JangRose_20210903_Transcript_pt2.pdf

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Part of Rose Jang Oral History Interview

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Rose Jang
Interviewed by Wenhong Wang
The Evergreen State College oral history project
September 3, 2021
FINAL
Wang: Good morning, Rose, again. Let’s continue our conversation. Today is September 3, 2021. I’m
Wenhong Wang. I’m interviewing Rose Jang over Zoom. Last time we talked about your teaching at
Evergreen and your pedagogy, but we missed a large chunk of your teaching and contribution at
Evergreen, which was study abroad, specifically, study abroad in China. Can you talk a little bit about
how it got started?
Jang: Sure. Thank you, but allow me to elaborate a little on that part of the China program, because
indeed, study abroad in China is a very important and significant part of China program. I am very proud
of all the trips I took. We took students to China, and I thought they have learned a lot, and I have
learned a lot from those trips, to be literally in there with firsthand experience.
It is a little difficult for me to start a study abroad in China because I was from Taiwan—I wasn’t
born in China—and I didn’t even go to China until in my thirties, because China was closed to the outside
world when I was growing up. Even for the first few years when I was in the United States, we were not
permitted, or it wasn’t very convenient to go to China till ‘80s. Late ‘80s, I think China started to open
up, welcoming the outside foreigners to go in to visit. Of course, during Cultural Revolution, there were
still foreign visitors there, but it was all government-controlled.
Here, finally we were able to go to China. I did go to China first with my family. I went with my
mom to visit my family, my relatives that we had not visited or seen for a long time.
Wang: When was that?
Jang: That was in the early ‘90s. I can’t even remember which year that was, but I went with my mom
to visit her family.
Wang: I meant where did you go?
Jang: I went to Hunan Province. It was a little bit complicated because there were family members all
over the place. There, we had many family members come to join us in Hunan Province. We stayed
with one family, but a lot of associated family members or extended family members came to visit us, so
we were all together.

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That was how I was first exposed to China. It was certainly an eye-opening experience. My
mom was definitely emotionally, I would say, devastated. She certainly was very happy to finally see
these people, her own brother, her own sister, who she had not seen for a long time. The so-called
“long time” was 30, 34 years. It was not just a few years or few months, it’s like all their adulthood.
Wang: They moved to Taiwan around 1949?
Jang: My mom was the only person of her family who went to Taiwan with the government, because
she was working for the Nationalist government at the time. Only select few who had direct connection
with the Nationalist government were given opportunity to go to Taiwan.
It was an emotional family reunion. But also, it was a very new experience for me. At that time,
China’s infrastructure was still pretty rough, I would say. We had a lot of inconveniences in China, but
you could tell the energy. You could tell people’s eagerness to start business, having ideas to open their
own stores, shops and business. People were wanting, were ready to make money. You could tell the
energy, and that was an energy that had long been suppressed in the political system, but now they
could launch into their own free enterprise. You could sense that. That was the feeling I had about
China when I first went to China.
The irony is that I had studied China all through my young years, my childhood and youth. I read
about the people, the places, the rivers, the mountains—everything—but I’d never been there. Those
were images of my home, but I’d never been to my home. Another irony that was very funny.
It was a pretty shaking experience for me to have that, to finally come to a place where I had
studied a lot, but I had never seen with my own eyes, touched with my own feet, my own hands. That’s
probably things that people outside the Chinese culture couldn’t understand.
There was another trip to China, which prepared me later for my China study abroad program.
That was my trip to the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. That was a pretty big deal, I think.
All over the world, women went to China—to Beijing—to participate in this world conference. I went
there as well with a group of women artists from Olympia.
I experienced China again. That was my second time going to China, in 1995. It was, of course,
very difficult in a lot of ways in terms of living conditions, in terms of traveling. Pretty much, we were
controlled. We were not allowed to visit places at our own will. It was always difficult going in and out
of our hotels, and everything was watched over and censored. I remember that experience. China was
still opening.
