Book review: The Life and Times of Hu Wenzhong at Beijing Foreign Studies University

Intercultural communication studies

Prof. Hu was recognized as a pioneer and leading academic in intercultural communication studies in China. His two-year studies at the University of Sydney from 1979-1981 ignited his strong interest in the field. As a practitioner and researcher of English teaching, he started to apply intercultural communication theories in English language teaching in the early 1980s. Realizing that intercultural communication was a blank slate in China, he introduced Western intercultural communication theories to China, edited books, wrote articles and offered postgraduate courses in the field at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Penn State University in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He collaborated with Dr. Neal Grove and wrote Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans (UNKNO, 1991), a bestseller for 10 years. Its revised edition Encountering the Chinese: A Modern Country, An Ancient Culture (Nicholas Brealey, 2010) sold well in both the US and Europe. His 27 articles on intercultural communication were included in Intercultural Communication Teaching and Research (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2015).

When the China Association for Intercultural Communication was founded in 1995, Prof. Hu was elected its foundation president at the Association’s first International Conference held at Harbin Institute of Technology. His pioneering research and outstanding leadership helped cultivate generation after generation of scholars while promoting the reform and innovation of foreign language education. His contribution to the development of China’s foreign language education as a discipline was so significant that in 2015 he was granted the Lifetime Achievement Award in Foreign Language Education, an honor that was truly merited as a mark of his distinction.

The Life and Times of Hu Wenzhong at Beijing Foreign Studies University (Beiwai Suiyue: Hu Wenzhong de Waiyu Rensheng) is a must-read for those who want to learn about the history of foreign language education in China, especially the period from the 1950s onwards. It also provides valuable insights on how to be a teacher and an academic. Above all, it is a book on how to be a human being. As Professor Colin Mackerras said, Prof. Hu is “an extremely distinguished scholar as well as a remarkable human being.”

It would be a richer biography if more of Prof. Hu's life stories were included. An English version of the biography is anticipated.


Contact the writer at ljianjun@bfsu.edu.cn