I was fortunate to be a member of the first People to People Ambassador court reporters delegation to the People's Republic of China from June 25 to July 2, 2007. The delegation was led by Merilyn Sanchez, Past President of NCRA, and consisted of 40 delegates and 12 guests who toured Beijing and Guangzhou.The official program began on Monday, June 25th, at the Beijing Marriott Hotel where our People to People Ambassador national representatives Zhang Liang (Riley) and Yan Lixin (Helen) led us through an in country briefing. We then received a professional overview of the Chinese legal system from Mr. Gong of the Ministry of Justice.A common criminal case in China starts at the county court level, then proceeds to the city court level and may end at the supreme court provincial level. The Chinese police must get the prosecutor's permission to make an arrest. Not only does the prosecutor investigate whether a crime has been committed, the lower level courts do too. While China has no jury trials, they do have death penalty cases for crimes of murder, big drug dealers, and large dollar corruption.A record is made of court proceedings in China by court reporters. Our delegation got a tour of the Beijing Stenography association and the Beijing Steno Training Center. We were introduced to the Yawei Chinese Stenograph machine by the students at the training center and had an opportunity for a hands on demonstration.The Yawei has a keyboard just like an American steno machine but can write not only Chinese characters but English words too. It is a wireless realtime machine and looks similar to the model on the market from Gemini.On Tuesday the delegation went to the Swissotel for a meeting with our Chinese counterparts. the setting was almost like a United Nations gathering with the Chinese on one side of the table and the Americans on the other. Each side made a presentation on the history of stenography in their country and then there was a question and answer exchange. Professor Tang Ya Wei, the 93-year old inventor of the Chinese steno machine, made an appearance at the end of the day for the presentation of certificates of appreciation and gifts.Wednesday was a cultural day and we toured the Forbidden City, a silk carpet factory and the Great Wall. The guests had previously toured the Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square.In Guangzhou we visited the Guangzhou Judicial School where we again saw the Chinese court reporting students in action. Our arrival at the school was quite impressive as many of the students were hanging from the classroom windows taking pictures of us. Our afternoon was spent in a meeting with the Guangzhou Shongjia Steno Technology Service Company for an exchange of information about stenography.The rest of our time in Guangzhou was cultural in nature. We visited the Sun Yatsen Memorial Hall, Yuexia park, Chen Clan temple, Qingping market, Six Banyantree Temple, and the Tomb of Nanyue Kingdom. Our last stop was at a local hospital for a one hour foot massage!People to People kept us on the go throughout our time in China. And they made sure we ate authentic Chinese cuisine! We saw the Kungfu Show at the Red Theatre in Beijing and had Peking Duck at the Wangfujing Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. The menu also included snake's head soup and scorpions!Our national representatives were outstanding. They served as interpreters at all our meetings and had an excellent command of what court reporting was all about.Several delegates have posted pictures of the trip on photobucket. If you are interested in seeing the pictures go to www.photobucket.com and type in latimerchina or doakleaf or lindajack_bucket in the search line. Then click on the click here to see this user's album. Lindajack's photos are set to music and really caught the flavor of our trip!