During that trip, I got to meet a Chinese opera professional, which I will talk about later. A lot of
my companions couldn’t speak Chinese and they counted on me being the translator, because I had the
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benefit of the native language speaking. Also, I had the advantage of pretending to be a Chinese, so I
could kind of sneak around, although it was not easy. It was not easy because they could tell instantly
that you were not Chinese, real Chinese Chinese, although I could speak good enough Chinese Mandarin
without maybe that distinct accent, but I could imitate the Beijing accent.
At that time, people were afraid of taking foreigners around. I was talking about the taxi. The
taxi drivers would refuse to take the foreigners because they were afraid of making mistakes, things like
that. Or there were designated ones. The only taxi drivers with certain license or something like that
could take us, so we had some difficulty getting taxi drivers to take us around. But because of my
language skills, I was able to get taxis sometimes for my companions. I myself could go around and visit
places. I made arrangements to go to the Chinese theater school when I was in China visiting in Beijing,
and also being part of the World Conference participants.
I met Cao Chen, the Chinese opera professional actor. I want to mention his name because he
helped me to stage a lot of authentic Chinese opera productions on Evergreen campus. After I worked
with him in China during that trip, I eventually got him to come to Evergreen as an artist-in-residence. I
managed to convince the Evergreen administration to hire a Chinese professional to come all the way
from China to Evergreen to work with my students, with the support from the administration—Jose
Gomez, who was the Dean of International Travel, International Affairs, at the time. With their
support—with Jose’s support particularly—we managed to hire Cao Chen.
That helped me to strengthen my China studies in my performing arts program, and arouse
people’s interest in Chinese studies and in Chinese theater performance, too, because I was able to put
on, I feel, really fantastic productions, both on Evergreen campus and also in downtown Olympia in the
Washington Center for the Performing Arts, and the students were trained by Cao Chen. Cao Chen
himself performed part of the play, being the lead. Of course, he had all the martial skills, all the
acrobatic skills of Chinese opera.
But he was also an incredibly gifted teacher. He was part of my program, giving my performing
arts students training in the Chinese opera skills, and they followed him and performed parts of
characters in the production that he put on. We staged these plays at Evergreen and in Olympia.
It was pretty exciting that I had these things going on, but that was only for a period of time that
I ignited students’ interest in Chinese opera in this way. Students who were interested in Chinese opera
would come to my China study part of the performing arts program, until I finally established my China
program. Cao Chen worked with me around 1996-97 for two years.

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Then I took a leave of absence because I was pregnant and had my son, in 1997. I came back
and I decided to not do too much of that kind of work because having students train in the Chinese
opera mode and performing was really time- and energy-consuming. I also had made the decision
around that time that I wanted to go back to the foundation of China studies. I wanted to create a China
program, because all the work I did with Cao Chen was still part of the performing arts programs, not
China program. China program wasn’t born yet until 1999 when I designed and taught East Wind, West
Wind with Andrew Buchman.
With that program, the China program was literally born in terms of having that foundation, that
continuity. It also has the focus on everything China, from Chinese history, tradition, to philosophy,
always China at the center and not just as an additional element, or as part of a performing arts
program, which has a different focus.
But here, we have now China program. I worked with Andrew Buchman for the first two China
programs without the China study abroad component, because these two programs were my testing
programs, feeling programs, whether I could continue doing that, whether it was a program I would be
interested in continuing. And it was. They were good enough for me and they were satisfying and
fulfilling to me, and felt significant enough for me to say, “Yes, I want to do China program from now on,
every other year.”
With that commitment establishing, I decided to really enrich it with the study abroad program,
or the study abroad component as part of the China program.
In 2001, I participated in the NEH Summer Institute to study Chinese religion and politics. In
2003, I believe, just two years later with another NEH-sponsored Summer Institute, I got to travel in
China, I got to go to China with the East West Center faculty, and many other professors from all over
the United States. We had this faculty travel group to go to China.
