Clark T. Randt, Jr., speaks good Chinese. But he says he could have been more fluent had he heeded the advice of his father, a medical professor.

Randt, the longest serving US ambassador to the People's Republic of China, was a college student in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1964 when his father encouraged him to study Chinese. "I looked at him as if he were mad," Randt recalls.

But he had no answer to his father's rationale: China represents a quarter of the world's population and it is going to be a great country in your lifetime.

"Had I been the son of a Chinese, I'd have listened to my father, would have studied Chinese in college and would have been better off today. (But) I was an American teenager (and) we famously don't listen to our parents," he regrets.

Nowadays, when he visits his alma mater, his high school the college he attended always taught Chinese he does what his father did to him, and urges the authorities to adopt courses for Chinese as a foreign language.

They don't need much persuasion, though. Many high schools in the US, even some grade schools, are offering Chinese. The growing demand for learning Chinese language, Randt says, is a testament of Americans' interest in China as it emerges "and is (being) noticed and welcomed enthusiastically in many quarters". Hopefully, it will correct the widespread Chinese perception that Chinese know more about America than Americans do about China.

From his vantage point as the top US diplomat in Beijing, Randt has seen a sharp rise in the number of American youngsters coming to China for all kinds of school programs. They can be high school students spending the summer here, or fresh graduates on the lookout for economic opportunities. "This is very new and exciting," he says. Besides, the US government is targeting those in Chinese language-related programs for special funding to enable more young Americans to grow up with wider and deeper knowledge of China.

Part of Randt's job is to encourage American leaders, be they in the administration, Congress or business, to come to China and form their own opinions about the country and its people. "Americans are action-oriented and result-oriented, so they'll see what people here are doing."

On the other hand, Randt emphasizes that the US is open to Chinese students. Last year, his embassy granted almost 350,000 visas to Chinese citizens. A record number of them were for students. "This year we'll set another record. We encourage Chinese to visit our country and see (it) for themselves," he said.

Having lived and worked in Asia for more than 30 years, first as an expert on Chinese law, then as US Ambassador in Beijing from July 2001, Randt has toured China extensively because he is well aware of the accusation that foreigners live mostly in Beijing and Shanghai and cannot see the woods for the trees. He has travelled to even some remote areas.

There are places in China that have reminded him of those in the US: Wuhan, Lanzhou and Shenyang are industrial cities that bring to mind his hometown, Cleveland. Parts of Qingdao and Xiamen have more than a whiff of Southern California. And southern Yunnan and the Qinghai- Tibetan Plateau are reminiscent of the Rocky Mountains, where the Randts have a ski house.

His most unforgettable journey in China was a trip to Guizhou in 1983. "Huge sections of the province are absolutely beautiful." Even though road conditions were less than ideal at that time and local people were living a hard life, "they had a lot of dignity", he says. What surprised him most was the descendents of the Ming Dynasty troops "tall, thin and with beard, who really stood out". Their ancestors escaped Beijing, headed south and settled somewhere in Lantian.

Given the trend among young Americans of learning Chinese, more of his countrymen will make discoveries like these and learn about the different facets of China that they had not imagined before.

(China Daily 05/11/2007 page12)