The name "Janice" is familiar to most citizens of Xiamen, a coastal city in east China: college students, journalists, taxi drivers, peddlers, and people on the street.
Dr. Janice Engsberg is an American who has been working in China for 15 years, teaching in the mass communication department of Xiamen University.
Like many foreigners who have developed a passion for Chinese culture, Engsberg has amassed a large collection of personal treasures: coins, calligraphy, paintings, and even straw hats worn by local farmers.
Engsberg is an avid traveler in China, and has the photographs to catalogue her adventures in Harbin in the north, Kashi and Turpan in the west and other lesser-known places. In her spare time, she rides her bicycle to remote corners of the city.
Engsberg has made effort to protect the environment in Xiamen, her "second hometown." On Chinese Arbor Day, she planted five mangroves, and on World Environment Day, she joined her students and Chinese colleagues to clean rubbish from a local beach.
A music lover, Engsberg is an advisor to the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra. She has never missed a performance of the orchestra, has helped them set up a website, acts as an interpreter when necessary and offers suggestion on ways to improve their music.
"What the orchestra brings to me is more than the beautiful music; they also show me the glorious Chinese culture," she said.
Each time she returns to the United States on holiday, she is invited by U.S. institutions to give lectures. Her favorite topic is the changes in Chinese society.
In the eyes of her students, Engsberg is strict and demands assignments be well done and turned in on time.
"Sometimes this is the only way to make the students work hard, " she said. "Most of my students will become journalists, and a journalist's job is full of deadlines. They've got to be prepared for that." She also expects her future reporters to be observant.
(People’s Daily 07/11/2001)
