Dr. Jamie Zhang, Program Director of FHTM visited a French partner, University of Tours, on April 7th, 2014. He was met with by Ms. Isabelle Bianquis, Professor of Anthropology, of the European Institute for the History and Culture of Food, and was shown around the teaching facilities such as libraries and computer labs by other colleagues. The city of Tours enjoys a long standing tradition to study and to campaign for heritage food. Every year Tours hosts an exhibition to Slow Food, which is promoted as an alternative to fast food, and strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine. The city and the university support the use of plants, seeds and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem and the Institute offers a two-year master program in History and Culture of Food. Students spend one and a half year in Spain, Italy and Belgium, attending classes and visiting restaurants there, and working as interns to gain hands-on experiences. The students are either graduates in history, biology and archeology, etc, or are restaurant chefs. Based on this category, the theses are classified into research thesis and professional thesis, with a different emphasis on theoretical studies or practical applications. They already have students from Mainland China and Taiwan, and they hope that students of FHTM will also consider and choose their university for further studies. In addition, they also introduced a summer school program on Food and the Senses, which also lays equal emphasis on both study and practice and is open to level 2 master students.
On 9th and 10th of April, the 8th World Congress on Snow and Mountain Tourism was jointly hosted by UNWTO and the Principality of Andorra, which had drawn around 400 attendees from government, industry, NGOs and academia worldwide. Dr. Zhang attended this event and met with Mr. Omar Valdez, Executive Director, UNWTO. Themis Foundation, World Tourism Organization, and his colleagues. His team is responsible for TedQual accreditation and internship programs, and he has experience of working with interns from FHTM before in Andorra and he welcomed more FHTM students to join their internship programs.
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