Jack Cohen

ZELIENOPLE — Jack Cohen, Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau executive director, continues to help develop a relationship between the county and China.

Cohen joined the U.S. Travel Association from Oct. 8 to 13, traveling to Nanjing and Shanghai, China, to meet with Chinese travel experts.

Cohen was asked to join the U.S. delegation because while Butler County does not have a general tourism draw yet from China to the county, it does attract business tourism through companies such as Westinghouse Electric in Cranberry Township.

One of the issues Cohen discussed with Chinese officials was the backlog of visas sought by Chinese who want to visit America.

"They are beginning to work on that problem," he said.

"We had the opportunity to see the country and get to know each other," Cohen said. "I found that China is not what I had been taught when I was in school.

"I found the people to be friendly and family oriented and they all spoke English." he said.

While there he came upon a group of school children. When asked, their teacher said they were 3 years old, "and they all spoke English. They start teaching English to 2-year-olds."

Cohen also got to travel by high speed train from Nanjing to Shanghai. By car that is a four-hour trip, but by train it is one hour.

"They are doing a lot of work on their infrastructure," Cohen said.

"We want to get people coming here, though, and we left a number of Butler County brochures we had made up in Chinese for that purpose," he said.