Yang Fuquan

Dr. Fuquan is currently a Professor and Vice-President at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences. He is an expert on Chinese ethnic history, with a particular focus on Naxi studies. His teaching and research has led him around the world, with positions at Koln University in Germany, the University of California - Davis, and Whitman College.

Freda Murck

Freda Murck earned her PhD at Princeton University in Chinese art and archaeology with an emphasis on the history of Chinese painting. She has worked in the Asian Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She has published articles on Chinese art and a book on the uses of poetry in painting: Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent (Harvard University Press, 2000). She is the first foreign curator at the Palace Museum, and teaches part time at Peking University.

Peter Hibbard

Shanghai-based Peter Hibbard has a background in urban planning and sociology, but decided to turn his attention to the development of the Chinese tourism industry in 1983. He was a visiting scholar at Hong Kong University's Centre of Asian Studies in 1985 and subsequently travelled overland from Tibet to the Burmese border. Peter then took up a position as one of the first foreign lecturers in tourism at the Beijing Institute of Tourism. From that point on he has devoted his life to researching the historical development of tourism and to the historical development of Shanghai. His research continues to the present day and Peter complements this with exclusive private Shanghai tours. He has produced a wide range of publications and is author of the Shanghai section of Odyssey's Beijing and Shanghai: China¡¦s Hottest Cities (2004) and The Bund Shanghai: China Faces West (2007). Peter is currently project historian for Hirsch Bedner Associates, architects for the restoration of the north wing of the Peace Hotel in Shanghai, and president of the Royal Asiatic Society China in Shanghai. 

Ma Jun

Chinese environmentalist and journalist, Ma Jun, was named by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential persons in the world.  Ma Jun's 1999 book ''China's Water Crisis'' may be for China what Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was for the U.S.¡Xthe country's first great environmental call to arms. A journalist turned environmental advocate, Ma has emerged as a powerful voice in China, raising the alarm about the potentially catastrophic consequences of heedless, unsustainable growth.   Ma, who worked for the South China Morning Post from 1993 - 2000, now directs the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE).  He also serves as the environmental consultant for the Sinosphere Corporation.

William Lindesay

Lindesay has lived in China for 14 years during which he has spent ¡§more than 800 days on the Great Wall¡¨. In 1987, he made what China¡¦s Xinhua News Agency described as ¡§the most successful foreign exploration of the Great Wall¡¨, and he recounted his 2,470 km solo adventure in "Alone on the Great Wall" published in the UK, USA and Germany. Since 1995 he has primarily been engaged in systematic research of the Great Wall in the Beijing region and two books for Oxford University Press - ¡§Images of Asia: The Great Wall¡¨ and "Beijing¡¦s Great Wall: Researches and Impressions" are the result of his efforts. Since 1998 he has continued to spearhead efforts to highlight dangers confronting the Great Wall by directing the conservation program "Defending the Great Wall from Modern Attack". In 2001 Lindsey founded ¡§International Friends of the Great Wall¡¨ as a society in Hong Kong in order to assist China¡¦s cultural relics protection authorities in the task of preserving the authenticity of the Great Wall.

Ye Fang

A native of Suzhou, Ye Fang was born in 1962 and has had much of his work displayed in exhibitions throughout the U.S., Japan, Korea, and Europe.  A famous Chinese contemporary artist, many of his paintings have sold for considerable sums, and his works are pursued by art galleries and museums around the world.  In addition to these formidable accomplishments, he has also had several works published in newspapers and magazines such as Ye Fang¡¦s Black And White Ink Painting, Backyard Garden ¡V Ye Fang¡¦s Art Of Modern Chinese Landscape Paintings, The New Page of Modern Chinese Landscape Paintings
With Qing Dynasty Scholars for ancestors, Ye Fang has been infatuated with traditional Chinese gardens since he was a child.  To fulfill a childhood dream, he spent 700 million yuan to build his own personal magnificent garden in 2002.

Matthew Hu

Matthew is the managing director of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, China's leading civil society organization dedicated to mobilizing communities to protect China's rich and diverse cultural heritage. An avid and practicing Buddhist, Matthew is very interested in sociology and religion.  He received his Bachelor's degree in English Literature from the Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute. A native of Beijing, Matthew has designed a few unique religious programs across China and personally leads clients such as National Geographic, World Wide Fund for Nature, and various special interest groups.

Wei Weng

Wei Weng has been an art aficionado for much of her life, and has held a range of creative postings that range from previous project consultant position at UNESCO, to participation in international design projects, and now to conduct arts related travel tour services for leading travel operators in Beijing. A native of Nanning, China, Weng received a BA in Studio Arts at Santa Clara University in California, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting/Drawing at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Anne Warr

Anne Warr is an architect who has lived in Shanghai since 2003. She is a graduate of University of NSW and University of York, UK where she earned an MA in Heritage Conservation. She worked for ten years as Heritage Manager for the NSW Government then as Heritage Manager forthe City of Sydney. Anne has written articles about Shanghai for local and international magazines and has been commissioned by Watermark Press to write an Architecture Guide to Shanghai (due for publicationin mid-2007). She started a tour guiding business, Walk Shanghai, and is a founding member of ¡¥Save Shanghai Heritage¡¦, a volunteer group producing walking tour brochures of Shanghai¡¦s twelve Conservation Areas. The first brochure, on the Jewish Ghetto area, was published in 2006. Anne and her partner run the Shanghai office of the Australian architectural firm "AJ+C."