Peking University was the major sponsoring university of that NEH program, so I established a
connection with Peking University. I thought I could count on Peking University to start this study
abroad program. However, Peking University was simply too important to accommodate me. [laughter]
They practically ignored my continuing e-mails and phone calls. By the way, the program that I started
the China study abroad was not a China program. That was the program right before my third China
program, Searching for Modern China, in 2006.
It was in 2005 that I decided that I wanted to go to China. That’s the program Asian Culture and
Arts. In that program, I worked with three other faculty. Ratna Roy, who is the Indian faculty, had made
arrangements to take her dance students to India, so I thought, okay, I will do the same. I will try to take
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the China studies students, the China part of the students, to go to China in the spring. I had fun
working with that idea and trying to establish the study abroad component for that program. No matter
how many times I contacted Peking University, I got no response.
Wang: Yeah. It’s also Beijing University now, right?
Jang: Yes, at the time it was called Peking University 北大. But their translation at the time is still P-EK-I-N-G.
Wang: Oh, that’s right.
Jang: I don’t know whether they changed to Beijing or not.
Wang: They’re using both. Originally, it was Peking University and then Beijing University.
Jang: Right. I think I was lucky. Luckily, at the time, Evergreen’s study abroad opportunities were
probably not as restrictive. Nowadays, or later, when I had to apply for a study abroad component—a
trip—I had to apply two years ahead, along with my curricular proposal. Luckily, at that time, I was
allowed to propose a little later. I did propose, I think, a year earlier before the trip, not two years
earlier, and I was still trying to get a school.
It was the restriction or the policy of later times that I got to have everything in place because
they needed to make a contract, they had to put the money, the school, everything in the contract. The
contract creating process was really long and tedious, but at the time, in 2005, it wasn’t that restrictive,
so I was able to use a little time, a leeway, to try to figure out which school to take students to.
Luckily, just at the last minute, when I almost was ready to give up, I found a school, and that’s
the school called Capital University of Economics and Business. The beautiful thing about that school is
that school is not a national school. It’s not a school which is that big, that famous, which is too
cumbersome to create an international study program for students from the United States.
But it’s also a school which is in Beijing, so I was able to take students to Beijing, which is what I
wanted. That’s where all the cultural sites and establishments, historical places are located, and that’s a
beautiful place to start. Capital University of Economics and Business—CUEB—gave me that first step. I
took students there the first year, the second year, and the third year. We had a great relationship.
I took students kind of blindly to that school for the first year, but everything worked out so
beautifully, I was able to have a wonderful syllabus. It was also very cheap—economic, I have to say.
Students spent so little money, considering. The tuition, compared with the school tuition here in the
United States, was awfully cheap.
Wang: What did the students study there?

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Jang: They studied mainly language, but they also took courses in cultural studies, in history and
politics. Simple things, not too deep, but good enough for introductory understanding. They also took
students to different places. We went to Great Wall, to Forbidden City, to Ming tomb—all these
important places. They also took us to theater to watch martial arts. It was fantastic. Lao She
Teahouse. Places where tourists would go. For students, that’s good enough.
It was really eye-opening. I’d never been to a theater where we could see these incredibly
fantastic and just breathtaking martial arts performances by Shaolin monks. You probably went to some
of those. Those are, of course, tourist places. All tourists going to China would probably go to these
typical places. But they were really well-established tourist places with wonderful performers. They
were not second-rate performers. They were the top-ranking martial artists doing incredibly impossible
things for the students.
Wang: Did you go to good restaurants?
Jang: C’mon, you’re talking about China. [laughter] I remember the first experience we had in China
was the night we arrived in China, they took us to this Beijing duck restaurant. The students got to eat
the authentic Beijing duck, with, of course, many other delicious dishes. The food there, it goes without
saying that the food is the biggest attraction. They took us to all these restaurants. We—the faculty-ate in so many different restaurants, paid by the school as a gesture to welcome us.
