A Rare Bloom in Beijing.

• Author: Johnston, Diane
• Position: Ma Shiyi of Beijing University - In memoriam

Chinese universities first reopened after the Cultural Revolution in 1977. Since 1949, no academic degrees had been awarded in China. The first bachelor's degrees since then were awarded in 1981, the year I arrived for my assignment at the American embassy. It was the era of monotonous conformity, leftover trauma from the Cultural Revolution, fear of making a wrong step in the new order of things.

Our cables back to D.C. said every American was struck by two impressions upon first arriving in China: the ignorance of things American and the poverty. I noticed something else: inertia. Other Chinese places I had lived --Hong Kong and Taipei--brimmed with energy, life, color and a work ethic that took my breath away. Beijing in 1981 was the exact opposite.

One of my tasks was to introduce American studies to Chinese universities via the Fulbright program. We had to start from zero. The Chinese were vague and uninformed about the subject--the teaching of English was a technical skill that did not include culture and area studies. They wanted Fulbright teachers for English language teaching only, and they did not necessarily want students learning anything about the United States that did not conform to Communist Party ideology.

We few, we wary few, treaded very lightly on the newly planted hundred flowers blooming, well aware, just like the Chinese, that political winds could shift. I arrived when the time was determined to be right for making a push to change the focus of the program from English teaching to American studies, to convince the Chinese at the top universities and the Ministry of Education that students needed to learn about American history and literature (and art, too; we had a big art exhibit to arrange that year, not to mention a ballet company's tour.) We, like the Chinese, were trying to make up for lost time.

The Harvard/Stanford of China was Beijing University (BeiDa). We thought if we could convince BeiDa to lead the way, other universities and even the Ministry of Education would follow. It was a moment in Chinese history where a leader, Deng Xiaoping, had seen just how far behind his country was, and knew the only way forward was learning from the West. But many, many obstructionists were still in their sinecures deep inside the bureaucracy, and they had seen leaders come and go. We knew we were in for a hard slog.

I was excited when we finally got approval for a meeting at BeiDa. My boss had been there before, his Mandarin was flawless, and he told me later that the setting for the meeting showed great respect for us. It was at the home of John Leighton Stuart, former president of Yanching University who...