Preface for Hang Liu’s Book
Susan King
April 2018
In this global age, in this time of social media and digital technologies that link people across space, there is no less a need for scholarly interchanges where students and scholars travel to create personal relationships. Skype and Zoom cannot replace the chance to work together face to face, to build relationships where questions can challenge what we know.
UNC’s School of Media and Journalism has long promoted such global exchanges between U.S. and Chinese scholars and students. Our Visiting Scholars program, now a decade old, brings a few dozen to Chapel Hill each year from Asia and Europe. It offers a year of living in the United States, in a university community, with opportunities to collaborate and research. It is an experience that has expanded the work and understanding of the visiting scholars and that has added much to our school’s culture.
Should Chinese students come to the US to study? Will leaving their culture and comfort zone make a strong difference in their careers? In their lives? Professor Hang Liu has asked this question in this book he researched and produced while a Visiting Scholar at the MJ School. His vision is broad, multi-disciplinary and geographically diverse. He has found that the benefits of leaving home and challenging one’s beliefs and pre-conceived notions is profound – for the individual and for those who come in touch with the students.
North Carolina is a state that has built a strong university that is dedicated to educating its own citizens first – however, in today’s world that is not an insular experience. For North Carolina to flourish in the 21st Century it must become an even stronger global economy. Farmers in the state export their soy, wheat and pork to China. Lenovo is a tech company with its US head offices in North Carolina. However, Lenovo is no longer an American company, it is a Chinese owned company with corporate offices in Beijing.
As a young reporter, I made my first trip to China in a time when the country was just opening to visitors. Most everyone on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai wore green in the Mao tradition. I found the history and the power to change in this vast and ancient culture that is China profound. In the years since that trip I’ve returned as a dean opening a popular program on U.S. China media that takes students from the MJ School each year to China to understand better its economy and business culture. I’ve been delighted to see the desire by young people, in both China and the US, to understand and work together. We are no longer two countries cut off from each other.
Collaboration, exchanges, international teams of researchers who can work, talk, challenge and innovate together is the promise of a global university. Deeper understanding and cooperation between China and the U.S. is not a nice idea–it is imperative in this 24/7 digital world. Promoting study abroad for both US and Chinese students is the first building block of a successful 21st Century of progress and understanding.
