ABSTRACT
In the spring of 2006 a door opened for me in a direction I wasn’t even headed, and in fact thought I’d left far behind, in my days of depression and struggling to make ends meet, back in Florida as a freelance editor. But then that could be said for my presence in China, as well. It was a huge opportunity that had been given to me to experience China and be a participant as history was being made here. I’d been invited and allowed to come to this little known and most unexpected corner of the world to do something productive, meaningful, and also pay my bills (and provide hard-to-get benefits like health insurance). I’d been given responsibility for a significant portion (in fact the only portion not state controlled, making it all the more significant) of the education of several hundred young Chinese individuals. That alone was a new concept to them: to be treated as individuals.
