October 15, 2007

Dear Friends,

I’ve been here in China now for a little less than three months and already the landscape of China has changed the landscape of my life significantly.

Last year I traveled to Northern Ireland and Europe for six months. I read the book Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt as a part of my preparation for that journey. In the book it is mentioned that in America all people truly have the opportunity for a higher education. I remember being astonished by that statement. As I have lived in Europe and now in China over the past two years I have had ample examples of the reality of what that statement means. There are many countries in which there is not equal access to educational opportunities.

In the past, education in China was reserved primarily for the intellectuals. In the textbook provided for course on British and American history and culture that I am teaching this semester, it says that in the United States we aim to educate the masses and not only the intellectuals (I think “elites” could be another word for “intellectuals.”) In China, the educational system is being opened up to a larger degree, so many more students are included than in the past. China is experiencing growing pains.

Universities are expanding and the only place for expansion is in the countryside. I am teaching at the Chinese Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing. The main campus, established in the early 1900s, is relatively small, and there is no room for growth except for up (that is, tall buildings) because the city has grown up around the property. So there are three branch campuses. I actually teach on one of the branch campuses, which is about a one-hour bus ride from the main campus where I live.

There is testing in China all along the way in school. Children must pass tests to go beyond primary school, and there is very stringent testing for entrance to college. After the bachelor of arts degree there is very competitive testing to qualify for master’s level work. In the United States, the usual reason for inability to attend college has to do with financial issues. This is the case in China as well, but the testing appears to be much more of an impediment. Students in the less developed areas of China may not have had the same access to primary education as students in large cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing; this can be a factor directly affecting their ability to pass college entrance exams and it can limit their access to the college and degree programs of their choice.

Because China is experiencing growing pains, the infrastructure has not yet increased sufficiently to absorb all of the college graduates. Many of them must seek employment in western China, where life is hard and lacking in many creature comforts. I was told that since the government cannot provide sufficient employment in the more developed eastern side of China that the focus is on making life more desirable in the west. Some places there have no electricity and perhaps running water for showers only six months of the year. The climate is perhaps harsher in these areas as well.

In the United States, our educational system now consists primarily of Ph.D.-level teachers as regular faculty at educational institutions. In China, many of the teachers have only master’s degrees. Where would all of the Ph.D.’s come from so quickly?

A disparity between rich and poor, which has become glaringly obvious to me, is that of students who have the hope of being able to study abroad—preferably in the United States—and those for whom this is a shut door. Students who have studied in an English-speaking country have much greater fluency in English and a greatly increased ability to find sustainable employment in China.

Last summer I studied for six weeks at St. Michael’s College in Vermont in an ESL diploma program in preparation for coming to China to teach. For the first two weeks we were all American students and for the last four weeks, 17 students from Greece joined us, to our great delight and amazement! What I learned from those students was how much their chances of finding employment teaching English in Greece would increase just by having spent the four weeks in the United States studying in this program; and particularly for those who did the work required for the ESL diploma itself.

Coming to the United States, even briefly, appears to enhance the outlook for meaningful employment for students from non-English speaking countries to a degree that the investment pays itself back in dividends that are both visible and invisible. It is an investment in the future. The income discrepancies that allow some students the ability to have access to this travel while others do not is frustrating to me as a teacher. I would like to ask for the PC(USA) to be praying for this situation. I believe this is a social justice issue in which our denomination can participate by praying for God’s leading in making the situation more equitable.

This is a fascinating country that is developing both politically and diplomatically. One of my prayers for China is that the infrastructure will keep up with the growth because when things collapse because the outside has grown more quickly than the inside it is generally the everyday people who are hurt.

I am grateful to the PC(USA) and to the Amity Foundation for bringing me here to teach. I am a minister, and I am finding that each class is a congregation and I get to do plenty of pastoral care in one-on-one communication with my students. I have had a fractured bone in a foot for three weeks now and am unable to be in those classes, but the care and kindness that I have received from the people around me has been truly sustaining. Our Lord is present in all ways, in all places, and in all times.

In Christ,