He's also changed how I teach business.
My two favorite courses are leadership and strategy which I think most companies have the hardest times with and I use Xi Jinping as models for both leadership and strategy.
And I was just amazed to see the efforts they go through to make sure every child has an opportunity for education.
They really went to each household and encouraged the parents and the children to understand why this is important.
Welcome aboard a journey through time at the chat lounge.
China's education system has seen remarkable transformation over the past seven decades.
Official data reveals that the average years of schooling for Chinese people has surged to 11 years, a significant jump from just 1 .6 years back in 1949.
So how did China manage to build the world's largest education system?
What key reforms have helped this populist nation shift from quantity to quality in terms of human resources?
And now as socialism with Chinese characteristics enters a new era, how should the country tackle challenges such as the gap between people's increasing demand for quality education and its unbalanced development?
Hello and welcome to the chat lounge.
I'm the 75 years of the People's Republic of China.
We talked to Professor Willem Brown who's been teaching the MBA program at Sanman University for more than three decades.
Professor Brown it's such an honor to have you today.
Over the past 30 years you've been living and working here in China and you hold many titles including a scholar at Sanman University, a host of the local TV and author of over 20 books.
I think the most impressive one would be the first foreigner who received the permanent residence in Fujian Province.
More than that you have many awards as well.
So among all of those impressive experiences, which one is your favorite?
The most popular was the 2019 Moving China.
That was very moving.
But the one that means the most to me is two combined.
One, the permanent residence in 1992.
That was very important to me because that showed my students who I was trying to encourage that the future is here not abroad, I showed them I'm here to stay.
This is my home. But then 2001 Xi Jinping gave me he was our governor and in Fuzhou he gave me honorary citizen of Fujian.
He even gave me 500 business cards with that on there.
And that was really a great honor for me because I already have permanent residence but this showed I wasn't just a permanent resident foreigner.
I'm a citizen. Well speaking of those interactions with President Xi, I recall that you once said that your interactions with him dated back to 20 years ago and his words or his interactions with you sort of changed the life for you twice.
So what have happened?
Could you share with us the stories?
Yeah it's well the thing is I really admire Xi Jinping in the early 90s because he was a young leader and he really suffered when he was a youth but he struggled and kept going and from his even from his teens he's very innovative and trying to fight poverty where he was and in Zhengding very creative
and then Ningdao one of the poorest 18 counties in China in just two years brought about great changes there.
And then in the 90s while he was just a Fujian leader he went to Ningxia one of the poorest areas and and just later those things he did as a youth now are practices policies all over China because they were so insightful.
But still I didn't have really deep impression of him because he's so low key.
We see him in meetings in Fuzhou and the meetings but he didn't talk much and he's low key.
He listened I found out he listened to everything but he didn't talk much unless he really understood the situation and research and had something to say.
Then he said what he thought but what really first gave me a deep impression was in 99 I had to go to Hong Kong.
I was going to be there in the hospital six days and they found I had cancer and surgery two surgeries and it just got worse and worse I was there two months and Xi Jinping found out and you know I don't know why he really cared that much because I'm not a rich investor businessman or anything I'm just
a common teacher but he sent two people to the Hong Kong hospital with flowers saying I hope you get well and come home soon.
