were encouraged to have pen pals in other places. The object I guess would be to acquire some insight in how people lived elsewhere. I would have liked to participate, but I never did have money for stamps or anything else for that matter.

Now, in these amazing times we live in, there are people I do not know visiting my blog on a regular basis. They know me, but I don't know them. Only that they are there and they are reading what I have to say from this little place in Ontario on the other side of the world.