The Road to Harvard

Johns Hopkins University has a 30-year-old program called Center for Talented Youth (CTY). This year was their first year of expansion to Mexico and China. I was fortunate to be hired to create and teach a course in China-US Relations in Nanjing. We used the newly expanded campus of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, with which I was already quite familiar from having studied the Center for my doctoral dissertation. When the Center added a master's program for the 2006-07 year, they also built a new building that includes luxury apartments for foreign faculty. That is where I stayed from June 27 through July 21. I had a friendly roommate named Grant Haight. The best things about the teaching job were: experience designing a course from scratch; the enjoyment of teaching highly motivated students (though high schoolers, I taught them on a college level); getting good teaching evaluations; getting a strong letter of recommendation from the academic dean.

When one travels all the way to China -- especially if one has connections there -- it is natrual to fit in other activities. By arriving in Nanjing several days early, I was able to spend time touring the city with my nephew Richard and his girlfriend (a Filippino singer named Shugar). I also saw: former work colleagues from Harlan Global Mfg., including friend and former boss Jim Kaplan who was in town; Xiao-huang Yin, a friend and member of my dissertation committtee, who passed through on a visit from Los Angeles; Ningping Yu, friend who was in from Vancouver to visit family; Dan Becker, a friend from the Chabad synagogue in Shanghai; and my good friend Liu Sheng and his family. His daughter Tianning (Jenny) was a guest in my class one day and made quite a hit talking about her recent visit to the United States and her life as a Chinese high school student. Besides seeing friends and relatives, another reason for arriving early was the chance to attend the 20th anniversary celebration of the opening of the Hopkins-Nanjjing Center. That gala event was fun. I renewed old acquaintences and made new ones. I even made eye contact (from 10 feet away) with guest speaker Henry Kissinger.

After the CTY session, I took a bus to Nantong and spent four and a half days visiting friends Terry and I made while we were living there. Nantong still feels like my "second home." I stayed most of the time with Liu Sheng, who commutes from Nanjing to manage Harlan's factory in Nantong during the week. I spent a lot of time with Tao Hong and Liu Zheng and their cute new baby, Tangtang, and with Dr. Wang and Dr. Chen and their daughter, Tingting. I also saw several of my other former work colleagues (who took me to the city's new park and to two dinners), a few neighbors, Terry's masseuse, one of Terry's former teaching colleagues, and our friends Zhang Zongming and Zhou Ling.

-- Norty