Others had asked me if I get well if I get well am I going back home to they met US I didn't want to go back to US I want to go back to Fujian and Xiamen so I was so moved by that and that really touched my heart and then two years later in 2001 he gave me honorary citizen of Fujian and that was but then
he changed my direction again because that night at dinner he said you know he said China understands the world more now but the world still doesn't understand China we need to tell China's story better and then he said you wrote a book about Xiamen your second home you should write about Chun Jo your
third home I said I didn't know Chun Jo was my third home but he knew I'd been there dozens of times because that's the start of the Maritime Silk Road and I think that gave him the idea for Belt and Road I wasn't really keen on writing another book I just two textbooks and Xiamen book that was enough
but I finally I finally wrote the Chun Jo book when I helped him a year later on the project and when I learned about the history of Chun Jo and the Maritime Silk Road and in Fujian it's incredible I thought wow I had no idea so I wrote that book and I wrote another and another and another and another
and so if he hadn't encouraged me I wouldn't have written more books about China probably but then he really then the he really moved my heart again because in 2019 I sent him my latest book about our my family in China off the wall how he fell for China yeah and I mailed him the book and the letters
thanking him for encouraging me to write I never imagined he'd receive the book but I really never imagined him reply and not only that he sent two of his books I gave him my book he sent too and in the letter he wrote that he knew I'd write even better stories in the future I thought well that's Xi
Jinping he said it doesn't matter how many I've already written he said keep writing because we have to keep telling China's story but that was very moving but then just after that they had the annual Congress and by the way since he wrote that letter I've published I think 10 more books after that they
had the annual Congress and the Fujian delegation was with Xi Jinping for a very brief time but during that brief time this is 20 years after I had cancer in Hong Kong 20 years later he asked the Fujian delegates he said how is Bill Brown is he retired how is his health I just when they came back and shared
that I was oh my goodness 20 years later so remembered he remembered and he cared and but I've been to every place he's been I've been to Llanjia where he was as a teen and really suffering I've been to Jungding where he's a young leader and people everywhere say that he remembers people decades later
he visits remembers them remembers their family members of problems he's facing even with me he asked if we had family problems or any difficulties in our lives and I didn't want to say he's a governor but I told him and he thought about it and gave me very wise advice and so he's a very people person so he's
also changed how I teach business my two favorite courses are leadership and strategy which I think most companies have the hardest times with and I use Xi Jinping as models for both leadership and strategy so you can both implied in the governance a conscious governance and also in running a business
yeah well my students were surprised the first time I said in my eyes new China's greatest entrepreneur Xi Jinping why because even as a teen in Llanjia he helped him overcome a lot of difficulties very creative and in Jungding he and in shaman dingdah he helped start a lot of companies to fight poverty
but he never started one for himself he never made money for himself so he's a great entrepreneur so I really admire him so I use him in many of my lectures I give examples of what he did as a leader as a communicator or as an entrepreneur so big influence on my life you just mentioned about writing
textbooks for the salmon universities MBA programs so if we zoom into the education sector which you have been in for more than three years now how was it look like 30 years ago when you first laid taught and be a courses versus today any reforms and changes that you have observed through lecturing
students well for MBA specifically when I first started teaching MBA my students were all right out of college so they were 21 22 they had no life experience they've been students all their lives and so they came into MBA program and a lot of them really thought that they graduate from MBA they're going
to be CEOs of companies I mean they didn't know they still have to work their way up and they were kind of naive and I also felt they had no creativity my goodness it's got Chinese education system at the time you know they just want you to tell them everything and I would try to get them to be some
creativity business cases I give them A and C and they tell me what is B and actually I'm surprised to learn Confucius is very creative in his teaching I mean I love his one of his sayings is he said if I show you one corner and you cannot deduce the other three corners I'm not going to keep teaching
you but in the early 90s I felt I could show my students three corners and they still couldn't figure out the fourth corner really later I found out they really did have creativity and but they just is suppressed through education with this whole world has the same thing but but later when they graduated
they went into business and government and they faced opportunities or faced obstacles found out they were very creative and very successful now I meet my students all over even flying here to Beijing the guy beside me I attended one of my lectures 20 years ago and the growing front was a former student
and this is something though today the students are older because China passed a rule that you must have three years business experience of work experience to go into MBA and this is great because like in Europe US doesn't have this but in Europe most of the universities expect MBA students to have a minimum
of some working experience experience and it's practical because back then they didn't see the practical use of what we taught today my students are business people government leaders entrepreneurs and when I teach a class they say yeah I faced this problem this is yeah and or when I teach some way
about doing it they say yeah but I also had this problem I did a different way so today the students are more experienced a lot more fun to teach but I must say those students 30 -something years ago very diligent this is chat lunch coming up next we will look at measures China has taken to improve its
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the average years of education per person has increased from 1 .6 years in 1949 that's when China was established to today I mean last year to 11 years yeah I mean look at the dramatic increase of how many years a average person could receive education nowadays so from a micro perspective how do you
view the efforts that the Chinese government have done in order to improve the education level to everyone in this country what efforts have the government done to change that well this this is truly amazing to me 30 years ago they said roads first and riches but the key to using those roads education like
