My Thirty Years in China: The Reflections of 13 Expatriates
By admin on 2015-01-27

Over the past 30 years, China has undergone spectacular political, social and economic changes. In fact, it is a country transformed, and still transforming. There are millions of witnesses to this period of history.

Among the witnesses are a group of foreigners of diverse nationalities and professional and cultural backgrounds who have stayed in China since the late 1970s. The reflections of these expatriates find a place in the publication, My Thirty Years in China. The compilation offers insights into the huge changes that have occurred in the country over three decades.

Almost all the 13 writers came to then "Red China" more or less by accident. Some came to study the language and culture; others to start their own business. Some of them are pioneers in their own personal ways or in the kind of business they started. Now accomplished personalities in their respective fields, such as insurance, trade and healthcare, they recall true-life stories of the rapidly changing country from 1978 to 2008.

Though their early involvement with a country that was considered a "strange place" by people in the West may have been difficult, they all fell in love with the land as time went by, and have lived and thrived here. Some of them have helped improve the relationship between China and their own home countries. Others provided business counseling to en-terprises both in China and foreign countries and quite a few have contributed to making the healthcare and education environment better in China.

Being the earliest witnesses of China's progress since its opening up, these writers are able to examine the changes from the viewpoints of insiders. "Looking back over the 30 years, there's nothing that hasn't changed. China is like a continuously expanding ecosphere, growing in all directions at the same time and becoming more and more complex," Ian J. Stones writes in the book. Stone came to China in 1978 and has been working as a business consultant for international companies since 1979.

One of the most fascinating stories, also the oldest expat account of China in the book, is provided by Sidney Rittenberg. He first came to China in 1945 and was the only US citizen to join the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the 1940s. Now running his own consulting company, assisting companies seeking to do business in China, he is a keen observer of the trends and changes in the "sometimes puzzling, sometimes challenging, but always rewarding country," given his long involvement with the country.

Since his return to the United States in the 1980s, he has set down the "four big, unthinkable changes" he has seen.

One of the biggest, he mentions in the book, is of "the world's oldest country converting itself into the youngest, the fastest-growing, the most innovative, the earliest one grasping for a new and better future."

Though the changes are "good news for the human race, spell new opportunities and add a new force for peace and progress," Rittenberg also voices his concerns. He points out the incomplete changes, which progress in a slow and often zigzag fashion, "through struggles between the old forces and the new." For example, although the "outraged young people" are asserting their nationalism in online chatrooms, that is not what most people are concerned about." Instead what is on most people's mind is, he says, is to earn enough to enjoy life and retire with security, live in as trouble-free a manner as possible, and be free from all sorts of bullying, annoying controls and harassment by bureaucrats and pretty tyrants.

Besides their reflections on a big transformation, some of them narrate amusing anecdotes about their encounters and remember the humor they found in everyday life in China. Many recall that to be a foreigner in China in the 1980s was to feel like an alien. They were sometimes followed by a large crowd when walking in the street. People would come to stare and point at them when they had coffee at the few coffee shops that were to be found in the Beijing of those years. That was the reason they called the coffee shop the "zoo." They were approached cautiously, but with curiosity, by the Chinese when they had a bath in public bathrooms.

In a nostalgic tone, the accounts compiled here also show the gratefulness of the writers to the country that provided them abundant opportunities and endowed them with many privileges.

As Roberta Lipson, co-founder of the healthcare company Chinadex, who first came to China in 1979, writes, "I have had the great honor to sit with high officials and leaders of this country and, either directly or through my writing, share my humble opinions and recommendations on the direction of healthcare reform …. On the personal front, I have been able to connect with thousands of individu-als with whom I was able to establish not only trusting personal rapport, but also in some cases, deep and lasting friendships."