SHORT VERSION

A few years ago, I came to realize there were limits to the personal satisfaction I could hope to derive from my corporate work. So I took a plane to a world of different possibilities and became a university instructor in Beijing.

China gave me freedom. Set before the students with no instructions or guidance, I fashioned courses that resembled a series of discussions about interesting ideas. I'd assign short texts as homework reading -- New York Times articles highlighting contemporary issues and controversies, excerpts from literary masterpieces, occasionally miscellaneous items like Monty Python skits and classic song lyrics -- then hold classes in which the meanings would be explored and elucidated.

I first taught at an academically average institution, then spent the following year at Tsinghua University, which in China is widely considered the best school in the nation. Then I joined a third university -- one that is also quite special but, as I was to find, rather more sinister.

The China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) is China's diplomacy school. It operates under China's Foreign Ministry and, to quote its website, is "aimed at preparing high calibre personnel for foreign service, international studies, and other careers related to international business and law."

At CFAU I taught Diplomacy, Law, and English majors. I received many comments praising my teaching, often also mentioning my "strictness" and the students' "nervousness" in my classes. It seemed my penchant for demanding full attention during the 90 minutes I spent with each class weekly, combined with my expectation that students actually engage their brains rather than merely regurgitating what I told them, was something quite extraordinary in their experience.

As late as an idle weekend in early November, 2002, two months after the start of classes, I could think: "I feel almost like a king in this place." Life was good. The work was stimulating and enjoyable; my students knew they were getting something unique and were appreciative; I'd discovered some really good local restaurants. Everything was generally quite pleasant.

Then I was summoned for a meeting with Ms. Wang Yan, the director of CFAU's Foreign Affairs Office. She was the unique person at the school who'd always displayed a hostile attitude (the reason was a secret I'd only discover later). She got right to the point. The deans of the Diplomacy and Law departments had recently passed along to her letters from the students demanding urgent action with regard to serious problems with my teaching.

Serious problems? This was news to me.

"Who are these students?" I asked skeptically.

"Look!" she retorted, whipping out papers and holding them up to my face accusingly.

It seemed just about 100% of my Diplomacy and Law students had signed letters of complaint about me.

What on earth were the complaints?

Wang Yan actually refused to discuss details of the complaints. Details were beside the point. There was clearly something wrong with my attitude. How, she demanded rhetorically, could all the students be wrong?

And no, I couldn't get a copy of the letters. She had to protect the students from me, she said.

I'd received a hint -- only a hint -- of discontent shortly before the meeting with Wang Yan. A Law student who didn't know the answers to a test had instead written me a message claiming the students disliked my teaching. This had prompted me to email the whole class to inquire whether there was a problem. I received only positive responses -- and they were sent only days before the same students signed the complaints. Excerpts:

Hi, Uriel:

[Your class] is very chanllenging for us, and we have to be always alert, and smart in your class, but I think that is OK, and we could learn a lot in your class.

The problem might be, sometimes our way of thinking is a little bit different, due to some culture differences, which I think is very natural. Sometimes I just couldn't figure out what indeed you are asking, but when you expained it, I think I knew the meaning, just did not know that would be the answer you were expecting. But I think I am getting used to it, and I am trying to develop my logic and knowledge as well.

Best,

---

hello! Uriel, To be truth , I like the materials you gave us ,I like the way of your analysis to these materials, and i like these topices ,because those make me learn more about other culture.

best wish

---

Dear Uriel Wittenberg

I can learn a lot of interesting things in [your class]. Your lesson is very good and your explain to the article is logical. I enjoy it very much.

What had happened? How could students, within days of volunteering such sentiments, sign complaints to the administration immediately afterwards? And how could the complaints be virtually unanimous (in the affected classes)?

It seemed a very emotional campaign had suddenly erupted. Until then, a large majority of students had been quite pleased with me. Then, like a school of fish, they abruptly turned. Together.

There had been groupthink. And there had been social pressure. As one involved student later told me privately, students would have "hated" a student who refused to sign the complaints. Moreover, boys were obliged to sign to "show support for the girls."

This only happened to my Diplomacy and Law students. The English students were untouched by the campaign and remained as appreciative as before -- many exhibiting scarcely restrained adulation.

My meeting with Wang Yan was supposed to produce an adjustment of my attitude. Normalcy was easily attainable. The students' fever had quickly subsided following their brief orgy of grievance. Everyone wanted to forget the complaints. Everyone was prepared to move forward.

