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I was delighted to be invited by Dr. Catherine Hua Xiang to join an excellent panel on becoming fluent in Chinese and building a career related to China at the London School of Economics, which took place on March 7.

It was particularly exciting to address audience which was in the same room where I used to have lectures back as a graduate student many years ago.

Dr. Xiang does an amazing job helping both professionals and students to build a better understanding of Chinese culture and language in London – and she runs a great channel for Chinese learners, called 字 espresso, which provides excellent video resources for learning Chinese on YouTube.

My fellow panelists are all fluent Chinese speakers who told amazing stories.

Martin Ward is also fluent in Japanese and he completed his PhD in Japan before becoming an academic specializing in East Asian languages at Leeds University. Grant Swanson learned Chinese from scratch in record time during lockdown while studying a degree in robotics. Michele J. Maggi learned Chinese while reading intense courses in economics and finance at the LSE.

These types of stories are a great source of motivation, so hopefully they can inspire the next generation of Chinese learners as well as professionals/scholars looking to engage with China.

A full recording of the event is available on Dr Xiang’s YouTube channel.