BAR HARBOR – The distance between this sleepy seaside town and the bustling Far Eastern cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong might seem impossibly great, but that’s no deterrent to five high school students who are aiming to be among the few Maine teens who will travel to China this year.

“It’s just going to be a cool experience,” Alexis Baxter, 14, said at a Sunday night fundraising event held in conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration at the China Joy restaurant downtown. “I’m so excited to go. Learning their culture is so fascinating to me.”

The banquet room at the restaurant was crowded with the friends and families of the students, who dined on traditional holiday delicacies and were entertained by the students’ rendition of a dancing dragon.

If all goes well and the students succeed in raising about $3,500 each, they will take flight in July for two weeks in China. The trip, run by a group called Educational Tours, will utilize airplanes to cover vast tracts of China so that participants can see the far-flung cities of Beijing, Xi-‘an, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Some highlights of the tour include an excursion to a section of the Great Wall of China, lunch with Chinese secondary-school students and visits to museums and historic sites.

Bob Chaplin, a teacher at Conners-Emerson School and co-leader of the planned trip, said that it is an unusual chance for area youth to get an in-depth look at China, a country which may have a big impact on their future.

“It’s such a different culture,” he said. “It is, I think, a real opportune time to go to China and see the real contrast as China emerges into a market economy.”

Other interested Hancock County students can still join the trip, Chaplin said. More fundraisers will be forthcoming, including a raffle.

“The closer we get and the more people we get on board the more excited the leaders get, too,” he said. “One of the components of education today in public schools is to make sure students have experiences outside of their own environments to help them in figuring out their careers, understanding other people and promoting peace through understanding.”

The best way to do that is through travel, according to the teacher.

After Abe Gladstone, 15, emerged from his section of the dragon, he talked about his reasons for joining the trip.

“It will be a really unique experience,” the Bar Harbor teen said. “Not many people get a chance to go to China.”

But Gladstone has other, more business-oriented motives for making the trip, too.

“The way the world is changing and China’s economy is moving up we might end up working for them soon,” he said.

But gloomy economic prognostication had just a small place in a festive night that was enlivened by the students’ high spirits.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the Great Wall,” Ashley Murad, 14, said. “I want to know if you can really see it from space.”

For information, call Heather Murad at 669-8238.