Review of Qian's Liuxue Meiguo
by David Cowhig
Qian Ning's "Liuxue Meiguo" ["Studying in America"] is full of profound
and fair-minded reflections on China, the United States and
Sino-American relations seen through the experiences of Chinese students
in the United States. I wrote up this summary/review for some
colleagues.
I have peppered it with page references for people who want to find the
parts that interest them.
David Cowhig, Beijing
I wrote this summary to introduce Qian Ning's "Studying in
America" to some colleagues in Beijing. Qian's very fair-
minded book should help Chinese and Americans understand
each other better and deepen their friendship.
The book's Chinese title is "Liuxue Meiguo" and was
published by the Jiangsu Wenyi Chubanshe [Jiangsu Arts
Publishing House]. When I lived at home in the U.S., I
often ordered Chinese books from the Joint Publishing Co.,
9 Queen Victoria St., Hong Kong. You might try them if your
local Chinese bookstore doesn't have a copy.
David Cowhig aka Gao Dawei
Beijing [email protected]
You are welcome to pass along or reproduce this article.
China and America Through A Two-Way Mirror: Qian Ning's
"Studying in America" Examines Experience of Chinese
Students in American Society
Introduction. Qian Ning, has written a best-selling book
about his impressions of life as a student in the United
States. Qian wrote his book upon his return to China after
studying journalism and Chinese literature for five years
at the University of Michigan. "Studying in America", now
a runaway best-seller in both legal and pirated editions,
reflects the Qian Ning's very deep and fair-minded
assessment of China, America and their relations. Far
deeper and much more sophisticated than the recent wave of
shallow, America bashing best-sellers, Qian's book is
imbued with Chinese patriotism with a clear-eyed and fair-
minded view of the good and the bad of Chinese and American
society and traditions. Although only a small percentage
of the Chinese students who went to the United States over
the last fifteen years have returned to China, more and
more are choosing to come back as economic conditions
improve and political controls loosen. Qian is the son of
the present Chinese Foreign Minister.
The importance of this book is that it affords a vision of
the U.S. as it is reflected in the Chinese mind and a
vision of China through Chinese minds which have been
profoundly transformed by their American experience. Here
is an extensive summary of Qian's work with page numbers
from the first edition which also hold for the numerous
pirate editions sold.
Studying in America -- It Didn't Start With Deng
Qian traces Chinese study in America and its importance for
Chinese society back Yung Wing, one of the earliest Chinese
students [1847] who persuaded Qing Dynasty General Zeng
Guofan to support 120 young Chinese students for higher
education in America. Qian examines the big surge of
Chinese graduate students going to the U.S. after World War
II and the difficulties U.S. government exit restrictions
made for those Chinese students who wished to return to
China after the founding of the PRC in 1949.
Studying Abroad Transforms Attitudes of Chinese Students
Qian writes [p. 50], "Most Chinese are used to living a
life in which they don't make choices for themselves. They
don't think living that life is terrible. On the contrary,
they think it is an easy way to live. People living in
that kind of society in which the freedom to choose is
missing gradually, just like tamed animals, lose their
wildness and vitality, and become imbued with a kind of
"laziness". Just as study abroad changed the fate of many
Chinese young people, so too did it change their attitude
towards life."
Large numbers of the Chinese graduate students were
privately financed -- the number of state or work unit
supported students fell from 57 percent in 1979 to just 17
percent in 1985. By 1985 over half of the Chinese students
were going to the United States with assistance from U.S.
universities. The social and economic backgrounds of the
Chinese students abroad reflect a cross-section of the
Chinese in the Chinese domestic university system [p. 82] -
- including according to a 1990 survey a significant number
of students from poor and rural backgrounds [29 percent
from small and medium sized towns, 8 percent from rural
villages].
A Hundred Strategies for Going Abroad: Will the Work Unit
Leader Say OK?
Some students had their study plans delayed or frustrated
altogether not by the strict U.S. or Chinese government
requirements, but by their own work unit leader. The work
unit leader [p. 62] has such tremendous power over the
lives of unit members, Qian remarks, that the attitudes of
many Chinese students towards China depends largely on
their work unit experience. This is because the work unit,
a basic cell of PRC society, can greatly moderate the
effect of restrictions sent down from the central
authorities on the lives of its individual members.
Conversely, a tough work unit leader can aggravate Chinese
government controls, says Qian.
