Tom Gold is a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the executive director of theInter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (IUP) at Tsinghua University since 2000. He has been researching China for decades and shares some of his experience here with us.

When and why did you first come to China?

I made my first trip to mainland China in 1975 with the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association, one of the few ways to go at that time. In February 1979 I returned in the first group of seven American government-sponsored exchange students. I spent a year at Fudan University in Shanghai. At that time, there were only two departments which accepted foreign students: Chinese literature and history. Each had two specialties (专业), ancient (古代) and modern (现代). I was in the modern Chinese literature specialty.

What made you want to study abroad in China?

I began studying Chinese at Oberlin College in the 1960s. For people of my generation, the only option to study Mandarin as a living language was in Taiwan. I spent a summer there and then taught English there for two years. My dissertation was about Taiwan’s political economy.

When the chance to study in mainland China came up, it was too great an opportunity so I stopped writing my dissertation, cancelled plans to teach at Harvard, and even delayed marriage. I like to be the first to do things so had to be in the first group of government-sponsored exchange students.

What projects have been involved in over the years?

I’ve researched and published on a lot of topics: youth, urban micro-entrepreneurs, Hong Kong and Taiwanese popular culture on the mainland and cross-strait relations, among others. Right now I’m researching international non-governmental organizations working in China on microfinance and environmental protection, and also the socialist transformation of capitalism in the 1950s and the early days of Pudong. I’m also executive director of the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University, though I am based at the home office in Berkeley.

Several of the people we’ve interviewed have come to China through IUP. Could you tell us a little more about it?

IUP was established in 1963 at National Taiwan University. The executive office was at Stanford until 1997, where it became known more popularly as “The Stanford Center.” In 1997 the office moved to Berkeley and the program to Tsinghua in Beijing. I became executive director in 2000, based in Berkeley. My main responsibilities are selecting the resident director, managing relations with Tsinghua, promoting the program around the world every chance I get, keeping it financially healthy, and implementing the decisions of the IUP Board—representatives of each of the consortium schools. Our students can come from anywhere, as long as they have the equivalent of 2 years of Chinese. We have a great resident director based in Beijing as well as a Chinese co-director, a faculty member from Tsinghua. I try to visit several times a year to get on-the-spot input from faculty, staff, and students at Tsinghua.

Why is it important to support Americans studying in China, through IUP or any other program? What can they learn?

The U.S.-China relationship is taking shape as the most important and most complex relationship in the world. The number of Chinese who have studied English and lived in the U.S. far outnumbers the number of Americans with Chinese skills and cultural knowledge.

Americans can’t rely on Chinese people to do our translations or to take resposibility for explaining China to Americans. Studying Chinese in China is not just about mastering the language, but also about picking up the rhythms of daily life, understanding how Chinese see their own society, the U.S. and the world as a whole. Americans who study at IUP and other programs go on to careers in every field armed not only with linguistic skills but also insider knowledge of Chinese society and people.

How has living in China influenced your work?

I try to to put myself in the shoes of people I study and understand their world from their point of view, rather than impose my assumptions and values on them. I’m a Sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley where I teach courses about China, and also participate in a lot of social organizations dealing with China and U.S.-China relations.

What courses do you teach about China? What issues do you focus on?

At Berkeley I regularly teach Contemporary Chinese Society which provides an overview of the structure of Chinese society and then a more detailed examination of key issues like family, minorities, private business, inequality, social movements, beliefs and popular culture, et cetera. I have also taught seminars on Chinese cinema, Taiwan and Hong Kong. I teach a graduate seminar on Chinese society as well.

What is one of your most memorable China experiences?

Being in Beijing when the U.S. Embassy opened in 1979 and interpreting for the Boston Symphony Orchestra right afterwards.

In those days Beijing was eerily quiet. There was virtually no traffic. It was gray, dark and showed few signs of life. Going out to eat or play (玩儿) was very difficult. Chinese people were still very fearful of unchaperoned contact with foreigners. Because I had worked as an interpreter for Chinese delegations coming to the U.S. I already had friends and was able to visit them in their homes and work units (单位). Being an American was still something of a novelty, especially a Chinese-speaking one.

Photo courtesy of Tom Gold.