Month: October 2021

Foreign Service officers have different “portfolios” during specific tours. During my last tour of duty in Bangladesh, I was a visa chief, so most of the time, I was in the office. The few conversations that I had outside the office were about visa policies.

This time around, though, I have a more public-facing position in China. I meet with people outside the office several times a week. Which is great, because I get to diplomat in Chinese. My job during this tour requires me (among other things) to promote education in the United States to Chinese students. This week I went on a road trip to four cities in our consular district. We partnered with several U.S. universities, and set up information booths at our education fair.

A mix of parents and students come to our booths to ask about studying in the United States. I haven’t felt this useful in a long time. In Bangladesh, I didn’t have any of the local language, so I was limited to talking with people who already spoke English. I could muddle by in Vietnamese when I was in Vietnam, but I never felt as comfortable with Vietnamese as I do in Chinese.

With my background in academia, experience as a parent of college students, and pretty good Chinese, I felt useful. I felt like I really communicated with anxious parents and curious students, and connected with people this week.

The week was capped off by an education fair back in Shanghai. At our booth in the exhibition hall, I spent the day talking, dispelling myths, and clearing up some misunderstandings. I hope that straight answers from an American officer, delivered directly in Chinese, was convincing enough to the people I talked with.

My big takeaway from this week is that although there is still strong interest in studying in the United States, there is a real dearth of information about how to do it right. My team and I are already brainstorming ideas to overcome this information gap, such as online seminars for parents. We have a lot of work to do, and our resources are limited. But I love to connect with people, and I believe strongly in the value of an American education.

After the longest home leave ever, I finally got to post. But then I had to sit in a hotel room for two weeks for the mandated quarantine period. Then a few days after we got out of quarantine, there was a week-long national holiday. I was itching to get to work and start to earn my paycheck!

My job during this tour is to lead the public engagement for the Consulate. This “consular district” (the area of China that we interface with) has over 200 million people. That’s a lot of public to engage with.

Last week I visited the city of Ningbo 寧波, which is in our consular district, but is two hours away from Shanghai by high-speed train.

Shanghai train stations are big, modern, and clean, but just as crowded as any other train station that I’ve been to in China.

Travel in China is back to routine, but there’s always a risk of getting “caught out.” The pandemic is still ongoing, and the Chinese government is sticking to the “zero-tolerance” control mechanism. If there’s a local outbreak, the locality is shut down, and no one gets in our out. Diplomatic immunity doesn’t apply! I had to update the social tracking application on my phone to include the city of Ningbo. In the train station someone took my temperature at least three times. Luckily I haven’t heard from the local health authorities that I was exposed to COVID-19. Knock on wood.

I can confirm that the countryside in my consular district is stunningly beautiful.

In Ningo, I got to visit two art museums, one public and one private.

I also visited a special-education school that we are working with. One of the teachers is actually a parent of a student at the school. Her child has Down’s Syndrome. She told me that she quit her job to start working at the school, so that she could know how to best help her son maximize his potential. Her story was moving. Like many parents of special-needs children, she struggles to acceptance for her son, not only in general society, but from even her own extended family. Her love and dedication to her child were obvious. I confess that I choked up at one point.

It was a long day: I left the house at 6:30am, and didn’t get home until almost 8:00pm. But it was a great trip. I think we will be able to expand our engagement, and to promote American values. For me personally, I felt like I was doing real people-to-people diplomacy for the first time in a long time. I speak pretty good Chinese, so I can really connect with people. As long as we keep talking with each other, we can narrow gaps in understanding. That’s the idea, anyway.