"Much More Than One Bridge - January 4, 2008""Dear Mr. Zhao:
"I had learned of your transfer center of the Bridge-to-Asia Foundation far before I came to Zhejiang, for my former school in Sichuan received books from you occasionally. But not until I stepped into your small storage did I realize what a large treasure house was opened to me and to our school. Therefore, right back home I reported to our president and the chief librarian my evaluation of your center as a place much richer in resources than any foreign languages bookstore throughout China and made a plan for the library to select data from the center as frequently as possible. Later, encouraged by bumper harvests and ever-increasing needs, we expanded our searching scope to cover the other three centers too.
"Two and a half years have passed. What is our library like now? It has changed its history of supporting a foreign languages school of more than 1,400 students and 120 teachers without a Bible in English, nor the complete works of Shakespeare, nor the Norton Anthology of English Literature. Now we have these from you. And the scores of books on China help us learn what we are in the eyes of other peoples. The most popular of popular magazines, the National Geographic, has become a huge collection of more than fifty years. Even most of our Marxist and Leninist works in English have come from you.
"In addition to English publications, printed materials in other languages have also been increased, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Latin copies, even a Homer in ancient Greek, most of which are unavailable in our largest bookstores because those languages have been labeled as small ones.
"Though the school is not a prestigious one, we have a very special program in China, to study English as an international language and literature written in English as a global phenomenon. So we have a need for works far beyond English literature and American literature. But it is rather difficult and costly for us to buy those books. Fortunately, through you and your sister centers, we are provided in part with the American donations: English works created by Asian, African, and Caribbean writers, among them the Heinemann editions being the most precious; both general and detailed surveys of many developing countries which are not sold here because the market is so slim that it does not bring any interest to the dealers; and the ten Asian and African journals spanning decades and even more than a hundred years. Small wonder that our most ambitious program is getting to be established.
"So The Bridge to Asia means much more than one bridge to us: It links us first with the United States., then through the U.S. with Canada and Mexico, with South America, with Europe, with Africa, with Oceania, and finally with other countries in Asia!
"Our school is not an exception. I have visited more than a hundred Chinese colleges and universities. Wherever I go, I see books with your stamps are standing on the shelf or being read by people.
"When I began to do this, the problem was how to obtain books to read. Now the problem is turned into a new one: how to make the best use of the goodwill of American people. I have begun to have some of my students do research and write degree papers on some best series of works, for instance, works by and on Shakespeare. It goes smoothly. Then I demand the junior classes to read and write reading reports on the newly-obtained books during the upcoming winter vacation. I believe that with the assistance of the rich data we will turn more and more students into habitual readers and more and more instructors into scholarly-teaching staff.
"We have just celebrated the accomplishment of the first phase and made a new plan for the future. In the report to the authorities, I compare my research life here to a fish having found vast and deep water to swim in. We all know that much of the water have flown into our school from you and from our benevolent donors across the Pacific Ocean. So on behalf of my students, colleagues and leaders, I write you this letter to demonstrate our gratitude to you and other transfer centers, and ultimately to our great American friends! We promise to train the students better and to put out more academic works worthy of the valuable aid.
"Thanks so much to you, your colleagues and the thousands or even more of our American friends.
"Sincerely Yours,
"Yan Zhiqiang, Professor in English
Foreign Languages School
Huzhou Teachers' College
Zhejian"