Tours of the Dole Institute of Politics at Kansas University are now being presented in Mandarin Chinese to draw more international visitors to the institute.

The first customized tour was conducted Saturday.

“When you have it in your own language, it’s a lot more meaningful,” said Judy Sweets, institute photo archivist. “They can go back to their country and tell people about the Dole Institute.”

The 40-minute “white glove” tours, which before Saturday have been presented only in English, give visitors an inside look at how the institute organizes and preserves artifacts and papers from former Sen. Bob Dole’s 35-year career in Congress.

Flora Hsu, a volunteer archivist for the institute from Taipei, Taiwan, presented the foreign language tour to a group of 10 mostly Chinese speaking visitors.

“It will open their eyes,” Hsu said. “The political system is so different.”

Hsu, an Emporia State graduate student, took the group to the collection storage area in the basement of the institute, which is kept at a chilly 60 degrees. The group got a look at several Asian artifacts Dole collected on his trips to China.

They also learned about the institute’s state-of-the-art preservation techniques.

“This program is very good because it takes people from different countries into consideration,” said Jun Wang, a visitor. “This is very convenient.”

The institute is also exploring ways to present the tour in more languages, Sweets said.