ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the lives and interests of several participants in Confucius Institute weekend programs. It suggests that participants who attend Confucius Institute classes may be there for diverse reasons; that Confucius Institute classes, draw participants who attend as a courtesy, both to help enrollment numbers and to shore up particularly complicated social relations between the US and Chinese universities and between the US campus and its surrounding community. Blandina Wilson, wife of an Eastern Rapids resident, was another such spousal delegate, albeit with a more direct connection to the Confucius Institute. Blandina knew Wendy Smith and, like her, entered the Confucius Institute with her own aims and interests. Confucius Institute teachers themselves expressed myriad thoughts about the value and purposes of Confucius Institutes, and that what People’s Republic of China (PRC) teachers voiced pointed more directly than did student participant’s observations into structural tensions within and among US universities and their many constituents.
