When China Meets the World

Due to the many changes over the past two decades, the bilingual courses I now teach at Cornell University and NYU Shanghai differ greatly from the Business Chinese courses I taught at the beginning of my teaching career. Although language instruction is still important, the business component — often informed by knowledge of history and culture — has become central to the course. This book is the culmination of my collection, selection, and editing of video materials over a decade. It reflects a combination of my teaching experiences at three universities and continual deliberation and revision. Forty years have passed since China started down the road of reform and opening-up. Although many of the trials and tribulations that China has experienced in the past four decades are far beyond the scope of this small book, all of the cases introduced here touch upon important historical aspects and demonstrate different perspectives when "China met the world." My hope is that readers of this book will appreciate the exciting and critical moments when China changed the world and the world changed China, so as to be intellectually more ready to envision the larger challenges that China will inevitably face when it continuously "meets the world." I also hope that the readers all over the world will gain a deeper understanding of Chinese language, history, and business culture through the bilingual resources that follow.