I've went to Yongchuan to a poor area with some students of mine and the farmer there he had a one award for his tea but he had to sell it so cheaply couldn't make any money and because he and he didn't know how to market or how to get a label or anything a lot of the different things so the students
from the team to help him and now he's done much better the past two years but the education is fundamental if poor people want to succeed but what amazes me is how China at every step of the level because before education the most basic thing is health and they've researched this around the world as
well as in China if the people are unhealthy that's going to affect their mental and psychological development social development emotional development affect their educational abilities so China very early focused on early childhood development and made a vast improvement in this children healthier
then they do better in studies then the early childhood education which UNESCO also emphasizes early childhood education and they did some research on this and I think it was early childhood development in the poorest areas was something they got a score 71 % in the most developed areas 82 % that's not a terribly
big difference in such a big country so they done well with this so first of all starting with a very basic childhood development but then the government they have the macro policy of mandatory nine years education but how do you get from the macro down to the local village level household level and this is amazing
I visited the Lisu, Lisu minority and Sichuan no Yunnan, Yunnan very remote area and I talked with the leaders there and the people, Lisu people and I was just amazed to see the efforts they go through to make sure every child has an opportunity for education and they can't make them study whereas if China made
children study the other countries to complain you're violating their rights but then if they don't study then they don't have much opportunity and then they complain they don't have opportunity but there they really went to each household and encourage the parents and the children to understand why
this is important and then if a child dropped out before the nine -year mandatory they some of them went to big cities to work at 15 years old 14 years old so they actually went to these cities flew to these cities to persuade that find the children persuade them to return I mean what kind of government
does that and in Tibet at the 5 ,000 meter death zone even there a lot of their children didn't want to study the parents didn't want them to study they wanted them to work and the children didn't see the point of study but they put a lot of effort there in Mongolia Xinjiang to help them understand why
education is important even for poor people in remote areas and so the policies are amazing the macro policies but what really amazes me is how they go down to the city village household level that's just something I don't think any other country does you help us understand the significance of education for general
public especially for people from remote areas so how do you think that has support or boost China's rapid economic growth well first thing is they've done research on this to show what is the effect of education level on a country's development and the highest the highest GDP is in the world those
countries also just happen to be the highest education development and I don't think it's because they're rich therefore education is better I think it's because they're more educated and therefore they develop better more prosperous because these people know how to do things I mean let's look for example
at Chinese in other countries they generally do better than the people around them why because they emphasize education I have a book from 1861 written by a foreigner in Fuzhou 1861 and he said in 1861 he said Chinese have never conquered but they do colonize he said they're in every Asian country and in every
country that they're in they almost monopolize every very profitable business but how not through like the other countries controlling everything he says he said through their superior civilization their intellect their capacity for business and their hard work and he said because of this they he said
the commerce passes into their hands they don't seize it it passes into their hands they become the leading spirits of the countries they live in leading spirits and like Chinese even a hundred years ago they started Xiaomi University they use that money then to help these other countries develop like
Belt and Road today hundred years ago hundred fifty years ago Chinese and other countries were helping to build roads schools hospitals so this education is Chinese did this because education so this education is very fundamental to China's development but that doesn't mean everybody becomes a university
graduate everybody becomes a professor some high level position but it's just fundamental once they're educated they have options more options of what they want to do yeah and find your own habits or interests the thing that they want to do and pursue for that goal yeah what one good example is Xiaomi
University's first Tibetan student Yixi Danzang my hero that young guy didn't learn Chinese till he was 13 in America my hometown of the United States we boast that we don't have a national language but how many do you think first -generation migrants there would be happy if their children didn't learn
English because if a first generation migrant in the US children don't learn English they're just going to be farmworkers or factory workers or something they have no future so first generation immigrants in the US really make sure their children learn English so we can say there's no common language
but if children don't learn English they have no future same in China Yixi Danzang didn't learn Chinese till he was 13 and some people come in how the old Tibetans they make them learn Chinese they don't make them learn it but if they don't learn it it's just like US or any other country France Germany
they don't get the point they don't get the point yeah so I'm just happy that these children aren't forced to do anything but they're given the opportunity if they take it but it's the same as all the world over we can't make people do things but it's like a hundred years ago a thousand years ago if a child
in a remote area wants to succeed there are ways to do it although today over 99 % of school -aged children have received universal nine -year basic education I mean there are still challenges that need to be addressed in China's education system we have to admit that and for instance educational equality
as we have briefly touch upon this but we can elaborate more on that if you have ever heard about stories like this and this is something I've learned from a professor from Peking University one of the most elite university in China and he said that in the past many students at Peking University came
from impoverished families because educational resources were more evenly distributed across the nation and there were very good middleware high schools in the county level compared to today and he said nowadays it's harder for students from impoverished families to get into elite universities like
the Peking University so what are your thoughts on this your observation on this how likely is it for children from rural areas to rise to prominence?
