In the 1990s, it was very difficult for Chinese students to get a visa to study in the U.S. without a full scholarship. I was denied a student visa twice at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 1992 because of lack of financial aid. It was especially difficult for liberal arts majors to apply for grants, as the number of teaching assistantships and research assistantships at each school was limited and competition was fierce. Each time I failed to apply for a visa, I felt extraordinarily frustrated and confused, but I did not want to give up the American dream I had been pursuing for years, and always held a dream that some miracle would happen to me one day.
At that time, many parks in big cities in China had English corners. In order to improve my oral English, I like to go to the English corner to practice oral English with others on Sundays. In the evening, I go to some foreign teachers to study the Bible. Sometimes I meet foreigners on the road and I will walk up to speak a few words of English with them, or invite foreign friends to come. My family eats and chats, and in short, uses various opportunities to practice speaking. Over the past few years, my spoken English has improved a lot, and I am basically not nervous when I stammer and communicate with foreigners.
I met Dr. Anderson by chance. He was a department chair at UM University in the United States. He was in his forties. It's a long story. In the 1980s, two teachers from our department were sent to study at UM University in the United States. Through their help and contact, in 1991, Dr. Anderson invited Professor W, the head of our department, to visit the United States for two months. Prof. W. was in his sixties and his major was a key discipline of the university at that time. Therefore, he was a national celebrity in his field, and he had more than 30 doctoral and graduate students under his name. Although Prof. W has a good English translation, his oral English was very poor and he couldn't communicate. In order to have a smooth visit to the U.S., Prof. W carefully selected two teachers from our department to accompany him, S and X. S was in his forties and looks very honest, ready to study abroad for many years, and his English was very good. When Professor W and his team arrived in the United States, they first visited UM and met Dr. Anderson. One of Professor W's sons graduated from the Biology Department and went to graduate school under Professor W, he then stayed in the department as a teacher. Professor W wanted his son to come to the United States to study as well, so he invited Dr. Anderson to come to China to visit and lecture, and Dr. Anderson accepted his invitation. S had been applying for a Ph.D. in Dr. Anderson's department before he went U.S., but was unsuccessful. After arriving at UM, he approached Dr. Anderson with the idea of staying in the United States for his PhD. Dr. Anderson was very friendly to Chinese students, and with the recommendation of S's friend who studied at UM, Dr. Anderson had a good impression of S and thought he was very smart, so he quickly gave S a PhD offer and provided him with a scholarship. Professor W was shocked and disagreed with S's request, but there was nothing he could do to stop S from staying in the U.S. He had no idea that S would not listen to him once he arrived in the U.S. and that Dr. Anderson would let S stay for his doctorate without consulting him. Dr. Anderson let S stay for his PhD without consulting him. Two months later, Professor W and X returned to China after their visit to the United States. This incident caused a big shock in the university, but it had no real impact on Prof. W. After a while, it was over. Many people joked behind the scenes that Prof. W attached great importance to talent training and personally sent S to the US for his PhD.
In April 1992, my friends at UM wrote to tell me that the Dr. Anderson and his wife were planning to come to our school for a lecture visit in June. Prof. W did not make public the news about Dr. Anderson's visit, and few people in our department knew about it until the day before Dr. Anderson's lecture visit in June. At that time, there were several young teachers in our department who wanted to study abroad, and in order to avoid our contact with Dr. Anderson, Professor W. did not let us participate in anything related to Dr. Anderson's lecture, and he hired two interpreters from outside the university. One was the wife of one of the teachers in our department who worked in the medical school and was a visiting scholar in the US for a year, and the other young interpreter was responsible for accompanying the tour.
I had applied for graduate school at UM, but had not received any news. I was very happy to have Dr. Anderson lecture at our school, and I was hoping that I could use this opportunity to get to know Dr. Anderson, which might help my application a little, but I had no idea how to get to know Dr. Anderson or how to recommend myself. The day Dr. Anderson came to our school to lecture was a Friday, and it was already hot in June in the south, but I went to the lecture that day in a formal suit and tie, and there were about forty people in the classroom, many of whom were students or teachers like me who wanted to study abroad. The lecture ended in just over an hour, and there were none asked any question after the lecture, and then Professor W and several department heads accompanied Dr. Anderson on a tour of our department. I followed behind them all the time to see what was going on, and I was a little embarrassed that no one cared about me and I didn't have a chance to talk. Professor W and Dr. Anderson were walking faster and Mrs. Anderson was walking slower alone behind them. When we got to the school's athletic field, I went over to her and greeted her. I told her that my name was John and I was a teacher here and that my good friend Q was a student of Dr. Anderson's. She was surprised to say that Q was a good friend of theirs and that he was very smart. We talked for a while and she proceeded to introduce me to Dr. Anderson and I started talking to them along the way and made an appointment to visit them at the school hotel in the evening.
