Thank you to all who entered the IMUSE 2008 China in my Eyes Essay and Photography Competition. We had a startlingly high number of essays and photographs and thoroughly enjoyed reviewing every entry. Congratulations especially to the essay and photography competition winners!

Voice your ideas about China in an essay or a photograph, and you might win a new laptop or an all-expenses-paid trip to Beijing!

It takes but one glance at the box office statistics of Jackie Chan’s latest film, a search through the yellow pages for an acupuncturist, or a simple acknowledgment of the ubiquitous “Made in China” labels on the seeming majority of one’s commercially manufactured possessions to appreciate that China’s influence on North America is more pervasive than its position on the opposite side of the planet might predict. As a country with a long history, a rich culture, and a complicated, increasingly influential role in the world, China can evoke many different, often competing, images, feelings, and emotions. Myriad views of this complex, multifaceted, and even paradoxical nation are generated by everyone who comes into contact with it—journalists, students, tourists, executives, academics. We want to know what yours is.