The students went to different restaurants themselves. They didn’t need any guidance or
advice. They found them. Kids are kids. The students were 19-, 20-year-old American adventurous
youths. They would know. They went out of their dorms, and they took it on themselves to go to
different places. They had probably more feasts than I could even venture myself.
Yes, food is the number one thing. Not only the restaurants. The street food—the exotic things,
the stalls, the stands, the street food markets—whatever—they took on themselves. They
experimented with all kinds of food. So, yes, they enjoyed food. They enjoyed everything in China.
I think that’s really the education they received. Not only the classroom learning, the teachers
teaching them these things that are in the so-called established, official curriculum or syllabus. They
really experienced China firsthand by exploring the food, going around to different stores, different
shops. They communicated with people with their own very bad Chinese, but they managed, through
their body language, their gestures. They made friends. My goodness! They not only made friends,
every trip we had a couple of students—usually male students—having romances, getting themselves
girlfriends who were coming to our campus. Of course, we tried to make sure everything was played
safely. We definitely established the study abroad covenant to make sure they know that they were
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allowed to do some things and they were not allowed to do some other things, so they knew. I
definitely had to really watch over them seriously.
Another thing that you need to be careful about is they went to bars. They got themselves
drunk, and that would be a problem. There were accidents—no real big incidents, but there were
incidents—and I really had to get students into my room and give them a good talk-to. Things like that.
There were incidents of people not behaving well in class or getting themselves in trouble by getting too
drunk. And losing their passports. All of that. Things like that did happen.
But in general, definitely the benefits, the advantages, and the students behaving well, making
everyone proud was more than the things they did badly. Overall, the benefits still outweighed the
problems. I took students to BECU—
Wang: BUEC, right?
Jang: Right, Capital University of Economics and Business. I’m sorry, CUEB . . .
Wang: Yeah, CUEB. [laughter]
Jang: . . . for the first three times. We always ended the trip with travel, just one week of travel, touring
around China. We left Beijing for the last week and we made arrangements—through the school, with a
travel agency—to go to different places in China. We got to go to Shanghai and Xi’an, we got to go to
the Terracotta Soldiers’ tomb, all these famous tourist places, cultural places, for students to have
experience beyond Beijing.
The last two trips, I took students to the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts,
中國戲曲學院. That school is a professional school to train professional Beijing opera professional
actors.
Wang: That’s a top school in China.
Jang: The top school for professional theater actors. Because I got to be in China a few more times, and
I went to China myself on my own for professional training to learn from professional teachers myself, I
got to visit the school and establish a connection with that school.
I decided that I could take my students there. It was a sort of risky attempt because the
Evergreen students are not professional students. Even the theater students or the music students,
they’re not trained to the professional standard to ever go to that kind of school. They’re not
compatible on the professional level, any level, of artistic standard in that school.
But the school itself, having heard my request, believed that it could be a good cultural
exchange program. because although that school is a professional training school for Beijing opera, it is
also a school which promotes international relations. There is a department called International
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Relations in that school, training the cultural ambassadors, maybe ideally to take professional actors or
Beijing opera to the outside world, so they could help train those students to have them communicate
with our students, to establish an interchange, more cultural exchange relations, so they welcomed us
to come to study theater and music and makeup with their professional teachers, but at the same time,
to establish more cultural exchange with their International Relations students. Those students became
our pals, our guides, and translators. They came to all the classes to translate the teachings. I’m talking
about those students who were in the department of International Relations.
They used the opportunity to speak with our students to understand American culture, to
understand the language, and they got an opportunity to learn about the Western literature and
culture, and arts through working with our students, too. That’s a good opportunity for the school to
broaden their scope of learning with American students. Our students, of course, benefited from talking
to the students who could understand their language, who could talk in English, along with their learning
of the traditional arts.
