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Pursuing My Chinese and American Dreams: Studying Abroad and Returning Home Chien Wen Yu Bridgewater State University, [email protected]

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Pursuing My Chinese and American Dreams: Studying Abroad and Returning Home Chien Wen Yu Bridgewater State University, Cyu@Bridgew.Edu Bridgewater Review Volume 37 | Issue 1 Article 8 Apr-2018 Pursuing My Chinese and American Dreams: Studying Abroad and Returning Home Chien Wen Yu Bridgewater State University, [email protected] Recommended Citation Yu, Chien Wen (2018). Pursuing My Chinese and American Dreams: Studying Abroad and Returning Home. Bridgewater Review, 37(1), 22-25. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol37/iss1/8 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. too, had not heard of it or believed it Pursuing my Chinese and American until I applied for a scholarship from Davidson College in North Carolina. I Dreams: Studying Abroad and still remember the day in summer 1981 when my college classmate and room­ Returning Home mate Wang Yang ran up to me with an admission telegram in his hand and Chien Wen Yu yelled out loud: “You got admitted to tudying abroad was the admirable pursuit Davidson College. Heck, you even got offered a full scholarship.” Just getting and dream of Chinese students and young back to campus from a summer English people in the 1980s. Returning to China years tour­guide assignment, I could not S believe my eyes and ears. I grabbed the later, reminiscing in their original homeland, and telegram to read it again and again, at contributing to their country’s development is their least 20 times. I felt I was the happiest hope, as well. person in the world, and did not sleep a wink that night. Davidson College Back in 1981, I decided to fulfill these power in the world after the U.S. Back is among the top liberal arts colleges ambitions myself. In December 1977, I in 1978, scientists and engineers from in the United States. In the past three took the college entrance exam, which research institutes and universities in years, it has become better known in was held in major cities throughout Zhongguancun followed the call of the United States as well as in China in China for the first time since the the China Science Congress initiated because of NBA star Stephen Curry, Cultural Revolution. The exam was by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who studied and started his basketball open to anyone regardless of age and and started their privately owned career there. education background, and in March businesses. This phenomenon, dur­ 1978, I was admitted to Beijing Foreign ing which Zhongguancun Electronic Despite the good news of a full schol­ Studies University in the “Class of ’77,” Products Street was being formed in the arship, I was confronted with a seri­ one of the first groups of Chinese col­ 1980s, was called “Going to Sea.” In ous problem of purchasing my air­ lege students to pass through the exam 2009, Zhongguancun Science Park was plane ticket to the United States. My system. In November 1981, after gradu­ officially approved by the China State father’s monthly salary in 1981 was 89 ation from Beijing Foreign Studies Council and strategically positioned RMB ($52 at 1981 exchange rate of University, I came to the United States as China’s First National Innovation $1.00=1.70 RMB) and my mother’s with the first group of Chinese college Demonstration Zone. After almost salary was 49 RMB ($28). This income graduates studying abroad to pursue my 20 years, Zhongguancun National was average for Chinese families, and American dream. Innovation Demonstration Zone has sufficient to support a family. However, expanded in size to 88 square kilom­ there was little savings left after food Nearly 40 years later, in December eters and 16 parks in Greater Beijing. It and utilities. The airplane ticket cost 2017, I returned to China as a member is currently ranked as the second largest around 9,900 RMB ($5,823), which of the 2017 Winter Overseas Talents entrepreneurship and innovation hub was an enormous figure for any family Delegation to Zhongguancun. The in the world after Silicon Valley. These in China. My parents were trying to host organizations welcomed our economic and technology changes in borrow money from family and friends, return to China to participate in a China are astonishing and the material but nobody had that kind of money, marketing and recruiting event in and structural contrasts between the let alone the ability to lend it to other Zhongguancun Science Park—in their United States and China are becoming people. Even my close relatives refused words, to experience the great mass smaller and smaller. to pitch in. My parents were upset with fervor of entrepreneurship/innovation our relatives and even more desperate and