FOUR P i A FELLOWS REPORT ON LIFE IN CHINA NOW

by Andrew O’Riordan | Taiwan ‘03

The deep and unique history of the Princeton in Asia program and network in China spans three centuries there, beginning in 1898, when Robert Gailey crossed the ocean to Tianjin to establish the first YMCA in the Beijing region.

During much of the twentieth century China was closed to Fellows, particularly after World War II, when much of the focus on Chinese culture and language shifted to Taiwan, including Tunghai University in Taichung, where I was fortunate to teach and study in 2003-2004.

After Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger visited Mao Zedong China in 1972, diplomatic detente ensued, and PiA Fellows increasingly returned there, filling an abundance of postings across the country.

Yet in Princeton in Asia’s 124 year history in China, there has been no period quite like the last three years. China today finds itself at an incomparable historical moment, at the modern nadir of its own economic development, political consolidation, and global cultural strength. At the same time, China has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with a strict zero-COVID strategy, one that defines and shapes everyday life in the country.

As one alum put it, “No one who has lived in China prior to COVID can adequately comment on what it’s like right now.”

In this spirit, to better understand what life in China has been like in recent years, we caught up with four PiA alumni who have been living there.

Jamaica Pouncy

Jamaica Pouncy served as an English lecturer at Northeastern University in Shenyang during her fellowship in 2015-2016.

The experience proved so impactful that she leaned further into international education and China. After PiA, Jamaica worked variously as an English teacher in Suzhou and as a study abroad program officer at Yale. Pivoting to diplomacy, she applied successfully to the U.S. State Department to make foreign service her professional focus, and she returned to Shenyang as a diplomat in September of 2019 for a multi-year tour, which she just completed this past summer.

What has changed in Shenyang between your initial placement as a Fellow and your second tour as a diplomat?

The first big shift is an increasing comfort with diversity. When I lived in Shenyang in 2015, people were just not used to seeing people who looked like me. In 2020, I wasn’t such an anomaly and there’s a broadening of people coming into each other’s lives and mixing and mingling. Second, in 2015, America was more positively represented. Now there’s more of a sense of “We’ve seen the news. Things are not so great over there.”

I’ve also seen an increased appreciation for creativity. Social media, TikTok and technology has really inspired people to produce products no one else is and push for intellectual property.

What has struck you about life in China during the pandemic?

Being part of Chinese society during COVID was absolutely eye-opening. We had an app that tracks where you’re going, who you’ve been in contact with, whether or not you’ve been exposed to COVID, and you need this app to be allowed into the bank, into many places. They can take that information and show up at your home and say “you are a close contact. You need to come with us.” In the U.S., we’re almost begging people to quarantine. The Chinese government just sends out a directive.

How is your own professional interest in China evolving?

I’m committed to learning more about China, and to hopefully facilitate the

Matt Blazejewski

conversation between the U.S. and China. That’s what our world needs – more people willing to come to the table and talk, to be vulnerable in different spheres and, to hear each other out, and meet in the middle.

Matt Blazejewski serendipitously took a chance on Mandarin in his freshman year, so the language, culture, and country of China captured his interests early. Just two weeks after his college graduation Matt set out for the East, and he hasn’t turned back since.

Matt served his fellowship as a consultant for a small ed-tech firm in Hangzhou beginning in June of 2017, and it’s in China’s tea and tech capital on the West Lake that he has remained. Matt now serves as the Admissions Officer for Wellington College International, Hangzhou, and he conducts a majority of his workday in his constantly improving Chinese.

What are your friendships like in China? Western news and Western media often treat mainland China as a monolith, focusing on the stories that are a bit more sensationalist, but most things at the political level don't affect me on a daily basis. For me, it’s my Chinese friends who are some of the most open and vivacious people, curious to learn about different cultures. There's so much here that can be explored. After five years, I feel like I've only scratched the surface.

What keeps you fascinated with your time in China?

