It is with great pride and great humility that I stand before you today—both proud and profoundly humble to be a small part of this great department, and this great university.
We are gathered here today to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the College of Foreign Languages and Cultures of Xiamen University. 80 years—in the expanse of Chinese history those 4 score years are but only rain drops in the river of time. But what an incredible 8 decades they were. They encompassed nothing short of a latter day miracle: The magnitude of the dramatic turnaround of China has no equal in the history of modern statehood.
I and my wife are often asked: "Why did you come to China?" We have one consistent answer: "We believe that China will define, and uniquely influence the 21st Century as she assumes her rightful place in the vanguard of the world's greatest nations. We want to be a small part of that process, to witness it, perhaps even to chronicle it."
Of course, we are not assembled here today for a review of history, even as grand and wondrous as it is. We are here to celebrate 80 years of education. 80 years of molding young minds and young hearts into a balanced maturity of thought, knowledge and responsibility. 80 years of supplying China with many of its best and brightest lights which have led this nation in some of its most momentous endeavors during those 80 years. More precisely, we are celebrating a special kind of pedagogy: The teaching of languages and cultures of other nations and peoples. Nations and peoples who no longer come as aggressors or imperialists, but rather as partners who want to cooperate in an exchange of the fruits that grow from a mutually balanced maturity of thought, knowledge and responsibility.
I offer—and by no means am I alone in this—that only through education and the free exchange of diverse ideas and cultures can we, all equal citizens of this planet, achieve mankind's oldest and most noble ideals: universal peace, prosperity and freedom.
Now, on a more personal note, I must tell you of my students. Never in my long career as a journalist, author and teacher, have I known brighter, more motivated, more diligent young people than my students here at Xiada. It is with a sense of joy and wonder that I enter my classrooms every day—joy and humble wonder that I am fortunate enough, honored enough, to be allowed to teach them what little I know about a language and a culture that I love so deeply, and am actually paid to share.
I must also say something about the kindness of these same young people. From the first moment I entered a classroom last August, I was warmly welcomed and respected—without qualification, without conditions, even though they knew how much I had to learn about how to teach them. In truth, of these eight months I can say that my students have taught me more than I have taught them.
But soon I learned that wasn't unique to my students, or even Xiada, it was the same with the Xiamenese people. A great writer from my home state of Mississippi once wrote about "relying upon the kindness of strangers." These words of the immortal Tennessee Williams have come to characterize my and my wife's daily experience living here in this beautiful garden island: Barely speaking a word of your language, knowing next to nothing about the geography and topography of Xiamen, we have been able to venture out into all parts of the city, on every kind of errand, in the full knowledge that no matter where we are, or what unfamiliar situation we suddenly and often find ourselves in, some one—usually several some ones, what we have come to call the "Chinese committee"—will step out of the crowd and ask: "Hello. Can we help you?" Soon, after much discussion amongst themselves, a consensus is reached and then we are politely informed what the best solution to the current dilemma—large or small—is. Never has this not been the case.
Even in these past 2 weeks, these two weeks of great controversy, world danger, and division, we, Americans to the core, have, almost unanimously, been treated not as representatives of a government and a country that much of the world takes great issue with, but rather just as people, fellow citizens of this great spinning rock we all share called Earth.
Now, as a representative of my colleagues, the other Foreign Language professors, I wish to express our sincere gratitude to Xiamen University, the College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, and particularly to Vice President Deng Li Ping, Dean of the college, Lian Shu Neng, and Dean of the college and dean of the English Department, Yang Xinzhang.
Thank you; and congratulations on our 80th anniversary.
Joseph Bosco is an author and journalist who is currently a Visiting Professor of Literature at Xiamen University, P.R. China.