From: Wung, Lihuang Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 7:00 PM To: (Contact List) Subject: Fuzhou Ting Status 9-24-10 Attachments: Photos 9-16-10 to 9-24-10.pdf  Fuzhou Ting Stakeholders (including the CRPF and the Fuzhou Sister City Committee), After three pre-construction meetings (September 16, 17 and 20) and a lot of discussion and preparatory work, we finally kicked off the construction of the Fuzhou Ting on Tuesday, September 21. At 10:00 a.m., building materials and tools shipped from Fuzhou in three 40-ft containers were delivered to the job site and materials were inspected. The Fuzhou Delegation, City staff and the contractor met on the site to lay out the detailed plans and job sequences for the next few days. Then we called it a day – a short, but nonetheless very exciting day. On Wednesday, September 22, work began at 7:00 a.m. We did an inventory of all the materials, moved some of the materials out of the containers, set things up on the ground in preparation for the next few days, and consolidated some materials among the containers so that we would be able to return some of the containers to the Evergreen Shipping Company, which, a Taiwanese company, has been so gracious to let us use the containers for an extended period of time. We also surveyed and chalked the layout on the concrete foundation where the Ting structure will sit on. Instead of the pink powder line snappers that are commonly used by carpenters here, the Chinese used “Mo Dou”, which is a line snapper/dispenser with Chinese black ink. Once snapped on, the lines will stay permanently, said the delegation. September 22 happened to be the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (or the Moon Festival), one of the three major traditional Chinese festivals (the other two being the Chinese New Year and the Dragon Boat Festival). The significance of the Mid-Autumn Festival is that it is the time for family gathering or reunion. And our guests were thousands of miles away from home and spent more than 10 hours on the job site. For that, Theresa Pan-Hosley, Chair of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation, decided to treat them with a very nice dinner at the Shanghai House in downtown Tacoma. On Thursday and Friday, September 23 and 24, eight stone columns were erected and four beams installed. It sounds like a no-brainer type of job the way I said it, but the granite columns are 10-foot tall and weigh at 3,000 pounds each. Believe me, the Chinese and our workers had to work our #*^()$^@) off to set the columns and beams right – leveled, plumbed, squared, aligned, and snap-fit. And then on top of that, it rained hard at times on Thursday morning. But in the end, everybody walked out of the site on Friday evening happy, and ready to go back in on Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m. The major task for the next couple of weeks is the installation of wood components (upper structure of the Ting). We shall see the traditional Chinese craftsmanship demonstrated by the Fuzhou technicians and performed by our carpenters. By the way, Prof. Greg Youtz of PLU took them to the Tacoma Mall on Sunday, September 19, and bought some decks of poker cards, which cost about $4 each and was about 24 (yes, twenty-four) times as expensive as what they could’ve got in China!

Attached are some photo images I took so far. And for those of you who may not have received the status report of 9-19-10, here it is in small print:

The construction of the Fuzhou Ting is tentatively scheduled to begin on Tuesday, September 21. The three containers with building materials and tools shipped from Fuzhou will be delivered to the job site at 10:00 a.m. Some of the materials will be unloaded and laid out on the site by forklift(s) and a crane. If you are not involved in the construction, please stay outside and safely away from the fenced area. If you drive, please also park your vehicle preferably away from the park site, so as not to be in the way of the container trucks. September 21 is still a tentative start date. If there is any change, I will distribute an update on Monday night. The Fuzhou Delegation arrived at the Sea-Tac Airport on Thursday, September 16, at 9:20 a.m, about 40 hours after they had left home in Fuzhou. They settled in a rental house in the Old Town before noon, visited the job site in the afternoon, and attended the 1st pre-construction meeting at the City Hall from 3:00 to 5:30 p.m. After dinner, they returned to the house and called it a day - "two days", to be exact. On Friday morning, September 17, the delegation followed up on some information requests that came out of the 1st pre-construction meeting, and went shopping for a cell phone for local use; did some grocery shopping as well. They met with Mayor Strickland at 3:00 p.m., and attended the 2nd pre-construction meeting at City Hall from 3:15 to 6:30 p.m. On Saturday morning, September 18, the delegation visited the Seattle Chinese Garden. They walked through the construction site of the Knowing the Spring Courtyard, currently being worked on by 21 artisans from Suzhou, China. They also talked to the design architect of the entire garden (from Chongqing, China). They also visited the Songmei Ting that was built in 1989 on the park site. On Saturday afternoon, the delegation checked out the Home Depot in Tacoma for building materials that may be used for the Fuzhou Ting project. In the evening, they attended the welcome party put together by Debbie in her house.

Lihuang Wung Community and Economic Development Department 747 Market Street, Room 1036 Tacoma, WA 98402 (253) 591-5682