Michael·H·Prosser

Lecture series at Jilin University, Changchun, College of Foreign Language Education, March 11-15
Jacky Zhang, MA in International Relations at SISU, March, 2009, and an excellent companion, and I flew to Changshun March 11
where I gave five public
power-point lectures to teachers and students at Jilin University, which has six campuses and claims to be the largest university in China,
"Globalism and Globalization," English as THE Global Language: Creating Global Citizens through English and
Intercultural Communication," "Asian and Western Values," "Great Western Literature: Homer, the Bible, and Shakespeare," and "The
Election of Barack Obama" and "International Media" as a combined presentation. A large number of teachers and students were in
attendance at the lectures and open discussion, perhaps with a total of 300 or more people, including the many repeats. We were the
guests of Dean Ju Zhan, with whom I had shared the panel at the New Oriental Symposium in Beijing during December. Our main host
was Helen Pan, a Ph.D. student in the College. The enthusiasm of the various audiences was quite pleasant and intellectually
stimulating with very good exchanges. During the open session, Jacky also had the opportunity to discuss his own ideas about intercultural communication and international relations. Although we were not aware of it until our visit to Jilin U., Dean Zhan and I had actually met at
the Harbin Institute of Technology January, 2004 conference on language, foreign language teaching of Englsih, and intercultural
communication.
Our extended receipt of outstanding hospitality included a visit to the Changchun Outdoor Festival Park of Sculpture, where there are
more than 300 large sculptures. Since 1996, Changchun has held an international sculpture competition and the best sculptures have
been selected from all over the world for placement in the gallery. It is perhaps one of the largest outdoor sculpture galleries in the world. Two others which have impressed me are the Xiamen marathon sculptures with 99 bronze figures, running, cheering, judging, and even
one in a wheel chair being pushed by another bronze figure, and the other, which I saw when I was 23 was the great sculpture outdoor
gallery of nudes in Oslo, Norway. We also visited the palace of PuYi, the Mankato Puppet Emperor of China during the Japanese
occupation of Manchuria from the early 1930's to 1945. It is one of the most interesting museums that I have visited in China. Additionally, we visited the Stone Museum, filled with many precious stone and stone formations, as well as a diansaur gallery.
Since I have come to China in 2001, I have visited more than 30 Chinese cities, and have taken seven young Chinese out of China:
Nick Deng (BLCU) to Vietnam; Shawn Chen (BLCU) to Cambodia; Tony Weitong (BLCU) to South Korea; David Li (BLCU) to India; David
Xu (SISU) to St. Petersburg, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Monaco, and Italy; Charles Cheng (SISU) to
the Philippines and Russia;s and Jacky Zhang (SISU) to Australia and New Zealand. Also I have traveled an extra time to Russia and India,
and to Greece for the Fulbright conferences.
I have given lecture series at Lucknow University in Lucknow, India; Kursk State University in Kursk, Russia; Volgograd State Pedagogical University in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), at the Beijing Language and Culture University, Shanghai International Studies University,
Xiamen University, and most recently at Jilin University. I have given lectures to more than 6500 secondary and university students in China.
I am looking forward to additional lecture series in China and Japan.