It’s a learning or a study opportunity on many, many different levels, not just on the traditional
arts level, but more on the cultural level, in a modern sense; to understand Chinese modern culture,
contemporary culture by working with these students from the International Relations.
But the students from our school did focus on learning about traditional theater, traditional
music and makeup in a traditional theater sense, and they definitely learned a lot. That’s one of the
things I think, with my background in Chinese theater, that they got to experience, they got to do,
because I don’t think any other China studies professors were able to do that without the traditional
Chinese theater background.
Wang: Absolutely.
Jang: I was kind of happy that I was able to do that. It was a kind of risky job on my part because I had
no idea whether the teachers there would even understand our students and why they were there,
because their skill level and their performance level were very low compared with the professional
students there. I was afraid that the professional teachers couldn’t tolerate our students.
Those fears were legitimate and were practical, but it turned out that the professional teachers
there were so understanding. They understood that these students were here just for the cultural
exposure. They never put too much pressure on them. They were incredibly tolerant. I shouldn’t use
tolerant. I should say just understanding and compassionate, and so they led them through a very
interesting process. They guided them. They understood what they were there for, so they gave them
assignments that they could handle, so all my students were able to produce something.
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They had a showcase at the end of their study program. It was a wonderful experience. They
got to go on stage and did a little bit of Chinese theater performance. The music students would play a
little piece of Chinese music on traditional Chinese instrument Jing Hu or Yue Qin, the moon guitar or
the moon lute—all these traditional Chinese theater instruments or music instruments that would take
years to master. [laughing] But the students got to do that.
I think, for them, it was such a rare opportunity. It did lead to something. I do have students
who are still there in China, still studying music. I also have students who stayed in the Capital
University of Economics and Business for years studying Chinese. A student stayed there to become,
first, a language teacher teaching English to their students in CUEB, and then became an employee in
International Relations and also a curriculum administrator. I would say the relationship continued after
the study abroad program finished.
Wang: Normally, these study-abroad programs happen in spring?
Jang: Yes.
Wang: A one-quarter experience.
Jang: Right. I thought that would be a very natural outcome or ending—conclusion—of the yearlong
China program. Study abroad could be a good conclusion to China program. For the first two quarters,
the study would be focused on literature, history, or anything that we want to focus on, theoretically,
historically and culturally on China, so students had enough information for them to literally go to China,
to come out of two quarters of preparation with a better, solid understanding of China before they go
there.
When they were there in China, they would have had enough language training. They usually
had taken two quarters of language study, so they could speak a little. Not much, but enough for them
to survive. They also understood, to some extent, some Chinese culture, so they would not make a fool
of themselves talking to people. Things like that.
I think spring is definitely a better time to go to China, although in my last year, we did raise the
time a little earlier. I went to China with Hirsh Diamant and he had a different idea. We extended that
time from four weeks to six weeks, but that was a different story. We still managed to do everything
very well. I think it was because Hirsh Diamant was not hired for the spring quarter part of the program,
so we had to do that in winter quarter, but that was a totally practical concern. Ideally, it’s arranged in
sprint quarter.
Before I finish, I don’t want to forget to mention my faculty colleagues who went to China with
me. Hirsh Diamant went with me because he taught with me, and he arranged part of the China study,
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too, so he played a big role in arranging the study abroad for the China program. We taught together
for that year. The title of that program was China: Religion, Folklore and Arts.
All the earlier China programs were all coordinated by me, and the study abroad was solely
arranged by me because I was the only Chinese faculty who had a connection with China. No, actually
Zhang Er too. Zhang Er (Mingxia Li) did not arrange the study abroad, although she played a very
important role later when we were in China to arrange a lot of work or study sessions and seminars with
Chinese poets there. She did help a great deal in China.
But the Chinese study abroad, that program and syllabus, the institutional connections were
made by me most of the time.
