Chen Lin at the English Corner.
While writing the headline, I wondered whether it would be good English: China Daily and Me, or China Daily and I? However, since even Hillary Clinton was once reported to have said "which was important for Bill and I," I guess it should be alright (or all right).
My contact with China Daily started with the days of Liu Zunqi (1911-1993), Jiang Muyue and Feng Xiliang (1920-2006), when they were entrusted with the huge task of setting up the first national English-language newspaper in this country.
I must confess that over the past 25 years, I have come to like this English title more and more, with the deepening of my love for the paper.
I remember it was the Children's Day of that year, 1981, that China Daily was officially launched. I was overwhelmed with joy that after more than 30 years since the founding of the new republic we now had a national English newspaper of our own. However, in my letter to the editorial board then headed by Liu Zunqi, with Feng as his deputy, I suggested that "as long as we remain within the framework of the Four Cardinal Principles, we should be, to put it in a nutshell, more 'liberal,' in order to attract more readers."
Soon after that I was off to the United States for another visit. I brought back with me two thick books, which I bought at a used-book store, for our then very small library. One was a biography of Walter Lippman and the other that of James Reston, two renowned American columnists. On the inside-front-cover of one of them (maybe both, I don't remember clearly now) I wrote: We must one day have our own columnists like Lippman and Reston.
I had to wait for almost half a year before Feng called one day and said, very sweetly, "Yes, I agree with you. One day we should have our own columnists. But they should be columnists of a paper of a socialist country." I am happy to see that we now have our special columns on the Opinion Page of the paper, apart from the editorials, written by our own columnists for "a paper of a socialist country."
Another highlight in my experience with China Daily was the promotion of the Beijing English Corner, at the city's Purple Bamboo Park near Xizhimen. It was held every Sunday morning and was jointly sponsored by Beijing Foreign Studies University and China Daily. I still have the April 18, 1988 issue of the paper with a picture of the celebration of the third anniversary of the Corner in the park. I was speaking into the microphone, with Feng Xiliang, Chen Hui, Zhu Yinghuang and others from China Daily applauding.
Then came my Nankai Middle School alumnus Chen Li. One of his great contributions to China Daily during his tenure of office as editor-in-chief was to launch the 21st Century Weekly, an English newspaper mainly for young English learners.
One minor event in my relationship with China Daily was a rather amusing but memorable one. In 1982, China Daily celebrated its first anniversary.
At that time, Katherine Flower of the UK and I were helping with the broadcasting of the British English-teaching TV programme "Follow Me." (There is a picture of Kathy and I on Page 3 of the September 22 issue of the paper.)
Soon after that, the editorial board suggested that Kathy and I could help them with their publicity programme. So the two of us appeared in a CCTV ad in which we sat at breakfast table reading China Daily. We raised our heads and said to the audience, smiling: "Let's read China Daily DAILY." We thought it was very clever and enjoyed it.
However, the very next day I was summoned to the office of the Party secretary of my university. He severely criticized me for having "damaged the image and dignity" of a university professor by appearing in a TV ad for a "commercial purpose."
I had to ask the leadership of China Daily for help. So Luo Qing, then a deputy editor-in-chief of the paper, wrote a personal letter to my university explaining that I was an adviser to the paper and that it was their request that I should help them with the publicity of the paper, and that I did not receive any payment for that. It was not until then that I was cleared of the "scandal."
I have been a loyal friend and a devoted reader of China Daily since the very first issue, or in fact, to be accurate, since the first trial issue. I am happy to see that, under the leadership of the new editorial board headed by Zhu Ling, a most promising new-style young journalist and go-getter, the paper has developed into an important and effective supporter of socio-economic development.
Chen Lin is professor of English at Beijing Foreign Studies University
(China Daily 05/31/2006 page2)
