China Connection
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| The door to TBC’s administrative offices is part of a hallway designed to resemble a hutong, a small lane between courtyard residences in Beijing. Dating back to the Yuan Dynasty, hutongs represent a lifestyle emphasizing community, sharing, and simplicity. |
In the mid-1990s, with American interest in China and its culture beginning to increase, administrators and faculty at American Jesuit universities and colleges started to investigate the potential for a meaningful study-abroad program in China.
However, no single institution had the resources to start a high-caliber program. “We realized that if we worked together, Jesuit schools could have a world-class China center,” says Ron Anton, S.J., director of The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies (TBC), a joint effort of U.S. Jesuit universities and colleges. Located on the campus of the Beijing University for International Business and Economics (UIBE), TBC has educated students from more than 25 Jesuit colleges and universities about China. TBC and Loyola have just completed the first year of a collaboration in which Loyola serves as the U.S. home campus for TBC.
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| The main entry to The Beijing Center features a terracotta warrior made especially for TBC in Xi’an, China. |
“The first center is, of course, the John Felice Rome Center (JFRC), and TBC is the second center at which we’re exploring potential in teaching, research, service, and international relations. We hope eventually to identify still other exciting places across the globe,” Boyle says.
Father Anton adds, “TBC needed a home base that could handle our growing needs. With 40 years of experience operating the Rome Center, Loyola had the infrastructure and the expertise for recruitment and administration. We’re really excited about working with Loyola; the University has done an extraordinary job this first year.”
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| TBC students at Crescent Moon Lake in the middle of the Gobi Desert. |
Enrollment at TBC has grown steadily, from nine students in 1998 to about 100 per semester today. As China steps up its international importance, “we think that growth is just starting,” Father Anton reports.
The undergraduate program, TBC’s largest, immerses students in Chinese language and culture. Professors from Beijing’s top universities teach courses in politics, business, philosophy, religion, and communication. Though these courses are taught in English, all students are required to take at least one course in Chinese language.
Ensuring that American students interact with their Chinese counterparts at UIBE, each TBC student is matched with a Chinese host student. “The two students establish contact over e-mail prior to arrival, so TBC students have peers in Beijing before they even set foot in China,” says Father Anton. Students taking intermediate or advanced Chinese may also choose to live with a Chinese roommate.
Travel is a key part of TBC’s undergraduate program. Students take two long trips per semester, covering the ancient Silk Road trade route; the natural wonders of the Guilin area; Sichuan and the Yangtze River; or Yunnan, a diverse region home to 24 different ethnic groups. Day and weekend trips send students to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall, among other places.
“We make sure students are exposed not only to other students, but also to a wide and diverse demographic of the Chinese people,” Father Anton says.
Besides the undergraduate program, TBC offers several other academic programs. The Summer Center for Tibetan Studies combines classroom study with travel, while the China Contact program tailors programming to the specific needs of visiting universities during the summer and academic year. All of TBC’s programming is enhanced by the center’s library, China’s largest English-language library about Chinese subjects.
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| The center’s “Garden of Refreshment” includes a collection of authentic water jugs tracing 6,000 years of Chinese history. |
In January, the first five Loyola students were selected for the innovative Ricci Scholars Program, a unique two-culture immersion for juniors that will kick off this summer. Ricci Scholars spend a summer and one semester at the John Felice Rome Center. After winter break, they begin a semester at TBC. Ricci Scholars will return to their home campuses to complete a thesis or portfolio during their senior years.
The program gets its name from Matteo Ricci, S.J., who was among the first Italian Jesuits to venture into China. The tradition Father Ricci established of considering two or more cultures at once to examine a common question makes him a fitting patron of the program.
Father Ricci began studying the Chinese language and culture in 1582, and in 1601, he moved to Beijing, where he would spend the rest of his life. After presenting a chiming clock to the emperor as a gift, Father Ricci became the first European to be invited into the Forbidden City. He learned to write in Chinese classical script, a rare ability for a European, and translated Confucian texts into Latin for the first time. In fact, the name “Confucius” comes from Father Ricci’s original translation.
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| Eric Schmitz, Loyola College of Maryland Class of 2007, studies in TBC’s library. |
Ricci infused his scholarship with an appreciation for Chinese philosophical and religious beliefs and scientific and literary accomplishments. In recent years, the door to China has again opened to Jesuits, as they carry out research in the archives of the Forbidden City and their students discover and learn about modern China. The programs and initiatives of TBC are in keeping with Father Ricci’s belief that there is no substitute for first-hand experience and interaction with a culture to understand and appreciate it, and that engagement with people in a culture other than one’s own offers the best prospects for truly broadening one’s world view.
Other potential programming at TBC includes adding Loyola school- and college-specific programs, designating additional sites within China, and hosting parallel academic conferences at TBC and JFRC in 2009. The conferences, which would bring together international faculty from diverse disciplines, would likely focus on the 100th anniversary of the end of imperial China (at TBC) and connections between Islam, Christianity, and law (at JFRC), Boyle says.
For more information on TBC, visit www.thebeijingcenter.org. For details on Loyola’s other study-abroad and international opportunities, visit LUC.edu/oip. | GAIL MANSFIELD
CHECK OUT LUC.EDU/ALUMNI/TRAVEL FOR DETAILS ON THE LOYOLA TRAVEL PROGRAM, INCLUDING THE FALL 2007 TRIP TO CHINA.
CHINA NOTES
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| Loyola undergraduate Kyle Welborn accepted an invitation to dance during a visit to an Uigur village. |
“During my time at The Beijing Center, I traveled west to the border of Kazakhstan, south to the border of Vietnam, and north to the border of Korea. We got to see places few people, including most Chinese, ever get to see. Mainland China is larger than the continental United States, and only slightly smaller than all of Europe. Seeing the rice fields of the south, rolling mountains in the northeast, and the deserts of the west helped me put together a broader picture of China.
“My classes were taught by leading Chinese professors and Americans who had lived in China for years. I had the opportunity to live with a Chinese roommate and meet other Chinese students from different cities and backgrounds. Being challenged culturally, linguistically, and academically was a fantastic experience. Since Loyola issues the credit, studying there was incredibly easy.”
KYLE WELBORN, JUNIOR POLITICAL SCIENCE, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, AND ECONOMICS MAJOR