Jang: I was talking about my faculty team going to China. I think it is important to have a study abroad
faculty team instead of one faculty going to China with students. Luckily, that never happened to me,
but because all the experiences I had experienced in China with student problems, I realized upon
reflection how important it is to not be the sole faculty member in China, taking a group of students
there all by yourself.
The first time I went to China, although I was the only faculty teaching China in that program, I
made arrangements with Capital University of Economics and Business by myself. As I said, that was my
first attempt. It was a very risky one. It was happening at the last minute. I was fortunate enough that
Andrew Buchman—who had taught with me in performing arts programs, and had been my best
colleague, my best support in all my programs, including China program—was interested in going with
me, although he wasn’t teaching with me in that year. He wanted to grab the opportunity to go and
explore in China, too, because he knew he would be teaching with me again in China programs in the
future.
I had him with me, and my goodness, that was so helpful, because the students needed, as in
every program, two faculty to reinforce the message. Once I told something to the students, they could
hear it again from another faculty, so they knew that we meant business. Otherwise, they would take
advantage of you. It’s not to say that students were not good. I think students are students. They were
students. They were still young, and they were suddenly exposed to things so new, and they were
bombarded with excitements. They could sometimes lose themselves in the colors and the sights and
the excitements.
So, with someone who was with me, and not on the students’ side but on my side to make sure
everything was in a good place, everything was settled and agreed on, and we would follow through is

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very important. Luckily, I always, always had Andrew Buchman on my side, although he didn’t go the
last year. That was too bad.
With Andrew Buchman, I also recruited other faculty, not like recruiting efforts but more like
people had heard about this, and they were interested in tagging along. One other faculty who went
with me to several of the China study abroad is Sandie Nisbet. I want to bring her in because Sandie
Nisbet is my best friend—one of my best friends. Because she taught theater, so we were colleagues on
a very professional level.
But we had very different backgrounds. She is trained in Stanislavski system. She was a student
of Stella Adler, the founding Stanislavski system in the United States. She taught workshops to
Hollywood actors. She had her own traveling company, a feminist theater company. She wrote for TV
programs. She has tons of experiences, but she had never been to China.
She went with me, and she was fascinated by the program, the theater program particularly.
But before that, she went to China to just experience China. Let me see. Did she go to the other one?
Maybe not. She went to China with me to the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts.
So, a Western-trained theater faculty—a scholar, a practitioner—going to professional theater
school, for her, it’s one of the lifetime things, and it’s so revealing and helpful. It’s helpful for her
theater knowledge and training, and it’s helpful for me because she could tell her experience to me and
share her learning, her realization, her discoveries with me, and I learned from her perspectives. She
became a really wonderful springboard, or sounding board, for me. My ideas, my understandings of
Chinese theater would go through her, and through her Western theater training, to come out with a
more coherent understanding of what theater is about, and what connects Western and Chinese
theater together.
She just adored whatever was happening in China in that school. She thought the training was
outstanding. The students were amazing. She just experienced one of the best theater training systems
in the world, and she could relay that to me. They reinforced my belief in the value, in the excellence, of
traditional Chinese theater education. That was wonderful.
I just want to say that study abroad, if you take the right faculty colleagues with you to China,
you’ll not only benefit the students. You’ll also benefit your faculty colleagues. When they bring that
knowledge into their own teaching, they definitely know what they’re talking about. They could add so
much more to their teaching. I think Andrew Buchman going to China year after year with me is not just
because he liked to go or enjoyed traveling. Of course, he did, but he also benefited from the

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experience for his own teaching. I thought that was one of the greater things about study abroad in
China.
The school paid for my travel. That was one of the best things, that I didn’t have to spend
anything. My expense in China was completely covered. My goodness, it was so wonderful. My
colleagues, when they decided to go with me, they paid out of their own pocket. But it was so
economic, considering. Everything in China was much more economical, much cheaper. The airfare, I
was able to get really wonderful group rate through the travel agencies in the International District in
Chinatown here in Seattle. Everything was cheap. They went there, really had the best experience.