Well this is a complicated question I think it was more evenly distributed 30 40 years ago because 30 40 years ago everyone was poor and then the coastal areas have developed faster I mean it's a fact even though the remote areas have improved I mean it's just a fact that coastal areas big cities have improved
faster they have more opportunities but this is not just a problem with China this is a problem of all the world so these remote areas have challenges but that's the same for example in the US you can go to a school in a big city you can go to another county and a more rural area in a smaller school
and it's not as good not as good at education so if you go to a school like that in a small county in the United States it's not as good education you're probably not likely to test into Harvard University or Yale so this is surely a challenge but the government's put such efforts into this and we're
here well here's one other problem is that the first event student shared this with me you go to the really poor areas one reason the education quality is slow is it's hard to no matter what the policy is hard to get really good teachers to go to the really poor areas and in Tibet and Xinjiang some
of the areas I know it's hard to get the local people so a lot of the really good teachers are Han Chinese teachers who volunteered to go to those poor areas but they're when they give the education to the children in the remote Tibetan Valley or in north Xinjiang or inner Mongolia they get the education and they
become a teacher they want to go to the bigger cities or other provinces where they can make more money so it's really challenging to get the local people once they prosper to stay and serve their own people like like the Tibetan student I know did so they have special programs the government's tried
many creative things to get in special policy special benefits if they will stay and teach give them a special education benefits for their education give Chinese teachers from other areas special programs to encourage them to go to these poor areas and then a lot of volunteer programs I mean there's
tens of hundreds of thousands probably at the other they say the first secretaries volunteering for three years to go to the poorest areas I call them barefoot secretary that's my phrase for it because 50 years ago we had barefoot doctors serving the poorest people living with them today I've talked
to these first secretaries all over China living with the poorest people I call them barefoot secretaries and these are some of the people that help reach these poor students so it's a fact that these remoter areas with whatever country it's not going to be completely equal but with these volunteers
with all these programs to improve opportunities so there's so many different things are doing to try to solve this problem when I was in Beijing a few years ago I talked to a teenage girl here and she said two nights a week she spends time online tutoring rural children in math and she said our family
is not rich we're not but we're better off than those rural children I was very moved by that but I was also encouraged because these rural children who are poor could study online so they had computers and Internet so this is a great equalizer and the poor even Mount Everest has 5g so now it is as
long as they're internet students a great equalizer yes it will help to me solve those problems yeah I know many people that got degrees from Harvard online almost all online the last maybe semester it's amazing that the online opportunities in China this is chat lounge when we come back we will delve
into the challenges China faces in its education sector stay with us the strong wind was howling and whistling he was the first Chinese citizen to graduate from Yale University in the mid 19th century I was born on the 17th of November had prominent features three of us were old enough to lend a helping
hand he navigated between two vastly different cultures a moved further to realize his dream and promote understanding between the people of China and the United States year Minxing was a native of Hanyang I realized no danger China is really awakening come and join us in discovering the incredible
journey of young Wang in his autobiography my life in China and America check out the audible stories on radio dot cgtn dot com and all major podcast platforms just search for the podcast books and beyond and find my life in China and America welcome back we continue our discussion on the challenges
facing China's education sector with professor William Brown I want to touch upon this children who were left behind because of their parents migrant to other places for better job opportunities and left them with your grandparents or other relatives it's what we call left behind children even though
I mean we have internet access nowadays and open courses online still without parents staying with your children it could be very destructive for their kids especially when it comes to education sector so how can we ensure that every single child receives the education they need it what has been done
by the Chinese authorities and what more needs to be done okay to ensure that every child gets such an education is really hard I think for any country in theory yes been practiced but I think China has done the most possible to ensure this like I mentioned going to that very remote Valley and the lisa the lisa minority
there where they go to household a household talking to the families because a lot of this is a lot of the people that don't have the education China is not because they don't have the opportunity it's because the parents want them to work in the countryside or the children don't see the point of getting
an education because they've they don't know what an education is for my own family I'm the first person in my family to get a college degree and they didn't see the point of it I got four degrees and they still didn't see the point of it so so they're going house to house family to family discussing
with them explaining why this is important for you you know why it's important for your child if you don't do it you want them to the rest of their life to be just work in the fields work in the farms and that's all the future they'll have so this is changing it but also the media is helping I remember
