The Banquet Speech at the 2007 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference
Fei-Yue Wang
(Edited from the voice record by LC)
The IEEE ITSC 2007 Banquet
Space Needle (The SkyCity)
Seattle, Washington, USA
2 October, 2007.
My Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Before I conduct the official functions and introduce you our annual conference next year, as the President of The IEEE ITS Society, first I would like to thank you all for coming to this great event, and share with us your results and experiences, successes and failures, in ITS research and practice. I also would like to take this opportunity to thank our conference organizers, especially, our General Chair Dan Dailey, our Program Chair Sudarshan Chawathe. Thanks for your great effort for a successful conference!
Thanks to Christian Stiller, our Vice President for Member Activities, and Chip White, our Chair of Award Committee, and every member in our Best Dissertation Evaluation Committee, we have selected a dissertation from Germany for the first prize, and a dissertation from US for the second prize this year. Besides Award Certificates, the first and second prizes have a cash award of $1000 and $500 respectively. Christian will announce the result to you.
Next year we will go after Olympics in Beijing. Not for the gold medals: ITS is simply too fast and too smart for that. Instead, we will have our next annual conference right after Beijing Olympics, from October 12 to October 15, in Beijing, China.
The 2008 IEEE International Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC) will be led by our top management team. Bill Scherer, our President-Elect, will be the Program Chair, and the President, that is me, myself, will serve as the General Chair. Now we have to do a good job and make the event successful, since otherwise we will find no one else to blame. I am going to teach Bill an old Chinese saying: Zhi Yu Si Di Er Hou Sheng (置于死地而后生). Bill has two choices for its English Translations: 1) You must find a new life at the end of a dead end; 2) You must win your battle by dropping your weapons and destroying your boats, no transportation to back off. But I do not care what Bill chooses, I just want him to give us a successful meeting and a good time in Beijing.
I am sure you will have a successful meeting next year, since this times you will “Buy One, Get Two”. It is not a market gimmick you found in supermarkets, we have proposed to our Board of Governors that we will have our ITSC in conjunction with two other ITSS conferences next year:
The first one is,
2008 IEEE/INFORMS International Conference on Services, Operations, and Logistics Informatics (SOLI 2008)
Which tells us how to use and operate our ITS systems, and
The second one is,
2008IEEE/ASMEInternationalConferenceonMechatronic/EmbeddedSystems and Applications (MESA 2008)
Which tells us how to construct and maintain our ITS systems.
I hope you will like this combination and find it is a good opportunity to broadyour knowledge base and to know people in other disciplines.
If you have any idea to make this meeting better, or if you are willing to help us out, please let Bill or me know.
I am also sure you will have a good time in Beijing next year, not only because it is just after the Olympic Game, but also because some new and wonderful additions to this great city of long history and deep culture.
After you arrive at Beijing, the first thing you should do is to take a bath in this Water Cube, the site for Olympic swimming and other water events, then take a nap in this Lovely Bird’s Nest, the place for the grand opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics, and then listen to Peking Opera, Mozart or Beethoven in this newly erected half Egg, our National Grand Theater.
Figure 1: Water Cube 水立方
Figure 2: Bird’s Nest 鸟巢
Figure 3：National Grand Theater 国家大剧院
I hope you will do this with your wife or your significant other, so two of you can experience “One World, One Dream”. If you two still dream differently, sue 2008 Olympic Committee since that was they have promised to the whole World in their official theme slogan. Just a joke.
If you don’t like the Cube, the Nest, and the Egg, please blame no Chinese but European, actually, French to be exact, since they designed them, maybe for the convenience of romantics in an old city, I guess. We Chinese just built those romantic toys of Olympic sizes, in terms of space and distribution, and paid for them. Fortunately to some, or unfortunately to other, no recall possible this time.
My favorite topic is history, so my favorite place in Beijing is the Forbidden City. It was the royal court of China for over 800 years, and today it is still near the center of contemporary Chinese culture and politics. Don’t be afraid by its deep red color, you will find coffees in Starbucks there, but tea is forbidden, so it is very open and West friendly. I hope you go there to have a taste of our history and what is meant to be “big” and “luxury” in Chinese vocabulary.
Figure 4: Forbidden City故宫
If you do not like the place, do not blame on me, again, blame European and American since their Union Army burnt the place and took goodies away a century ago, 108 years ago by the time you come to visit. The good thing is that you can still see those goodies or our treasures in many museums in other parts of the world.
Please do not blame or complain about the services there, remember the name, and the history, it is forbidden in the Forbidden City. If you do, they will not cut your head off as before, but no good to your health. Be positive, and enjoy.
Don’t worry and relax. China has changed, Beijing has changed even more, and sometimes I am even wondering where I am when I meet my friends in Beijing. I am sure you will have funs and have a good time there.
Our conferences will be held at Friendship Hotel, here is the picture of it, a real good place to meet old friends and make new ones.
Figure 5：Friendship Hotel 友谊宾馆
I hope you will also find this is a good opportunity to deep your sense and understanding of humanity, and to know people in other cultures.
Finally, I wish you all have a good time in Seattle, 西雅图，in Chinese, the Beautiful Image of the West, have a safe trip back home, and