COVID has been both good and bad, but it's certainly not an experience I regret. Once you spend more time here, you start to realize that we're all human and we’re sharing connections, experiences, and these historic moments at the same time together.

Folks here are really willing to share what they know and build human relationships, and through mutual understanding and shared experiences, surface level differences tend to fade away.

PETER (PEI) HAO

Peter (Pei) Hao taught English at the Wuhan University of Technology from 2017-18. The experience was deeply transformative for him as a Chinese-heritage Fellow on personal and professional levels, and it reinforced his professional focus on health care in the developing world, and specifically in China.

Pei has spent the last three years in Beijing as Managing Editor of China CDC Weekly, China’s primary English language national public-health bulletin and peer-reviewed journal. In this capacity Pei authored and published some of the first official reports on COVID-19.

What do you remember from your fellowship in Wuhan?

It was extremely exciting to see a place so untouched from foreign influence and so diversely Chinese. I played basketball and mahjong with students and built my friend network that way. I got insight into their backgrounds (some came from real estate developing families and others from rural farms in the province) and their perspectives of China’s place in the wider world, which I felt was humble but optimistic.

What has life been like in China lately?

While the initial pandemic period, January 2020 through April 2020, was extremely scary, the following period of time was very relaxed as everyone bought-in for the response measures, and we were given plenty of freedoms as a result. We wore

Lisa Heller

masks, complied with governmental digital contact tracing measures, and reduced travel; in return, we were allowed to have indoor dining, gatherings, and go drinking. However, with the advent of Omicron, it has become much more difficult.

What would you say to future Fellows who hope to study, work, and live in China?

I highly recommend gravitating towards taking positions or short-term work in Tier

2 and below cities, as they will be intensely illuminating for the reality of Chinese development. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen are not representative of China as a whole, similar to how you cannot say that the US is just New York, the Bay, or LA.

This is perhaps one of the most unique and interesting periods of national development I know of. No one who has lived in China prior to COVID can adequately comment on what it’s like right now.

How can PiA Fellows continue to understand changing China?

I would encourage the PiA community to be more skeptical of all messaging regarding China. Please consider that given the specific circumstances, decision-makers are rational and the decisions made have their rationale.

Lisa Heller began her career in Asia 35 years ago in China’s northeast. Freshly minted out of Princeton University in 1986, she accepted a yearlong posting as an English teacher at the University of Science and Technology in Dalian. The fellowship proved transformative, as Heller joined the Foreign Service in 1991 and served her initial posting in Beijing. It would be the first of many diplomatic tours of Asia, including Seoul, Islamabad, and Shenyang. Heller currently serves as Consul General of the Consulate General of the United States of America in Guangzhou, China.

With the long vantage of your career in China, what strikes you about change here?

The China that I came to around 35 years ago was very different. Not only have there been a lot of changes, but the speed of those changes has been extraordinary. It doesn’t really matter what your field is, you can see changes happening in China on a scale and speed that you would never be able to see anywhere else in the world. It always surprises.

What gives you optimism about the U.S.-China relationship?

If you see what China has been able to create over the last 30-40 years, be it technologically or economically, you know that this is a country of extraordinary possibilities with highly motivated and capable people. We have to make this relationship work for the good of the world. We’re not going to deal with the climate crisis, international narcotics issues, and many other issues without China. We have to find a way to kind of harness some of that potential to really make the bilateral and then ultimately the multilateral institutions work. It is critical for our whole planet.

What do you say to Fellows, teachers, students, and diplomats who want to contribute to the U.S.- China relationship?

The bilateral relationship with China is probably the most significant and challenging one anywhere in the world on any given day. If you want to be on the front lines of diplomacy, this is the center.

I would also say that for people in the private sector, it’s on the front lines of a lot of business and technology these days. This is a very important place, and so for a lot of us, the rewards of a career in China outweigh the challenges.

We need good people working on the relationship. We can’t just say that the politics and travel right now are too hard. We need people committed to the long term relationship.