when I took foreigners 12 foreigners my van to ningda to show in 2005 drove there took eight hours to get there at that time and we walked eight hours into the mountains with packs and spent the night in tents I wanted them to see one of their remotest villages and their remotest villages they had everything
you could add internet they had not internet but they had telephone service they had TV because they had satellite on the roof but the one thing that they didn't have was people in their 20s or 30s or 40s because these people had gone to Shanghai pudong because they saw TV and they wanted their they
wanted to progress to prosper like other people did seen so all they had was young children in the grandparents there but this is the thing they're left behind children what can they do with these left behind children the actual practice of grandparents taking care of children is pretty good I think
if you do it consistently over generations grandparents I know many grandparents taking care of the children here in Beijing even the grandparents are retired they're happy to take care of the grandchildren they do a good job of it and that frees the parents to work so China has really emphasized with one
of the many programs is kindergarten development and built hundreds of thousands of kindergartens and private and government sponsored and required that these kindergarten meet government standards and then this helps prepare the children and for later education and helps motivate them for education because once
you give them a taste of learning even it's in kindergarten you give them a taste of learning it's helps give them maybe a desire to study and learn more I think kindergarten is very powerful my sister when I didn't go someday I want to go to kindergarten so it's many policies that they're doing across
the country to get these children into into school but it's very challenging and again it can talk and I can and I can give you stories of problems and stories of failure but I think I can give many more stories of success so the big thing about China is that it's very systematic from the national level
to regional level provincial level county level city level village level down to the household is absolutely incredible the emphasis they put on education and the other thing is that since 49 but especially in the 36 years I've been here the policies and practices continue to improve continue and they
see these problems I was very critical in my early years of some things I saw but then I learned more about the policies and practices and saw step -by -step they continue to improve so China is already far ahead of any other country I know of but it's not resting on what it's done it continues to improve
yes like every year during the two sessions every year in the two sessions and they will gather together and bring up those brought up those issues and discuss and you know draft a law and eventually pass it and implement those yeah some people ask me so what do you think was surprising about the any
surprises about the last congressional meeting I said well for me the greatest thing and the biggest surprise is that there's not usually big surprises because they're not it's not like some countries where they have a radical departure to try and please the people and get votes they the Congress makes
the changes based on the problems and opportunities they face and those are are evolving over time and they build upon the successes and they solve the problems so each year basically is a review of what went well and what didn't go so well the previous year and they build on so you can pretty much
usually kind of guess what they're going to talk about in the next Congress because it's logical it's systematic by the way this is not new either I call this I term barefoot secretary but I also term China's fifth -grade invention you know what that is 300 years ago the English politician used to spudgel
said 300 years ago 1731 he said the whole world knows about China's four great inventions yes but what is universally acknowledged by all nations China is greatest at the art of government art of government so I call that China's fifth -grade invention about 300 years ago Jesuit missionaries translated
Chinese classics into European languages and that kind of helped spark the Enlightenment and many Europeans like famous Europeans recommended to European governments to learn from Chinese government and to adapt Chinese government policies and practices because they were tired of medieval governments
run by monarchs who inherited their positions and all that and the European leaders of course didn't like that threatened some of them to stop talking about China so that was 300 years ago they talked about China's art of government and that's what we have today the art of government is basically systematic
government built on a foundation of people who are educated and who can use their education intellectual ability to see problems and solve it and China had to do this because 2 ,000 years ago 2AD China had almost 60 million people this is 2 ,000 years ago almost 60 million people you can't just run a country
slipshot with 60 million people so today we see the same thing the government each year each Congress systematically analyzes what's happening this is a journey through time a special series dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China if we come back to modern
times and look at the current education system especially we hear this term very often the happy education model I mean it's originated in the US and other Western developed nations but it's adopted by China in recent years how do you understand this happy education I understand the point but also if you
go too far with a happy education or they're gonna be happy later with their life if they don't know what they're doing when I first came here my son started in Chinese schools and I didn't like the rigidity I finally ended up having them study correspondence plus Chinese tutors and they did well and both
