Chapter 135: Forward, forward!
In the days during which Dustin arrived and then left, Nanjing University's weeklong Homecoming also came to an end.
At the university's meeting to review and commend the work on the Homecoming celebrations, President Wang Xiaoyi delivered concluding remarks congratulating everyone on the event's complete success. He described academics as its soul and celebration as its substance: grand, enthusiastic, simple, and unforgettable. Its aims had been clear, its planning comprehensive, its preparations thorough, and its leadership effective. He went on to thank all the sectors of society, government departments, functional agencies, friends at home and abroad, and partner institutions that had supported the process.
Meanwhile, mainstream newspapers and media outlets in Shanghai Municipality and across the country also carried related reports. In fact, throughout Homecoming, numerous channels, including CCTV-1 and Phoenix Chinese Channel, had run related commentary, news, and articles, attracting immeasurable attention.
Now, outside the main entrances of many of Nanjing University's schools and departments, groups of men and women could be seen posing for commemorative photographs before boarding successive batches of vehicles and leaving.
On the main thoroughfare, Wang Xiaoyi was seeing off Yale University President Richard Levin and University of Oxford Vice-Chancellor John Hood. Around them, several of Nanjing University's vice presidents, the chair of its foundation involved in overseas research and education, the mayor of Shanghai, senior officials from key departments, and members of the United States consulate clustered like stars around the moon. People filming and taking photographs stood all around.
The scene resembled the campus dramas that students at the Film and Art College filmed every summer with BU, supported by a group of Youth League and Student Federation officials, to submit to relevant China Central Television competitions and events. Or it resembled the fanfare surrounding an international star's recent