A Chinese Reporter’S Journey to the West

Book excerpt: George (Guangren) Baos journey to the West is different from that of the Chinese pioneers who came to San Francisco in the 1880s for the gold rush. As one of the 3.8 million Chinese Americans, George came to the United States in the 1980s when Chinas door to the United States was open and a generation of educated youth came to the United States to learn from the West. His story tells how the first generation of new immigrants from China came to live and work in the United States at a time when China was in its historical transitioning period. George walked out of a small village in China to the suburbs in Los Angeles. The 6,685-mile journey is accompanied by hardships, struggles, good fortune, blessings, and opportunities. As a news reporter, his journey to the West comes step-by-step with the marks of the history China has gone through. To learn the history of New China is vague and somewhat boring, but to count his footsteps will be more specific, more interesting. George recalled his visit to Beijing at age sixteen to see Chairman Mao, along with millions of Red Guards, at the start of the Cultural Revolution in China. He tells how he was selected to be a worker-peasant-soldier student to study English at Anhui University and how he became a graduate student at the Institute of Journalism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His first assignment as Washington correspondent in 1984 enabled him to see the tremendous gap between China and the United States. Georges second journey to the West in 1991 finally makes the United States as his second home country. He tells the differences in reporting for the Chinese state news agency and in reporting for the independent Chinese newspaper in the United States. As a Chinese American, his life is closely related with the ups and downs of both China, where he was born, and the United States, where he has been naturalized. Thats why he sincerely hopes that the United States will get along well with China and that the development of China is beneficial to the Chinese Americans like him, and he is willing to work toward that goal.