Work unit control on prospective students weakened when the
State Education Commission in 1993 announced a new
application procedure for study abroad [p. 92]. The new
method allows individuals to apply directly [without work
unit permission] in open competition for state support of
studies abroad and provides for a contract between the
individual and the state. Furthermore, the new regulations
guarantees returning students the right to leave China
again if they so choose.
[Comment: The right to leave again after returning is also
reflected in the May 1995 State Council Decision on
"Accelerating the Pace of Scientific and Technological
Progress"]
Getting the American Visa
Qian recounts his own experience applying for a U.S. visa
on July 26, 1989 [short interview, the consular officer was
very polite] and gives a balanced account of the successes
and tragedies of his contemporaries who applied for a
student visa to the United States. He reported that the
judgments of consular officers varied widely, some were
very tough while others issued many visas. Qian repeated
the story [p. 74] he had heard from a former American
Embassy Beijing consular officer Qian met at the University
of Michigan. The former consular officer said that one of
his colleagues said, "We can't give them visas. None of
them will come back." Qian commented, "Although the
American Consul's words are painful to Chinese ears, what
he said was true. For very many Chinese students at that
time, the real goal wasn't to study abroad but to use study
abroad as a way out of China."
An Alternate Way of Life: The Shock of Encounter with U.S.
Culture
The great American highway system and the bright lights of
the city impressed the first PRC students to come to the
United States. Qian reports that the first meeting with
America didn't make such a strong impression on the Chinese
students of the 1990s, since as one student said "We see
America in the movies and read about it in magazines, so we
don't think it so special when we get there". For Qian,
the peace and calm of an American campus in 1989 contrasted
sharply with the post Tiananmen China he had just left.
Qian wrote, "I realized a simple truth. We Chinese -- at
least the younger generation of Chinese -- can make for
ourselves a different kind of life. The political
movements and counter-movements, the criticism sessions,
the struggle meetings, the parades, the stirring up of the
feelings of the masses in I-live-and-you-die struggles is
not the only possible way for Chinese people to live their
lives."
Qian recounts how one Chinese political science doctoral
candidate, after hearing from his professor how Americans
want a weak government so that individual freedom will be
safe, questioned his old belief that "the dictatorship of
the proletariat must be strengthened so that the government
can "manage the people". Qian writes [p. 138], "Our
thinking is unconsciously restricted by the limitations of
our society and of our culture and traditions. Just as
human thinking cannot escape the limitations of the human
situation, so too is it very difficult for us to overcome
the limitations of our society and culture. All too easily
we come to accept without question everything in our
society as "normal". Our encounter with another society
reveals to us the limitations of our own."
Chinese Ethnocentrism And...
For the Chinese, Qian writes [pp. 137 - 139], foreign
things, no matter how attractive or new are not a part of
Chinese tradition and so are put aside as strange or
abnormal. This is a manifestation of the Chinese central
kingdom perspective on matters barbarian. Insults to a
weak China at the hands of Western imperial powers created
a narrow and often unreasoning Chinese nationalism [p. 20]
which strengthened a Chinese tendency to distinguish
sharply between the foreign and the Chinese, and fear that
Chinese were falling under undue foreign influence. For a
century, Chinese have followed the principle "Chinese in
essence, Western for techniques" [Zhongti Xiyong].
...American Ethnocentrism
Yet, says Qian, America has much the same problem. "One
hundred years of domestic peace created the powerful
economy, advanced science and technology, gradually
perfecting democratic system and mass culture which
Americans see as the model for the world. Americans
believe that all the world should be judged by American
values and seem never to understand that America is just
one case, and perhaps a very special case, in the history
of humanity's social development. This American prejudice
appears throughout the work of American scholars who enjoy
"academic freedom" and in the supposedly objective U.S.
mass media."
Students Foreign Experience Will Make China a More Tolerant
and Open Society
The idea that my group is right and the others are all
wrong or, on a larger scale, that our culture is right and
the foreigners are wrong, is the natural result of growing
up in any culture writes Qian. In the extreme, these
attitudes, lead to the suppression of independent thinking,
cultural narrow-mindedness and dictatorship. Recent
Chinese history shows that this attitude that a certain
ideology is absolutely correct can be seen in campaigns to
"unify ideology". Qian writes [p. 140] that most Chinese
believe in both democracy and the necessity of unifying
ideology -- yet never see the inherent contradiction
between the two. Qian believes that the experience of
hundreds of thousands of Chinese students living in seventy
countries around the world will produce a group of people
who will bring back to China the values of a more open and
tolerant society.
