Dream Variations: A Journey Across Two Continents by Zhang Weihua

Author:Zhang, Weihua [Zhang, Weihua]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2012-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Teapot King (2005)

With the great success of this exhibition, I found my niche. “Homebound,” a solo exhibition in 2007, featured twenty-four black and white photographs selected from my trips to China in 2005 and 2006. Taken in several cities across China, these candid images provided American viewers an intimate and unvarnished look at today’s China: from playful children on their way to schools to energetic elders exercising in the parks; from the hustle and bustle of a farmers market to a happy family gathering on an 85-year-old man’s birthday (my father); from a snow-covered corn-stack in the Northeast to a giant teapot in the South. This was a vibrant and multi-faceted China the western media either failed to capture or neglected to cover. Could it be that they, too, were looking at China with a “colored lens” on?

As a college professor, I see my classroom as a unique opportunity to bridge a better understanding between my two peoples. My own cross-cultural perspective is certainly a big help. I am often compelled to share with my students the cultural shocks I experienced early on to emphasize the importance of mutual understanding between China and the U.S., between East and West. Recognizing the need for a diverse voice in American literature course offerings in my college, in 2006, I proposed and started teaching “Asian American Literature.” This divergent yet remarkable body of literature has challenged my students to dig deeper into who we are as a country and as a people. It is gratifying to see what my students have taken away from the course: that we are a nation of immigrants, that people of Asian descent are an integral part of America, that literature opens our hearts and minds. Together, my students and I rebuilt the Transcontinental Railroad alongside the Chinese laborers; reclaimed our picture bride foremothers from Japan; reacquainted ourselves with the Japanese Americans in the internment camps; relived the horrors of the Second World War, Korean War, and Vietnam War; and reaffirmed our admiration for all the immigrants, from Asia and elsewhere, who have enriched our lives as well as their own.

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