TIFTON — Traveling over the North Pole to a land where chop sticks, duck heads on your plate and “Beware of Cobras” signs are commonplace, instructor Eddie Seagle and eight students from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College have a whole new appreciation for the Made in China label.

Seagle, a professor of Agriculture and Environmental Horticulture at ABAC, recently returned from 15 days in China with ABAC students Nate Carney from Acworth, Jed Cathey from Madison, Brandon Doles from Fort Valley, John Grist from Rabun Gap, Richard Irvin from Whigham, Woody Moore from Pacolet, S.C., Kimberly Morris from Dallas, and Joseph Wengert III, from Ringgold.

“China is an awesome place,” Seagle, a 1970 honor graduate of Franklin (N.C.) High School, said. “The food is excellent. The people are very friendly, and the countryside is beautiful.”

Seagle and the students presented a program on golf course planning, construction and maintenance at Nan Sha Golf Club and Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China. Invited by the School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, Richtone Worldwide Limited/Golf China and BMI China, Seagle led the sessions, where the audience included 32 Chinese golf course managers and 22 Chinese students.

“The entire first week was dedicated to the educational component of the trip,” Seagle said. “We had headphones with nearly simultaneous interpretation of all remarks.”

All the ABAC students major in the college’s new bachelor’s degree in turfgrass and golf course management. No state funds were used for the trip. The students had to provide their own funding.

Their shared experiences included their first 16-hour flight, which went straight over the North Pole and ended in China where there is a 12-hour time difference from Tifton.

“We drank hot tea like five times a day,” Grist said. “The people are very interested in America. All the students we talked to spoke English, and they said high school was harder than college.

“I like the fact that they take pride in their cities. It seemed like every 30 or 40 yards, someone would be sweeping the streets.”

Mission Hills Golf Course was the first stop on the tour. Seagle said it is the world’s largest golf facility with twelve 18-hole courses or 216 holes of golf in one very large spot.

“We rode carts over a portion of the course, and we couldn’t help but notice the ‘Beware of Cobras’ signs adjacent to the rough,” Seagle said. “We never saw any.”

The ABAC Turf Team enjoyed a tour of Guangzhou via a boat ride on the Pearl River, the third largest river in China. Seagle said with 18 million people, Guangzhou offered both urban and rural impressions.

The students had a chance to play golf twice during the week at Nan Sha, which has both a mountain course and a valley course. After golf, many toasts were exchanged between the Americans and the Chinese.

“I enjoyed getting to know more about their culture,” Irvin said.

Culture was a huge part of the second phase of the journey which included flights to Beijing and Lijiang. Seagle said a Sun Yat-sen University club management major named Sophie was the tour guide and interpreter for this portion of the trip.