Leaving China to study after the Cultural Revolution

Zha Jianying, one of the first Chinese students to study in the United States following the Cultural Revolution, recounts the challenges of navigating China’s early opening to the world in the 1980s. After enduring a chaotic education system defined by political upheaval, she secured a scholarship to the University of South Carolina by cold-calling American universities. Her journey highlights the extreme financial and cultural barriers faced by early scholars, including the necessity of using family life savings for a one-way ticket and overcoming significant language gaps. The discussion contrasts her experience as a novelty on an American campus with the perspective of contemporary Chinese students, who increasingly view U.S.-China relations through a lens of power competition rather than seeing the West as a singular model for development. Her eventual departure from China following the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising marked a definitive shift in her personal history.