Japanese and Korean university students visit the Yifu Museum at China University of Geosciences
The snow-covered Mount Everest stands majestic and sacred, while the tough lives of mountaineers are deeply moving. Yesterday at China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), representatives from Japan and Korea exchanged views with faculty and students on the current state of mountaineering in their respective countries. Chen Chen, China’s first female university student to summit Mount Everest, shared her climbing experiences through a series of real photos with her foreign friends.
Dong Fan, the overall commander of the CUG Mount Everest Expedition Team, introduced that since forming China’s first amateur mountaineering team in 1958, the university has continuously recruited students into the field of mountaineering, nurturing many renowned athletes. On May 19 of this year, four teachers and students from the university successfully summited Mount Everest, becoming the first Chinese university mountaineering team to reach the world’s highest peak.
Masatoshi Murakoshi, a 65-year-old member of the Japan Mountaineering Association, summited Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak, this year. Speaking about mountaineering in his country, he couldn’t hide his concern: “In Japan, young people aren’t very interested in mountaineering. Instead, it’s many elderly who take up the sport after retirement.”
Huang Zhimei, a student at Korea Foreign Language High School, said that university students in her country are very fond of outdoor activities. This exchange trip to Hubei was very popular—over 300 students applied, and the organizers had to select participants through interviews and mountaineering tests.
This China-Japan-Korea university student mountaineering and outdoor exchange event is jointly organized by the China Mountaineering Association, the Japan Mountaineering Association, and the Korea Mountaineering Association, and hosted by China University of Geosciences (Wuhan). Twenty-one university student representatives from outdoor clubs in Japan and Korea will engage in friendly competitions with 32 Chinese university student representatives in Hubei. They will depart today to visit Xingshan and Shennongjia in Hubei, where they will perform rock climbing, experience the Chaotianhao rafting, trek through Peacock Valley, and hold a mountaineering competition at the summit of Shennong Peak.