I arrived at the hotel where Dr. Anderson was staying at 8:00 p.m. They were cheerful, humorous, and particularly interested in the topic of China and had a lot of questions. Dr. Anderson didn't understand why our department spent so much money to invite them, but he was only scheduled to lecture for just over an hour, and no one asked any questions, and he had prepared a lot of lecture material. We talked for more than two hours and had a great time. I knew they had no activities in the evening, so I invited them to my house for dinner the next day, and they were happy to agree. When I left the hotel, they told me that tomorrow morning they were going to visit Yuelu Mountain Park, and their plan was to drive up and walk down the mountain. They asked if I could go to the park with them. I told them that Prof. W had not arranged for me to accompany them, and Dr. Anderson then asked me to meet them at the parking lot at the top of the mountain at 9:00.
The next day happened to be Saturday, and the weather was very good. The top of Yuelu Mountain Park is very small, and there is only one parking lot. Our family lived at the back of Yuelu Mountain. It took more than 20 minutes to reach the top of the mountain, so I waited for them in the parking lot on the top of the mountain early in the morning. Soon after, Dr. Anderson's car arrived, but Prof. W. did not come, only a young boy interpreter accompanied them. The young interpreter had just graduated from the English department and he was very shy and not very talkative, so we had a very relaxed and enjoyable time walking down from the top of the mountain, passing different sites and just me and the Anderson's talking. After we got down the mountain, Professor W and the driver were waiting there, and Dr. Anderson pointed me out and asked Professor W if I could accompany them on the tour on Sunday, and Professor W nodded and said yes. I picked them up from the school hotel at my house for dinner a little after 5:00 pm. In the car, Mrs. Anderson asked her husband if he could give John a teaching assistant position, and Dr. Anderson said no, but I could give him a research assistant position. It was the first time that I knew that there was a difference between a teaching assistant and a research assistant. They were a little surprised when we told them that Professor W. was living in the same dormitory as me. For dinner that day, my wife prepared a lot of home-cooked food for them, and they especially liked her mashed potatoes, which they said they hadn't eaten so delicious mashed potatoes in two weeks. While we were eating, two teachers stopped by my house to visit and saw the Andersons, and soon word spread that Dr. Anderson was a guest at my house. After dinner, we all took the bus back to the hotel where they were staying.
On Sunday, the last day of Dr. Anderson's visit to our school, I arrived at the hotel parking lot at 8:00 a.m. Professor W. was there with his son and the young interpreter, and a large station wagon was parked next to it, and when Professor W. saw me, he came up to me and said, "Don't go go with us today, the car doesn't have enough seat". I answered OK. In fact, there were no other people, and there was enough seats in the station wagon. Perhaps Professor W was a little wary of my relationship with Dr. Anderson and avoided me on purpose. When the Anderson couple came out of the hotel, I went over and whispered to them, Sorry, I couldn't go with you today because Professor W. said the seats of the station wagon was not enough. Dr. Anderson nodded, one eye closed for a moment, and asked me in a whisper "how about going downtown together tonight, and you come to the hotel at seven". I nodded and said OK. At 7:00 p.m. that night, I took the city bus with them and went downtown to store for more than two hours. Mrs. Anderson told me, "Professor Wang's son also wants to study in the United States, but he can't speak English and he doesn't understand much, so I told him that your English needs to be improved and that it would be OK if your English was as well as John's". I knew that Prof. W's son had not prepared for the TOFEL test and his English was understandably bad. The next day, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson left our school for a lecture tour in Beijing, accompanied by the interpreter working in the medical school who was the wife of one of the professors in our department.
After the Andersons left, I especially felt that the years in the English corner were really in vain, and these experiences were very helpful to my communication with Dr. Anderson this time. My wife often feels that we are ordinary people who live in the cracks of others, without anyone to help, when the opportunity comes, we have to be thick-skinned to promote ourselves and try our best to fight for it. I particularly agree with this.