Chinese dreams. A Red China Student for ticket money. Out of despair came The 40 years I have lived in China Pursuing an a smart idea from my father, an editor and the United States span China’s American Dream by profession. With a book contract in Opening and Economic Reform. hand, my father asked his publisher for In 1981, the concept of studying China has rapidly developed from an a cash advance on his book royalties and abroad while being funded by a foreign agrarian to an industrial economy. used it to pay for the ticket. It seemed university scholarship was incom­ The country I grew up in has now like a miracle that he could persuade prehensible to Chinese students. I, become the second­largest economic the publisher to advance the money. 22 Bridgewater Review That was my life­changing ticket to the seemed to disappear into thin air. United States. Unable to figure out the direction signs, I was left alone and lost in this for­ Before leaving for the United States, I eign land. No airline representative or rode my bicycle around Beijing doing flight attendant was present to assist or errands in preparation for my trip. direct me for the transit flight to North I passed through Zhongguancun of Carolina. Gazing around for help, I saw Haidian District where my univer­ a Chinese­looking airport employee sity was located. Everything was slow standing behind a kiosk and approached there. There wasn’t much to see except her as if she were my savior and coun­ a cluster of university campuses and a try folk: “Comrade, could you tell me lot of farmland. Beijing was nothing where to go for the flight to Charlotte, compared to cities like Washington North Carolina?” She stared at me D.C. or New York, which I had seen with no sincerity in the least and said Author Chien Wen Yu at Davidson College, in movies and read about in books. My impersonally: “We don’t say ‘Comrade’ 1981 (Photo crdit: Anderson Scott, hopes for study at Davidson were high here, we say ‘Miss’ or ‘Mister.’ If you go The Davidsonian). and my dreams for life in the United to the domestic terminal, you will find States were big. whole campus for volunteers to room your boarding gate.” I was disappointed with me, a new student coming from In November 1981, I took my first with her curt and vague answer. But “Red China.” Tony volunteered to be international flight to the United States in the evening I got on the flight to my roommate and wanted to help me and tasted airplane food, consisting of North Carolina and arrived late at the because of his grandfather’s influence cold sandwiches with cold drinks. I Charlotte airport only to find that my and stories as a medical missionary to was used to our Asian lifestyle of warm luggage had gone missing during transit Zhejiang, China in 1930s and 1940s. cuisines and beverages served hot. The and my pick­up person was nowhere to To this day, we have been good friends airplane landed in San Francisco after be seen in the luggage area. for 37 years. Still, my American life had 12 long and sleepless hours in the air. I was told I was the first Chinese a difficult beginning and I wrote an Getting off the plane, I followed the student at Davidson College and one article for the Davidsonian student news­ crowd of American and foreign pas­ of the first five Chinese exchange paper about my experiences. The black­ sengers to the customs terminal. As students around the city of Charlotte. and­white photo above is the same one soon as we walked out the exit door, all According to my college roommate, taken for the article. the American and foreign passengers Tony Dick, the Dean sent a letter to the Despite a tough beginning and some twists and turns later, my life in America has been going in the right In December 2017, 140 successful direction step by step. In three and a half years, I finished Davidson College professionals and entrepreneurs and went on to graduate management studies at Wake Forest University in from the United States, Canada, North Carolina. My first professional career started in the North Carolina Great Britain, Japan and other Department of Commerce as inter­ national trade specialist for Asia and countries gathered in the Latin America under Governor James International Conference Center Martin, a former Davidson College professor. Following the state and of Zhongguancun Z­Park. We public service, my second career was in private industry in the capac­ shared overseas entrepreneurial ity of international sales manager for the Ashland Chemical Company experiences and discussed and export manager for the Bobcat Company. Teaching as a management potential innovative projects and professor and coordinator of the Asian Studies Program at Bridgewater State cooperation with partners. University in Massachusetts is my third, April 2018 23 present, and final stage of my career.
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