From late April to May, the “Chinese Bridge—Southern Utah University Visit to China” program, hosted by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation of the Ministry of Education and organized by the International Chinese Education Practice and Research Base of Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), was held in Beijing. More than 20 young students from Cedar City, Utah, USA—the hometown of Edgar Snow and his wife Helen Snow, authors of Red Star Over China—came to China, to Beijing, to BLCU, and to the very historical sites where the Snows observed and wrote about China, completing a youth exchange of special significance for our times.
Nearly a century ago, with the courage and conscience of eyewitnesses, the Snows wrote the classic work of documentary literature Red Star Over China, introducing to the world a China striving for national independence and people’s liberation. In 1965, Edgar Snow visited the predecessor of BLCU, the Beijing Language Institute,leaving behind precious records of the early practice of teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Today, young people from Snow’s hometown follow in the spiritual footsteps of their predecessors, replacing imagination with firsthand experience and enhancing mutual understanding through exchange.
During the program, the delegation not only studied Chinese and experienced calligraphy and tea ceremony, but also visited numerous historical and cultural landmarks in Beijing. Many students candidly shared that their understanding of China before coming had mainly come from media reports, and that only after truly stepping into the lived reality of China was their sense of distance rewritten by genuine contact. At the closing ceremony, the participants reported their learning outcomes in Chinese, moving from language training to cross cultural dialogue.
President Duan Peng of BLCU stated at the closing ceremony that this visit took place at a time when the Chinese and U.S. heads of state had reached a consensus on building a “constructive relationship of strategic stability”following their Beijing meeting, giving youth exchange a higher significance for our times. He encouraged the American youth to approach China with an open, sincere, and truth-seeking spirit, and to let language become a pathway to civilizational understanding and people-to-people affinity. The closing ceremony was specially held at the former residence of the Snows in Beijing, allowing historical reflection and present-day interaction to converge.
From Snow enabling the world to rediscover China, to the youth from Snow’s hometown coming to China today, historical memory and youth exchange meet here. Beijing Language and Culture University will continue to use language as a bridge, enabling more young people to enhance mutual understanding and cultivate friendship through mutual engagement between China and the United States, and allowing the spirit of truth-seeking and tradition of friendship embodied by Snow to continue to flourish in youth exchanges in the new era.
（Editor: Wu Sihan）