Except me.

These future diplomats and lawyers had done something wrong. Placating them clashed with my principles. It would have taught the wrong lesson.

They had signed complaints against a teacher. They had to face what they'd done and either account for their charges or acknowledge error. Otherwise ... I wasn't really interested in teaching them anything else.

The collision of my principles with the group's will was like the proverbial meeting of an irresistible force with an immovable object.

The courses I taught were called "Topical English." After my meeting with Wang Yan, I designated a new topic: the students' complaints about me.

The students detested this topic. They couldn't explain the complaints. They weren't even clear about what they had signed. No one could produce a copy. And what they were able to recall of the complaints seemed scarcely coherent.

But acknowledging error was, it seemed, an impossibility. Classes became open arguments between me and the students.

One day, during the break in a class with Diplomacy students, I was handed a letter that had arrived by mail. I decided to read it aloud to the class:

Dear Mr. Uriel Wittenberg,

Do you know what we think of you? You have given us the impression of being a notorious rascal who is hostile towards our country and often harass the girl students. You can't imagine how we hate you. Please be warned that if you don't stop attacking on China and harassing the girls, you will be taught a good lesson. It is not a big talk that it is easier to disable you or kill you than to kill a dog.

The students laughed -- they found it amusing. These students, at the end of the year, would be graduating with Diplomacy degrees, some going on to represent China as diplomats.

About 20 minutes before the end of class, a student called Gao Hui Jun politely requested that we abandon the subject of the student complaints and turn to a different topic. I said no. This was the most topical topic at hand.

Gao Hui Jun's demeanor changed. I'd never seen him look anything other than bland and nondescript before; now he was clearly angry. He muttered something to the others in a low voice in Chinese, then got up and walked to the exit at the back of the room.

The others started putting away their things. They were going to leave as well.

A boy called Li Ming, quicker than the others, was right behind Gao Hui Jun. A moment before exiting he turned to face me and shouted, "Fuck off!" Then, with a self-satisfied smile, he was gone.

All the others followed. Some were silent and unhappy looking. But departing was an imperative, it seemed, that they could not defy.

I took the death threat to the Foreign Affairs Office, where I found Wang Yan and other staff members. I wanted them to report it to the Beijing police.

But Wang Yan wanted to talk about my teaching. She suggested I drop the topic of the complaint letters. The students weren't happy, there'd been more complaints....

I answered: "A student in today's class just told me to 'fuck off.' That might concern you too."

"Why did he say that?" she rejoined.

She spoke further about my teaching, apparently unconcerned about the death threat and the students' misbehavior.

"I hope you'll treat this threat very seriously," I said to her.

"This is not the school's business," she replied.

I stared at her. "I think it's very much the school's business if one of its invited foreign teachers receives a death threat."

"What I meant is that it's not my personal responsibility to investigate this."

There never was a police investigation. And after another week of confrontations with my Diplomacy and Law classes, I was fired -- eight months before the expiration of my contract. The contract's "breach penalty" would not be paid. I had to vacate my apartment within 10 days. And my visa was changed to a tourist visa that would expire in 20 days.

I had the standard Foreign Expert contract, which guarantees the right, in case of dispute, to obtain arbitration from the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA). But I'd never heard of anyone who'd invoked this right.

Two of my CFAU colleagues were political science academics on leave from American universities. They were sympathetic but thought it ill-advised to pursue the matter. One warned I might get "booted from China." The other darkly commented: "if you feel that you are the one to take on the chinese system then all the best. I do not think that that option is advisable." A British lawyer opined: "you'll probably just get escorted right to the airport. Don't make trouble."

Call me pigheaded -- but again, a principle within me clashed with what people wanted me to do. I'd been fired because of unfounded hysteria. My contract promised government arbitration. Was I to assume that the promise was illegitimate without ever testing it -- and remain forever ignorant of whether it had in fact been genuine?

I was not escorted to the airport. And I did obtain another teaching position, the following semester, at Lanzhou University. (I was open with them about the events at CFAU. The Chinese, employers included, have no trouble believing that in China, such things arbitrarily happen to blameless people.) But the government simply ignored my attempts to obtain arbitration. I persisted for a time -- then settled for writing a detailed account of this story. It's available at http://urielw.com/china2/.