Center honors Helen Foster Snow

More than 200 guests crowded into the alumni center hall at Southern Utah University (SUU) to celebrate the opening of a new cultural center on campus.

The cultural center is the first public entity in the US that bears the name of Helen Foster Snow, the American journalist, author and activist who built a bridge of friendship between the US and China, starting in the 1930s. Her memory still inspires collaboration across cultures, ideologies and borders.

"Naming it after Helen Foster Snow was an ideal name because she espoused a lot of wonderful values that have lasted the test of time and that our friends in China as well as the people in Utah and Southern Utah, they recognize her name and the contribution that she's had," Stephen Allen, associate vice-president for international affairs at SUU, told China Daily.

"This is really a big milestone," Adam Foster, president of the Helen Foster Snow Foundation and Snow's great nephew, told China Daily.

Foster established the foundation in 2018 in the hopes of continuing his great aunt's legacy by working with universities, museums and other institutions to promote language learning, education and cultural exchanges.

Minister Jing Quan of the Chinese embassy in the United States spoke at the ceremony, expressing his hope that the center could become a school for Chinese- language learning, a museum to experience Chinese culture, a place to strengthen China-related research, a link to enhance Utah-China economic development, and a bridge to connect Americans and Chinese.

Craig Jones, a retired political science professor at SUU and advisory board member for the cultural center, was a driving force in the creation of the center. He has welcomed Chinese visiting scholars to the SUU campus, toured Chinese cities, and taught classes at China's Northwest University, when he visited Xi'an in 2019.

"There are many misconceptions in American about Chinese people. They are peace-loving people. What motivated me is to bring Chinese scholars and students to SUU so they help understand us and then get students, faculty to go and visit China. Visiting allows you to learn firsthand what people are like, not from the news, not from stereotype images. I believe America and China hold the key for the future of world peace," Jones said.

A photo exhibition of Snow's early life in Utah and her exploration of China was shown at the event Friday.

"I have been uplifted in so many ways tonight. As I listened to the comments and studied a little bit, I then realized the significance of a leader and giant in the relations," said Garth Green, mayor of Cedar City.

Green, whose son has learned Chinese, spoke highly of the center's purpose of promoting Chinese-language learning.

SUU Professor of Engineering Richard Cozzens told China Daily, "I feel really embarrassed that I didn't know Helen Foster Snow, since she was born and raised in Cedar City and had connections with Xi'an, the Chinese city I had visited before."

Cozzens started teaching Chinese students at Wuhan Polytechnic University in 2016 for an educational program between the two universities.

He said that visiting China and interacting with Chinese people in person is key to cultural exchanges because "the ideas you get from news media is kind of a slanted story. When you go there, you have a real experience that gives you totally different perspectives."

Wen Ouyang, executive director of the Helen Foster Snow Cultural Center said, "The center will continue Helen's remarkable legacy of bridge-building and spirit of international friendship by teaching the Chinese language and exposure to Chinese culture, strengthening economic ties between Utah and China as well as Cedar City and China, and fostering people-to-people exchange.

"Proficiency in the Chinese language has already been recognized as one of the most important skills for young people in the 21st century," Wen said. "It is one of the center's missions to provide Chinese-language instruction to K-12 and college students and help them become proficient in it."

Born in 1907 in Cedar City, Snow left for China in 1931 and lived there through World War II. She married journalist Edgar Snow in 1932 and began writing about what she witnessed in a country. Her detailed accounts of life in modern China have become a valuable historical record.

She is also known as the initiator of the Gung Ho (or Indusco) movement to empower Chinese people to resist the Japanese invasion in 1937 and for her important role in establishing the Shandan Peili School in China's Gansu province.

Snow was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize twice for her work in China. In June 1996, she was honored by the Chinese government as a Friendship Ambassador, one of China's highest honors for foreign citizens.

In November 2009, the US-China Cultural Exchange Committee placed a 7-foot-tall bronze statue of Helen Foster Snow in the Main Street Park in Cedar City, a 10-minute walk from the new cultural center.