the Chinese and all but when when my children were seven I built a tree house the six six I built a tree house for them to play in and I remember the neighbors complaining they said you're wasting money because in 10 years they'll be gone to college ten years our children now they said well if they
if they play now you know at Salmon University I built on the campus and I built a tree house and a slide when I first built a tree house I said what are you doing up there I said I'm building a tree house he said why I said because when my wife is angry I can sleep here within one day everyone in campus
knew my wife was very strict and she got angry but I built a tree house and a slide one of the slides is still there but they said well if you build this the children won't study and it's going to hurt their University and I mean my piano teacher is professor my children's piano teacher was a professor piano professor she
had a seven -year -old son I said do you teach your son piano she's oh I don't dare because it's seven years old it might affect his college interest exams preparation seven years old this is too much so I understand that's gone too far but the government even in the 90s was trying to find a way to balance
this parents complain about the pressure on the children but then when they try to change if they give them less more free time then of course their test scores will go down and then they complain the test scores go down so how do you fix this and it's not just a problem in China all of Asia Japan South
Korea Singapore so this is something that needs to be addressed but it's something China's been trying to work on for 30 years it's not an easy thing but I think one problem is that we've created unrealistic expectations one everybody this idea of everybody should have a college education everybody
should test into college and pressure to get into college is it is that the for Chinese people probably the thing most of the time I think this is the only way out the only way to be successful yeah and a hundred years ago foreigners wrote that Chinese believe that six educations but the realistically
if everybody if so many people get a college education like in the US now how many in the US get a college education but then can't get a job actually surprisingly not everyone I mean because I spent seven years in America and like from my understanding a lot of kids college is not their priority they
probably will take gap year and to find out what they want to do and then later around they fund because it's expensive yeah now it's been sir it takes a lot of time you have to pay for it because it's not like in China it's affordable yeah the tuition fees in America's very high so in America is not everyone's
option but here in China seems like everyone would think that's their goal before they turn 18 yeah yeah so university one other thing about that too is it's criticized said it crushed children creativity I wrote an article about that three decades ago called when silence is not golden because I couldn't
get my students to think creatively but the one thing that this this unhappy education does it's like the Chinese system thousand years ago it does create a foundation academic foundation and they've researched this America talks about how their happy education creates more creative children we don't
teach some knowledge we teach them how to learn but the fact is after school they don't learn most Americans adults don't read books especially now with the internet and they're not creative in America they research 1600 children or 16 ,000 children and from age three to five they were tested as creative
geniuses 98 percent creative genius that means we're born creative but by age seven they learned to feel failure don't give the wrong answer in school I remember six first grade when I was six years old reading a sentence in nug instead of enough and I was so embarrassed and didn't want open my mouth
again by age 25 200 ,000 Americans two percent were creative genius so it went from 98 percent to 2 percent in a country that says they boost creativity the problem is it doesn't boost creativity but they also don't have the academic foundation and in America a large percentage of workers have to have remedial
training just to read well enough to do their jobs so it's unhappy education the happy education I understand why they do it but if they don't have a solid foundation academic foundation you're not going to have much of a future but I think that maybe the idea is misplaced that they push everybody to
go to college this is where some alternatives to college need to come in well speaking of that actually at least my next question you probably have already heard about this another major reform in China's education sector is increasing the proportion of vocational education so it aims to solve the problem
of college graduates having degrees but lacking solid skills and also it hopes to promote entrepreneurship and also job more job opportunities and employment however this shift means that the high school interest exams will be more challenging and under this context it could lead to around 30 to 40
percent of students at age 15 or 16 only be able to attend vocational schools after middle school however they can still later apply to the full -year universities with specific majors so with that background do you believe this is the right direction for the country to reform to have as many as 30 to
40 percent of its students go to the vocational schools well it doesn't sound so good but from my own perspective my own experience I think this is a great direction again what is the point of a child pushing themselves for a college degree and something that they won't use or won't help them get a job
and that's it well when I was young I didn't plan to get a college degree I joined the military one reason is because they let me study for free while I was in the military and then pay for four years college afterwards and my whole seven years in the military I took so many courses but I didn't have a plan for a degree
for a degree I just studied what was interesting I studied oceanography astronomy psychology I studied everything until one of the leaders counselor once said to me you know if you just focused in one direction you could get a degree I said I don't care about a degree I just love to learn and she said
