CRI听力: How Chinese People Look at the World over the Past 60 Years

Many years ago a popular joke in China said: If you dig a very deep hole, you will end up in the United States. For most Chinese people even three decades ago, the western world was a faraway land they never expected to visit during their lifetime. But in today's China, going to the United States just means another 10-hour flight. Thanks to China's opening up to the outside world, its people have broken its isolated status and have gradually become an integral part of the international community.

Zhao Kun talked to three generations of a family in Beijing about their views of the outside world over the past 60 years.

Reporter:

In 1983, a 30-year-old man in Shanghai named Xu Changdong made up his mind to study in the United States at his own expense.

In the early 1980s, the enthusiasm for overseas study begun to gain great momentum among young people in China as the country's opening to the outside revealed a brand new world abroad.

"At that time, China just began to open up, and the West remained unknown yet very appealing to us. All we knew about the outside world was from books or movies."

But just after Xu Changdong arrived in New York City, he found himself penniless.

"I took only 40 dollars along to America. When I landed at JFK International Airport, I found it cost some 30 dollars to get to my school by taxi. I had no choice but to look for part-time job the next day."

In 1977, China restored the national college entrance exam, and a year later began to implement a policy of reform and opening up. That meant citizens were not only entitled to attend college in China but also given a chance to study abroad. (www.hXen.com)

Xu Changdong took advantage of both opportunities, at the cost of being the long separation from his wife and four-month-old son.

"In my first few years in America, I couldn't even look at the moon with dry eyes, because the moon symbolizes family reunion in Chinese culture. I could get over any difficulty at that time except my homesickness."

In 1987, Xu brought his wife and son, Xu Bang, to New York. Xu Bang spent his childhood and teenage years in the United States. He says he can still remember the huge changes in life when he was only four years old.

"The first memory I remember of school when I arrived in America was my first day at the kindergarten. I remember that I had my eyes closed, and I was crying the whole day. My mother had to take me around to every single class because I didn't understand anything."

Xu Bang's 96-year-old grandmother, Kong Baoding, experienced a similar situation about eight decades ago when she was a student at the Santa Maria School in colonized Shanghai.

"The first time I went to the middle school I saw a foreign teacher. I could not say anything because I learned English in Ningbo, and we only (learned to) look (and read). We could not speak. I was very afraid of (the foreigners). But later on I got accustomed to them."

In the 1920s, learning English was a privilege for the wealthy in China. But after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Russian became the most popular foreign language because of China's close diplomatic relations with the then Soviet Union.

"After 1949, more Russian language speakers were needed. As a full-time housewife, I decided to learn Russian by listening to the radio, and then I attended evening school. After that I began to work with the Foreign Language Department of East China Normal University and taught there for more than 30 years."

As Kong Baoding looks back on her century-long life, she says the most difficult time was during the 10-year Cultural Revolution that began in 1966.

"During the Cultural Revolution period, one would be persecuted if he or she secretly learned a foreign language. We language teachers also had a tough time because we were said to be pro-American or pro-western."

Kong says she could not even meet with any foreigners in Shanghai at that time because of China's long period of isolation. She says this was a huge disadvantage in trying to learn a foreign language.

In those days, Kong could hardly imagine things would take a huge turn soon after the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.

In the past 30 years, nearly 1.4 million Chinese have gone abroad for study, while an influx of foreigners have come to China to study Chinese and work. Statistics from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau suggest that about 110,000 foreigners were living in Beijing as permanent residents last year. And about 3 million foreigners are visiting the capital on average each year.

In 2001, Xu Changdong and his family returned to China and settled in Beijing. The former poor student who had only 40 dollars when he arrived in the United Sates 26 years ago is now chairman of an aircraft corporation and a travel service company worth 1.7 billion yuan.

Xu says he is still grateful for the 40 dollars that he was able to get before he left China at a time when the country's foreign exchange reserves were virtually zero.

As a witness to China's opening up in the past three decades, Xu sums up the changes in Chinese people's mindset about the world.

"In the '80s, we went to the outside world with a respectful attitude and merely hoped to learn from the developed countries. In the '90s, Chinese culture and western culture began to blend and interact. After 2000, we Chinese, especially the younger generation, have gotten along with the outside world in a very confident manner."

Xu's son, Xu Bang, graduated from college in the United States in 2005 and returned to China to teach English at a bilingual school in Shenzhen. Although he was raised in culturally diverse New York City, Xu Bang says he feels much closer to China.

"Because I've been here for the last few years, I honestly am closer now or getting closer to Chinese culture. In my heart, I'm still Chinese. I don't regret going to American because I think that was a great experience. But now I'm trying to experience more Chinese culture."

Xu Bang's father agrees about his son's "cultural identification" and says in a globalized age Chinese people should have an international outlook while maintaining their ties to their own culture.