Everything was arranged, and they also learned a lot.
I think the study abroad is perfect for any cultural studies program, and for China program, it
has been incredibly successful and fruitful and productive. It took a lot of work on my part to arrange
with students, to establish relationships to make sure the curriculum and the syllabus were all in good
place. Make sure the students’ living situations were well arranged and covered.
Those things took a lot of time. I had to budget the money. I had to make sure all the money
was deposited in the right place and spent in the right place, that every money is well documented. I’m
not at all a good person with money. I don’t budget my own money at home. [laughing] But I spent so
much time doing that.
But everything was well worth the effort—the planning, the preparation—because everything
coming out of it was so enriching and so fulfilling and so educational and informative in the long run.
I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the students who gave me the chance to do those things to help
them and to help myself. I’m grateful for our institution which allows such opportunities to continue for
so long, and for me to benefit, to learn.
Wang: It was so wonderful for the students to have that kind of experience. Studying China. I talked to
some students later on. It was apparent that it was an experience that would stay with them for the
rest of their lives.
Jang: Travel is not that difficult. Well, actually, travel is very difficult now (because of the pandemic).
[laughing]
Wang: And super-expensive.
Jang: I want to say that without the pandemic, travel would be easy now. China is such a powerful
country, and everyone wants to go to China, and China is also welcoming visitors. It’s a totally different
situation from when I first took students to China.

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But I think the experiences my first few groups of students experienced in China were most
valuable because I think we met the best people. [laughing] I really thought so. The mindset, the
attitudes. I’ll bet the schools in China have been through a lot of changes, but when you first had
students coming to the United States to your school, and you were really trying very hard to establish
long-term relationships, that was a different time.
The attitude, the welcoming gestures, the arrangement, everything—the program itself, and just
in general, China was a different place than—even the people on the street, they were so nice to our
students because they didn’t see a lot of foreign students yet. They were not used to having such
conversations, having such young, happy people who were coming to their stores, shining with curious
eyes and questions. I think those times and those exchanges, those spontaneous and natural
engagements, were indeed more genuine at the time when China study abroad first took place, the first
few years.
And I was involved in it. It was difficult to establish, but it was also most rewarding when it
became successful.
Wang: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Rose, for sharing this major part of your teaching and major
contribution to our college. It has been so enriching for our students and also our faculty and
curriculum in general. Is there anything else on this topic or on the previous topics that you would like
to add?
Jang: There are so many things that I talked about. Maybe talking too much, but there are so many
other things I didn’t get to cover, such as I know there was—whether it’s still going on, I have no idea—
the exchange program with Xin Wei University in Shanghai. That exchange, I did take part in a little bit
during my last trip, and I know that there were Chinese students coming to Evergreen for a little while,
but I didn’t get to know what’s going on because I soon retired so I couldn’t say anything. I hope there
are students or continued exchange things going on.
I wish everything good in China studies at the university. I hope that you yourself and Zhang Er
(Mingxia Li) will continue to carry the torch and make China studies still part of curriculum, because I
think it is important.
That’s my only and last thing to say. I don’t think I made many contributions. I think I was just
doing my job, but I think if there’s anything I did that made a difference to the school, I really do want to
see it continue . . .
Wang: Yes, I feel the same way.

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Jang: . . . to have a long life there. Thank you for letting me participate in this interview and letting me
refresh my memory by talking about it through this project. I think it’s such a wonderful project. It
made me feel like I had done something worthwhile. It made me feel like the faculty who had left are
being respected and remembered. That’s what this project has given me, and I want to thank you for
doing this. I want to thank all the people who are supporting, making this project possible. Other than
you and Sam, I cannot name names, but there must be a lot of people. Thank you so much.
Wang: The pleasure was absolutely mine. Thank you so much, Rose.

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