Students Find America a Socially Mobile, Money-Oriented
Society
The rich material life of the United States, in particular,
the relative low cost of food and housing made a deep
impression on the Chinese students. Many students found
that they could get a job that would enable them to buy a
house and a car and within just a few years "live as well
as a Chinese vice minister." Some Chinese students focused
on making as much money as they could right away. Qian
sees this as a kind of culture shock. Qian describes
American society this way [p. 112] : "America is a true
money-oriented society. In America money is like an
invisible hand that moves society. America has great
social mobility: there aren't any nobles and commoners,
there is no upper layer and lower layer. American society
divides into people who have money and people who don't
have money. But people who have money sometimes become
poorer and poorer. And people who don't have money can
earn more and more money and so become rich...In America,
money not only influences politics and the economy but has
also become the standard by which judgments are made.
Money permeates the thinking of Americans."
Some Chinese Students Find Economic and Intellectual
Freedom Hard to Take
Qian found that Americans could not understand how the
Chinese government could repress the student demonstrators
of Tiananmen because "American did not receive the
collectivist education of the Chinese." Qian calls freedom
a heavy burden which some of the Chinese who go to the
United States cannot accept [p. 120]. They find that
America is free but "nobody cares about you either." Qian
found that depression and a feeling of being helpless and
alone to be far more common in the United States than in
Chinese society -- perhaps, Qian speculates, these feeling
come as the price of personal freedom. Hardest and most
shocking for Chinese students was "the seminar" -- which as
Qian informs his readers, is the very best method for
keeping up with a field and stimulating one's creativity.
Chinese Students Find Sexual Freedom Confusing But Enjoy It
The more open attitudes of Americans towards heterosexual
and homosexual relationship [p. 128 ff] came as a great
shock to many Chinese students. Most adjust quickly,
however, and enjoy their new found freedoms. Homosexuals
among the Chinese students found freedom and acceptance in
America. One young Chinese woman had been expelled from her
Chinese university after being discovered in her
boyfriend's dormitory room, realized after coming to
America that she wasn't a bad person but as an individual
had legitimate feelings and rights despite the attitudes of
Chinese society. Qian discussed several stories of Chinese
women who cast off dependence on and subordination to men
imposed by traditional Chinese social mores and moved on to
new relationships.
Liberation of Chinese Women in America
Chinese women bear up better under the economic stress and
culture shock of American society better than Chinese men,
Qian has discovered. Qian writes [pp. 207 - 241] of many
cases of Chinese women who have become much more
independent after entering American society, even to the
point of abandoning Chinese "intellectual" husbands who
were too proud to work in a restaurant to make a living.
Men had a difficult time accepting wives as the breadwinner
in the family. Qian recounts story after story of how
American experience has freed Chinese women from what Qian
characterizes as the traditional patriarchal, father-
domination which continues to characterize Chinese society
despite the political changes of the past fifty years.
Economic Opportunity, But the Freedom to Fail as Well
While most students did well financially after initial
difficulties, many others found it hard to support
themselves and discovered the pressure of potential
unemployment, poverty and even hunger they didn't know in
China. Much more than in China, in America having a
certain job is an essential element in the identity of the
American, writes Qian. Few Chinese students fall into
extreme poverty but some decide [p. 188] that "America is a
pitiless society that has no sympathy for failures."
Perspectives on America: Violence, Crime and Racism
Qian writes [pp. 195 - 200], "Just as the shortcomings of
the political system are the root of many of the evils of
Chinese society, so too is racism the cause of much of the
troubles of American society". Qian recounts incidents of
white racism as well as racism against African-Americans
amongst the Chinese students. Qian reports that many
Chinese students in big cities such as Brooklyn have been
mugged and some killed. "Crime in America has many causes
such as unemployment, poverty and drugs... but the
underlying cause is racism."
Chinese Students Acquire a Lively Spirit and Put Down Roots
in America
American education produced in Chinese students a much more
enterprising and lively spirit than they had in their own
country. The Chinese student campaign for the Chinese
Student Protection Act after Tiananmen in 1989, writes Qian
[pp. 277 - 282], is one example. Qian notes that many of
the Chinese students who petitioned for protected status
returned to China [where they theoretically faced
persecution] immediately after getting their green cards.
Qian remarks that even before Tiananmen, many students were
already managing to extend their stay in the United States
indefinitely so Tiananmen green cards probably didn't
greatly affect the number of students staying in the United
States. The proportion of Chinese students who have
returned to China from the U.S., at five to ten percent, is
considerably lower than the 20 percent overall return rate
of all Chinese students leaving China.
