The author wishes to thank the following individuals for reading and commenting on this manuscript:

Mark Bender, Ohio State University

Mary Bullock, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Joan Carey, Committee on Scholarly Communication with China

Keith Clemenger, Committee on Scholarly Communication with China

Richard Connor, Texas A&M University

Deborah Davis, Yale University

James Feinerman, Committee on Scholarly Communication with China

Robert Geyer, Committee on Scholarly Communication with China

James Hargett, State University of New York at Albany

Alice Hogan, National Science Foundation

Mary Beth Kennedy, ICF Incorporated

Scott Kennedy, The Brookings Institution

Megan Klose, Committee on Scholarly Communication with China

Beryl Leach, The World Bank

John Olsen, University of Arizona

Leo Orleans, Library of Congress

Tony Reese, Yale-China Association

Scott Rozelle, Stanford University

David Shambaugh, University of London

Audrey Spiro, independent scholar

Karen Turner-Gottschang, Holy Cross College

Cameron Wake, University of New Hampshire

Andrew Walder, Harvard University

Haynie Wheeler, Yale-China Association

Meng Yang, Embassy of the People's Republic of China, Washington, D.C.

The author also wishes to thank Mary Ernst of the Council on International Exchange of Scholars and William Shine at the United States Information Agency for providing information and reports from Fulbright lecturers.

This publication was supported with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

China Bound is a guidebook for American students, teachers, and researchers who plan to live and work in China. Its purpose is to help make the experience there as rich and rewarding as possible.

The book introduces some of the available research and teaching opportunities and study programs. It explains the structure of China's academic institutions and relates the experiences of other Americans who have worked within them. It discusses the range of opportunities and suggests relevant strategies for archival and field research and collaborative projects in scientific laboratories. It provides advice ranging from preparation for departure to daily life in China—from bringing and setting up a computer to handling a medical emergency and how to stay healthy and fit. China Bound will be most useful to those who are going for the first time, but "old China hands" should find much of practical value as well.

Americans' fascination with China is as old as the United States, and the "opening up" that began in 1979 has provided hundreds of thousands of Americans with the opportunity to experience China firsthand. Thousands of U.S. scholars, students, and teachers have resided in China, and their opportunity to learn about China from the inside has been unique. As many have returned to relate those experiences or publish their research results, our understanding of China has increased.

Harold Isaacs, writing between 1949 and 1979, when only a handful of Americans were able to visit, noted a curious ambivalence in the American fascination with China—admiration coupled with fear, the China of Marco Polo contradicted by the China of Genghis Khan, the world's oldest civilization ruled by emperors with a capacity for cru-

elty. "In the long history of our associations with China, these two sets of images rise and fall, move in and out of the center of people's minds over time, never wholly displacing each other, always coexisting, each ready to emerge at the fresh call of circumstance," he wrote.

The cycle of ambivalence that Isaacs describes has already been repeated in the years since the economic reforms of the 1980s encouraged more outsiders to live and work in China. The thrill of being able to live and work in China again was followed by horror over the Tiananmen Square tragedy of June 1989; the attraction we have for the Chinese people has been coupled with frustration over the Chinese bureaucracy; our excitement at the speed of China's economic development has been accompanied by distress over growing corruption; our hope for China's modernization has carried with it a deep concern that too much of the past is being destroyed.

Isaacs also discovered that those who liked China most were those who knew it best. And what Americans liked best, in addition to China's rich history and culture, were the Chinese people. This is true today as well. After a brief hiatus in the wake of Tiananmen, American researchers, students, and teachers have returned to China to live, work, and learn. Americans going today, like those who have gone before, are likely to find their work—whether teaching, studying, or conducting research—to be deeply satisfying—indeed, among the richest and most rewarding of their lives. Many will have made lifelong Chinese friends—colleagues and research collaborators, fellow students, fellow teachers, or students taught, or the person met by chance encounter on a train. They will have been witnesses to a remarkable period in China's own history.

China Bound was first published in 1981 shortly after academic exchanges were renewed; it was rewritten in 1987 by Linda Reed and Karen Turner-Gottschang. But China continues to change and, by 1992, many people who knew how valuable earlier editions of China Bound had been concluded that the time had come for another update. Kathlin Smith at the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China has guided the endeavor from its inception—securing funding, providing background materials, and supervising the preparation of the manuscript with unfailing good humor and efficiency. She has been assisted by three hardworking interns: Dan Ewing, from the Johns Hopkins University; S. Quinn Hanzel, from Georgetown University; and Richard Michael Victorio, also from Georgetown University. The book could not have been done without their contributions and assistance. My thanks to them all.

This newly revised edition reflects not only changes in China but also the increasingly diverse experiences of American students, teachers, and researchers who have lived there. Both the preface and the

section on research are completely new. In making these revisions, I have spoken to dozens of Americans who have lived in China as researchers, students, and teachers, and I have read numerous reports that researchers have written for the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China (CSCC) as well as reports from many professors in the Fulbright program. The CSCC's China Exchange News has provided a wealth of information. In December 1992, I visited China and met with researchers, teachers, and students. I also have conducted research in China and lived for five years in Beijing. And I drew on many personal accounts in making these revisions. Although most people are not thanked by name, I would like to express my appreciation to everyone with whom I have spoken and whose accounts I have read, while noting, with apologies, that there is little way to do them justice here. Each individual's experience in China is unique, and the picture that emerges is one of great diversity. This guidebook attempts to reflect that diversity. At the same time, it also attempts to distill from many different experiences a core of advice for anyone planning to study, teach, or conduct research in China. The people consulted for this revision shared their experiences with the hope that others could benefit from them.

ANNE F. THURSTON

November 1993

CHINA BOUND