well you'll make more money I said I'll do it and I finished my BA in 13 months and I'm very motivated but and then of course I got excited like she'd even encourage me to write books I couldn't stop once I started learning then I was hooked and kept learning but before that I also took a lot of vocational
courses while I was in the military I studied photography and locksmithing and just different skills one I was curious to learn how but to when I get out what will I do and I think that this vocational education is very important because a lot of people go to vocational school they graduate they make
more than some college graduates that's true and they're doing something that they have a they have a skill because you vocational education gives you an actual marketable skill that's not just good for marketing yourself it's something you feel proud being able to do you're an expert you can do something
you don't just have head knowledge that you can never use so I think it gives them a marketable skill gives them sense of self -esteem but then like me you eventually learn what you're really interested in and then go to college so I later went to college and I started out police science and criminal
justice because my military training and then cross -cultural studies because I really that's my real love and then business degree because I was in business and I thought if China wants to peacefully develop they need to learn business I thought it might be useful but it took me a time to learn what I
really wanted to do and I'm glad I didn't push myself to focus on one thing that I didn't like my oldest son Matt my youngest son Matthew by the way he changed majors three times completely different my wife was very angry because it spent a lot he spent more time and cost money but I said I'd rather
he not push himself to get a degree now and something he's not sure he'll like I don't want to spend his life doing something he doesn't enjoy so he started out piano did well switched to computers did did well and finally did medicine and now he's with his wife do volunteer medical work in Africa which I
really admire and he loves that and again it's skills and feeling this is chat lounge let's take a short break coming back we will continue our discussion with professor William Braun 75 years ago a new chapter in history began a momentous journey of resilience innovation and unity this year we celebrate
the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China join us for a special series as we speak to renowned politicians economists and senior officials of international organizations about their personal experiences and views on the events that have defined modern China from the triumphs
of the past to the promises of tomorrow we'll explore the milestones challenges and remarkable progress that have made China a global power that continues to shape the international stage subscribe to the chat lounge for the 75 years of China's rise on your favorite podcast platform as we commemorate
this unforgettable journey welcome back let's continue our discussion with professor William Braun from salmon University I agree with what you have just said but I think there's some concerns here because in China parents who think including students like the general public would have this stereotype
thinking that vocational schools means your kids are not good enough to go to college or you'll be lower level class in the society I think that's a reality does it happen in the Western countries like in the US or what's the it is a reality to this kind of stereotypical thinking it's a reality in China it
also you see it in the US to some extent I mean in the US seems like college graduates are seem to be higher than others not maybe not as much as 34 years ago because now so many people have a college degree and don't do so well with it but I remember in the military I was so frustrated in the military
because the leaders a lot of the leaders were 21 years old right out of college and because they finished college they immediately become a leader and then I thought they're ignorant and arrogant and they were a lot of them so we have that bias but and in China especially strong because throughout Chinese
history Chinese have emphasized education as the one road to success and but that doesn't change the reality parents Chinese parents are just going to have to say I don't know if it will happen or not but Chinese parents need to accept the fact that not all children are going to go to college it's not necessarily
the best thing to go to college and are they going to destroy their children over it by giving them unreasonable expectations I know children who have been pressured by their children their parents to get into college and they did it and it destroyed them emotionally and really had problems and they
get into degrees and careers that they hate yeah but they stay in them across their parents that's a good point because it happens a lot a lot I've seen it yes like it happened on me as well like I'm just one of the many cases but I'm glad that I figure out what I want to do when I was in high school
before many Chinese students even adults nowadays back then when they have the option where when they were trying to study very hard at school and trying to get into a very great universities they actually don't know what they're interested in doing what they want to pursue in life I still don't know
what I want to do when I grow up so I guess the point here is you'd better figure out what you want to do in a very early age regardless you're you want to go to universities and then get your master degrees or PhDs to become a doctor or you want to you know become a chef very well outstanding chef
in your industry like it doesn't matter what you do but it's more like you want to figure out what you want to do and then you pursue your goal pursue your dream belong to you don't forget your dream I met a 30 year old PhD student just a few months ago and she told me she's getting her PhD and in a career
she totally doesn't like 30 years old but she's doing it because her parents pushed her through her bachelor's degree or master's degree and now her PhD because of her parents 30 years old as hard for me to imagine so this is not a symptom of Chinese government's failure this is a symptom of a problem
