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Issue: 1074 Date: 3/24/2011
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St. Louis Asian Community Warmly Welcomes Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, President of Missouri Botanical Garden
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(St. Louis - MO) On Saturday, March 19, Missouri Botanical Garden commissioner Francis Yueh organized a banquet to welcome the new president of the Garden, Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, and his wife Diane. In attendance were Garden commissioners and various community organizations and leaders. Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson took over as the president of the Missouri Botanical Garden in September 2010, replacing Dr. Peter Raven who had been in the position for 40 years. Previously, Dr. Wyse Jackson was the Director of the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland in Dublin.
Dr. Wyse Jackson gave a speech at the dinner to express his honor to lead the Missouri Botanical Garden, a world-class botanical garden. He will keep promoting plant conservation, education, research and development and the establishment of the world's plant network platform. Besides Garden international connections, he mentioned the strong relationship between the Garden and China, Japan and Korea. Every year, Chinese Culture Day and the Japanese Festival at the Garden are the largest Asian cultural events in the Midwest.
In 1989, Dr. Wyse Jackson visited the Nanjing Botanical Garden in China. At that time, he never thought that one day that he would be the president of Missouri Botanical Garden, the sister garden of the Nanjing Botanical Garden. Dr. Wyse Jackson hopes there will be a Korean Garden inside the Missouri Botanical Garden in the future to complement the existing Nanjing and Japanese Gardens.
Dr. Wyse Jackson said that when he visited China, there were only fifteen botanical gardens in China. Twenty years later, China now has more than two hundred botanical gardens. It shows how important botanical gardens are to the Chinese. Dr. Wyse Jackson admired that for over five thousand years, the Chinese have used herbs and plants as medicine. Working with Chinese gardens at China, the Missouri Botanical Garden's "Flora of China" will be completed in 2012. There will be a series of celebration activities to highlight the long term friendship and cooperation between Missouri Botanical Garden and China.
Another big project that Dr. Wyse Jackson mentioned is the online database of world flora which will include information on the status of plants, their geographical distributions, and descriptions. The completion date is scheduled in 2020. There are 193 governments sponsoring this project.
A total of 14 St. Louis Asian community groups and their presidents attended the banquet. They are St. Louis Chinese Culture Day (Chairman Dr. Chunsheng Xia), St. Louis Chinese Association (President Lin Li), St. Louis Modern Chinese School, St. Louis Chinese Academy (Principal Dr. Kam Fok), St. Louis Chinese Culture Education and Service (Chairman Jie Zhu), St. Louis Coalition of Asian Pacific Association (President Dr. Vincent Joe), St. Louis Japan America Society (President Dr. Chikako Usui), St. Louis Japanese Activities Committee (Chairman Dave Lowry), St. Louis Korean American Association (President Kaysong Lee), International Institute (Board member Grace Yin Lo), Missouri Asian American Bar Association (President Alexander Lee), St. Louis Organization of Chinese Americans (President Eling Lam), St. Louis Reading Club (President Mimi Chou) and St. Louis Chinese American News (Director May Wu).
A new appointed Honorable Korean Consul Judge Judy Draper, her husband Judge George Draper, Dr. James Wang, President of Creve Coeur City Council, Mr. Eugene Liang, Director of the Dept of Revenue of the St. Louis County, Dr. Joel Glassman, Director of the International Study Center of UMSL, Tai Ji Master Anna Lum, Justin Meehan and Missouri Botanical Garden commissioners Marjorie Weir, Theresa Loveless, Martin Schweig, and Marcia Mellitz were among the VIPs who attended the welcome banquet. |
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