Student Attitudes Towards China
The attitude of Chinese students towards their country and
their willingness to return depends to a large degree upon
when they left China [p. 204]. Students who left China in
the early 80's remain Chinese of the early 80's and don't
want to return to that country. Students of the 1990s come
to America with very different outlooks and views of China.
Many overseas Chinese students have outdated views of the
very rapidly changing reality of China today. Indeed,
writes Qian, the thinking of most Chinese students abroad,
who actually often live within a small, closed Chinese
community, is not as open as the present rising generation
of young intellectuals within China itself. Some of these
students, having managed to study abroad as a result of
vigorous competition, cherish a feeling of superiority over
their fellow Chinese.
Chinese Students Understand Human Rights and the Rule of
Law But Not Yet Democracy
Western ideas of the rights and duties of individuals in
their relation to the state have altered the attitude of
Chinese students in America towards their home country,
Qian has observed. "No longer can they accept the
unconditional sacrifice of themselves for the nation or the
state which traditional Chinese "patriotism" demands." [p.
247]. The tragedy of the Chinese student democratic
movement overseas [pp. 259 - 264] is that many of its
members, having only a partial understanding of western
thought, are filled with ideas and ways of acting they
learned during the struggles of the Cultural Revolution.
With this fatal organizational weakness and the self-
seeking behavior of its leaders, the student democratic
movement was never able to build an effective organization.
PRC to Students: Please Come Home, We Forgive You
The Chinese government strives to make returning to China
more attractive. For example, State Council Administrative
Bureau [Guowuyuan Bangongting] Order No. 44 of 1992 was a
general amnesty for any acts of overseas Chinese students
against the Chinese state or its interests. China, Qian
writes, [p. 285] is unlikely to become very attractive to
many Chinese students since low Chinese living standards
and the social system offer less individual freedom than
they have become used to in the West.
Freedom to Choose and the Rejection of Self-Sacrifice
The current generation of Chinese students rejects the self-
sacrificing patriotism of Chinese tradition. Qian writes
[p. 286] , "Nearly this entire generation of Chinese
students accepts the freedom of choice principle in western
individualism which holds that state interest is not
sufficient reason to sacrifice the right of the individual
to make a free choice. Very few Chinese students will
admit that they are not patriotic, but they are determined
to serve China in their own way...Yet in this world made
ever smaller by science and technology, China cannot be
said to have lost these students either. They will make
their contributions to Chinese development in the future."
Those students who do return to China are often asked "Why
did you come back?" from their puzzled colleagues and
relatives upon their return. Scholars who do return face
poor facilities, inadequate libraries, professional
isolation, and the sad feeling that they will inevitably
fall further and further behind even the less able among
their colleagues in America.
More Chinese Democracy and Prosperity Will Spur Return
If China is to attract these students back home, the
Chinese government must provide much better facilities and
Chinese society at large must provide them a better and
more tolerant social environment... [p. 293]
"Fundamentally, the return of the Chinese students, just as
the basic problem facing Chinese society turns on the rapid
development of the Chinese economy. The development of the
commercial economy will create more individual freedoms for
the Chinese people and further loosen up the rigid social
system. Moreover, from commercial competition arises
contests over the best human talent, which in turn make
human talent highly prized by society. Only in this way
will the work and living conditions offered to the students
abroad improve. The economic trends which will create
these conditions are already underway."
Why Return? Patriotism is Never Obsolete
Qian discusses the findings of an American scholar who
asked Chinese students why they chose to remain in the U.S.
or to return to China. The American found that Chinese had
several reasons for staying such as better living
conditions in the U.S. and the rigid social system in
China. Returnees, however, nearly all said patriotism was
their reason for going home. The result confused the
American scholar, wrote Qian, since patriotism is
considered quite obsolete in American society today.
Strengthening China, Not Cultural Exchange, is the Purpose
of Sending Chinese Students Abroad
"Modern China has been a weak country. The poverty and
weakness of China and the insults it has suffered over the
last century make patriotism an idea that can never be
obsolete for any Chinese. The Chinese have striven,
through legal reforms, revolution, civil war, and nearly
every method conceivable over the last century to make
their country strong. Sending out the students to foreign
countries was never for China a matter of cultural
exchange. The goal is to make China a strong country -- a
fact which the overseas students must face." Qian, echoing
Voltaire, concludes his book, "The next generation may well
have new ideas. The present generation of China's overseas
students, however, must face the challenges of our time.
After traveling far and wide, the most important thing is
to hurry home and cultivate our garden."
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