that's through all over the world probably but especially in China so I admire that and I think gradually maybe this can change because as people understand better the role of vocational education and don't see it as a stigma as somebody who couldn't get into college but somebody that's doing something
they really like or love and it could even be temporary until they do something else if if people slowly parents and everyone else slowly see the reality of this and why this is real life we can't set such high unreasonable expectations I think it can gradually change but it's going to take a lot of education of the parents
education of the people you probably know that the recently concludes the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China released this resolution it all lands the plan for the country to deepen comprehensive reforming education and this includes a wild range of details such as creating world
-class universities a better distributing educational resources and expanding free education and also promoting high standard opening up in education sector by encouraging top four universities in science and engineering to establish programs in China so how do you interpret China's commitment to deepening
comprehensive reform in education sector well two things one is to said earlier I mean it's just this fact that the countries of the highest GDP have the highest education so if you improve the education that will improve China and probably all levels but in this comprehensive reform of education again fifth
grade invention China is systematic so China has been systematically changing since 49 learning and evolving over time but this is such a big change is so complex and holistic I think it's probably beyond any one person to really grasp and understand all of it but I have confidence that they will be
able to bring this big change and I've seen the big changes even in Xiamen University it's hard to imagine what can be done with just a dream when I went to Xiamen University they told me they asked me to teach business I refused but they said we're going to build one of the top 10 MBA programs in China they
hadn't even there was the first one of the first and I kind of laugh I said this little University on an island I see Beijing Shanghai Guangdong but Xiamen but they did now we have top 10 MBA and EMBA and my one MBA program was number three in China last year in this category so I'm amazed at the quality
but but one thing is concerned me is Chinese universities ranked lower than foreign universities it's improving if you are rich you can offer a lot more opportunities for research and all these things that Chinese students want but here's the thing I interest me I love science especially physics and and so I
keep track of the science updates not a lot of different fields and it's amazing when you look at the research being done and universities in the United States or in Europe you look at these research teams almost all of them have Chinese students on the teams and where were they educated in Chinese
mainland they got their education in Chinese mainland and very smart people to be on these teams and many of them are leading these teams in Berkeley and Harvard and Yale and these different universities so that shows that Chinese education really is very good already but China doesn't yet have the money
that these Western universities universities have so I think that as China develops economically it does have the money now it's getting more money now and so I expect Chinese mainland universities to surpass those and other country and already do surpass some in some areas so it's inevitable as China develops
economically it's let's look into the future what's your plan after retirement even though I know you're doing so great at teaching and also writing books any future plans to to work on especially regarding to the education sector I don't plan to retire until I have to this it had to retire 60 and then
they extended 63 and then they asked you could I teach to 68 and now they told me two more years to 70 but I hope at 70 they'll let me go another 30 years I love 30 years hope so I love teaching and to me it's like the fountain of youth I love being with students I love teaching them but I think I learned
more from them than I teach them because life is always changing I'm glad they don't charge me tuition if I do retire one thing is I'm staying in China this is home I'm staying in China until I leave the planet but if I do retire I'll keep doing the same thing I can still continue to teach just not as
a full -time professor and continue to write books if it wasn't for Xi Jinping hooking me on writing books I probably wouldn't buy now I'm just so fascinated with more I learned about China I published the past three years some books published overseas about the development of history I want to keep
writing so I'm just going to keep doing what I do until I can't do it lastly professor on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China what are your wishes for the country and its people well first I want to say I'm very honored that I could have been here in China for more
than half of that 38 years over half of the 75 years and see such amazing changes and my wishes for China for the next 75 years is that it will continue as it has the past 75 to continue to build methodically systematically peacefully upon the foundation that 75 years of people have sacrificed for I
think this will be a great thing for the Chinese people but also for the rest of the world thank you so much professor Brown ever wondered what's actually going on in Africa through the perspective of an African how are things really going between China and Africa what's the narrative of this relationship
well get a perspective with China Africa talk you're from African diplomats entrepreneurs academics Chinese natives and more get an hour wavelength every week to find out what's real with China Africa talk find us on Apple podcast Spotify Google podcast and more we'll see you there sideline story brings
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