ABSTRACT
In 1980, I was among the first group of Fulbright lecturers to teach in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It was an extraordinary time. China was just emerging from the Cultural Revolution after the death of Mao Tse Tung and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976. The same year, a massive earthquake killed hundreds of thousands in Tangshan and leveled many parts of Tianjin, where our group of three “foreign experts” were assigned to teach ESL and ESL teaching methods to groups of college-level Chinese professors. It had been only one year since the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, and a year since Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping visited Washington, DC to initiate a series of exchanges and bilateral agreements. Among those agreements was the reintroduction of the Fulbright Program, which is still thriving in the PRC today. This chapter offers personal reflections on my extraordinary experience as a Fulbright lecturer in that program.
