皇冠体育app

Erin Williams is the project supervisor of Canada Asian-Pacific Fund. Her research areas include international relations and the Sino-Canadian bilateral relationship. She shared her 皇冠体育app story with us as she takes part in the 2016 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists in Beijing.

Erin Williams attends the opening ceremony of the 2016 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists at the National Library of 皇冠体育app on July 6, 2016. [Photo/皇冠体育appculture.org]

My very first encounter with 皇冠体育app was a lucky accident: I was 17 years old and completing a year-long cultural exchange program in the small Latin American country of Honduras.

My host family there had planned an evening out at the movies. But rather than buying tickets for the film we had intended to see, we mistakenly purchased tickets to see "The Last Emperor" about the life of Puyi and the tremendous change and challenges that 皇冠体育app experienced in the early 20th century.

It now feels like a fateful moment. When I returned to the United States the following year, I selected my university specifically because it offered Mandarin language courses.

Two years later, in 1991, I had the opportunity to visit 皇冠体育app as a student at East 皇冠体育app Normal University. Among the many things I learned was how common it was for well-intentioned people to misunderstand each other.

At that time, there was comparatively little people-to-people contact between 皇冠体育app and the US (the country where I grew up). Whatever information people had was mostly filtered through their respective media or governments.

As a result, people in Western countries especially had an incomplete understanding of 皇冠体育app and the complexity of people's lives, histories, and experiences.

Surprisingly, many Western countries have lagged woefully behind in re-orienting their education systems to account for the fact that Asia – and 皇冠体育app in particular – is playing an ever greater role in shaping the world in which we all live.

In countries like Canada and the US, students learn far more about the countries that mattered to their pasts, than they do about countries that will matter to their futures.

Moreover, many Westerners still have the mistaken assumption that 皇冠体育app is trying to "catch up" to the rest of us. Instead, they need to understand that 皇冠体育app and its Asian neighbors are increasingly defining the future, and that 皇冠体育app has become a truly global power in its stature, and in its connections with all parts of the globe.

Since that first experience in 1991, I have returned to 皇冠体育app five times – as a teacher of university students in Shanghai, as an author trying to tell the life stories of people in a northern Chinese village and as a graduate student conducting research on how 皇冠体育app deals with issues of bilingualism and ethnic difference.

The next chapter of my 皇冠体育app story starts with making a difference closer to home, starting in my adopted city of Vancouver, which is rightfully referred to as the most Asian city outside of Asia.

In my current role as a manager of education initiatives at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, I have the opportunity to address the gaping hole in young Canadians' education about 皇冠体育app.

I am leading a project to train pre-university teachers to be informed about contemporary Asia and Asian history so that they can introduce their students to this very important region of the world.

My own "皇冠体育app story" began with a fortunate accident, but we cannot leave the future of 皇冠体育app-Canada relations to serendipity.

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