For 2,000 years, Qu Yuan’s patriotic spirit has influenced many people and he remains revered by Chinese people all over the world. His spirit is certainly the driving force that makes the Duanwu 
Festival a great and happy time. The annual Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu), as it is known in the west is also known as the Double Fifth Festival (fifth day of the fifth moon of the lunar calendar). Over the years, the festival has been given many other names based on various local customs and celebrations. As with many Chinese traditional celebrations, there are legends behind the origins of the Dragon Boat Festival. Among the many stories of the festival, the one most deeply rooted in Chinese culture is of it being in honor of the poet and statesman Qu Yuan of the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.). This was a time when the seven largest individual states, Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qin, contended with each other for dominance.
Legend has it that Qu Yuan (circa 340 – 278 B.C.) was a wise, kind, and honest court minister who did much to eliminate the corruption rampant
in the state of Chu during the Warring States period. Being an erudite man, Qu Yuan was trusted by the king of the state of Chu, which gradually became stronger with the help of Qu Yuan’s sound advice. Qu’s success, especially his ability to fight corruption, antagonized other court officials and incurred the jealousy of other ministers. Eventually banished, then reappearing in court and long appreciated for his wisdom, he was upset at the outcome of a treaty made by the king of Chu and, in despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide in 278 B.C. by drowning himself in the Miluo River. That fateful day was the fifth day of the fifth month.
The story goes that many fishermen tried to rescue him, but the body was never found. The fishermen, worried that the fish would eat his body threw food into the river to feed the fish and tried to scare fish away by splashing the water with their paddles and beating the drums on the long narrow boats. Thus, the Dragon Boat Festival. While the festival is a celebration of the heroic suicide of this 2200 year-old scholar and poet, the contrast to 
modern China’s bursting technological progress is, to say the least, stark and profound.
Third Beijing International Audiology Conference
China has the largest population of any country in the world, with just shy of 1.4 billion people, nearly 5 times that of the United States. Estimates of disabling hearing loss* (as defined by the World Health Organization) range from 30 million to 75 million individuals. Within that population, less than 2% receive hearing assistance. Surprisingly, there are very few professionally trained audiologists or hearing aid dispensers, so hearing assistance is difficult to access and prohibitively expensive for most of the population. This year, overlapping the Dragon Boat Festival, The Third Beijing International Audiology Conference was held May 26-28, 2017 and was hosted by the Beijing
Society of Audiology and attended by an estimated 1,000 professionals including audiologists and hearing aid dispensers. Over the years, nationally and internationally well-known experts have been invited this conference to share the progress and advancement in their research and work, as well as topics focusing on new technology, new products, new services, covering a wide range of hearing science, screening and diagnosis, hearing aid fitting, hearing aid verification and validation, hearing and speech-language rehabilitation etc. Changes of significant magnitude for government deregulation and morphing of products from medical devices toward more accessible wearable communication devices received repeated emphasis were noted by US and other Western hearing throughout the conference.
Christopher Schweitzer, noted American 
audiologist and fellow Coloradan, delivered the keynote address, discussing changes in the U.S. regulatory landscape including PSAPs and proposals to allow OTC hearing aids and how ubiquitous mobile connection devices will push value towards processes and platforms rather than the traditional focus on physical products. Another America audiologist at the meeting was Dr. Dan Schumaier, President of the Ear Technology Corporation. Dr. Schumaier is the inventor of the Dry and Store device and holds a number of other technical patents, such as TransEar as well. Dr. Schumaier introduced a technology called ClikFIT® at the conference. He came up with the idea of Clik because of his own frustration with computer systems 
that seemed to crash at the most inconvenient times. While the hearing industry has shifted to digital processing for good reasons such as better sound quality and more programming options, the downside is that it has increased dependence on specialized computer hardware and software. Other digital hearing aids require a computer and software programs to fit hearing aids and frequently involve multiple visits to the office that are both costly and time-consuming. Clik follows a different path to better hearing: all of the tools needed to customize Clik for each user are pre-loaded onto its advanced, industry-first microprocessor.
In these difficult markets where computers and high technology may not be readily available for costs, availability, knowledge of hearing and hearing devices, it is often necessary to consider other innovative applications where the sophisticated programming is not necessary. These innovations as to platform, easy programming and other innovations will be of great assistance to those millions of hearing impaired individuals in developing countries. The Beijing conference noted many of these innovations that are either currently or soon to be available and offered quite a fitting compliment to Qu Yuan’s festival and the ideals for which he gave his life.
