“Mr. Ming Wang? This is the executive office of the President of the United States,” said a voice through the telephone. “We’d like to talk about arranging for you to visit the White House to meet the President.”
I wasn’t sure I was hearing him correctly. It was the spring of 1984, a few weeks before President Ronald Reagan was to go to China for an official six-day visit. His staff member told me that the President wanted to meet a select group of Chinese students before his trip.
“How many students can I invite?” I asked.
“Up to seven,” replied the coordinator.
“Will we actually meet the President?”
“It’s possible, but we cannot tell you for sure at this time.”
For security reasons, there was no guarantee we would actually meet President Reagan, but eight of us would at least get an up close and personal glimpse into the most iconic building in the country, the White House. My mind traveled back more than a decade to the moment when I stood on the banks of West Lake in Hangzhou to welcome President Richard Nixon. And now, I just might meet another American president. My head was spinning, as I could hardly believe this was really happening.
A year prior, during my second year at the University of Maryland, I had joined the Chinese Student and Scholar Association, a group that met about once a quarter to plan activities. Our primary objectives were welcoming incoming Chinese students and hosting a Chinese New Year celebration each year. The student exchange from overseas continued to flourish, and we wanted to support the new arrivals in their transition to life here in America. I would never forget how clueless and unprepared I felt when I first arrived on the College Park campus with Jason and Ji-hong, so I was eager to help others transition more easily .
Jason, Ji-hong, and I would take our M1 to pick up arriving students from the airport and shuttle them around town. We also helped them find and haul used furniture for their apartments, and run any necessary errands. After a year of dedicated involvement, the Chinese Student and Scholar Association voted me president of the University of Maryland chapter of the association, and I told them I have great plans for our organization.
Up to that point, our group had been rather insular, but I had a vision of reaching out and welcoming our American friends into the Chinese community as well. One of my earliest projects as president of the association was producing and hosting a Chinese film festival. The Chinese embassy in D.C. allowed me to borrow a large number of movie reels, which I took back to the theater at the student union on the College Park campus. The films featured archetypal aspects of Chinese culture, including the Peking Opera, ancient dynasties, and epic moments in history, as well as the difficult stories of the Cultural Revolution depicted by China’s fifth-generation filmmakers. The American movies I had seen back in China had transported me to a previously unknown world. By showing great Chinese films, I wanted to offer the Americans a portal, so they too could experience the unknown world of China.
The film festival featured movies twice a month. American students and faculty made up about half of the audience at every showing. I was thrilled that the movies were having an impact. After watching these films, our American friends and colleagues said things like, “I’ve never seen such colorful costumes,” or “I had no idea there were so many different ethnic minorities in China.” More understanding between us meant that friendships could blossom more easily. The movie theater became our meeting ground, and these stories helped us communicate with each other. These newly forged connections were exactly what I had set out to foster. Not only did I want Americans to understand more about China, but also I wanted my Chinese classmates to extend themselves beyond their comfort zones as well, and embrace the culture of America. I also wanted to learn more about this great country, in hopes of one day becoming its citizen myself.
In February of 1984, we hosted a Chinese New Year celebration that was open to the public. About four hundred people congregated in a high-school auditorium in Silver Spring, Maryland. The room was strewn with bright red ribbons and banners. Actors and actresses walked around wearing traditional Chinese garb, and many of the American guests were specially dressed for the occasion as well. Women wore the traditional chipao, a form-fitting, ankle-length gown made of embroidered silk. Men wore Tang suits with rounded collars. The sight made my heart swell, as I felt I had found my calling—to create a cultural heart-to-heart link between my birthplace and the country I now called home. That night I played the erhu onstage, but not the melancholy sounds of blind Ah Bing that I had played during the Cultural Revolution when I struggled to survive. This time, upbeat folk tunes whose rhythms celebrated the new year and a new era of freedom in my life emanated from my instrument.
As word spread to other campus chapters across the country of how successful our association was in facilitating these cultural connections, I was asked to serve as the national president of the Chinese Student and Scholar Association. It wasn’t long after assuming that post that I received the invitation to visit the White House to meet President Reagan as a representative of Chinese students and scholars here in America.
I extended this special invitation to seven other Chinese Student and Scholar leaders from nearby universities. On the day of the event, the M1 chugged her way through the streets of D.C., and I parked just a few blocks from Pennsylvania Avenue. The closest I had ever been to the White House before that moment was standing well outside the guarded gates like any other tourist, but now I was honored and excited to be going inside. The grand and gleaming white building struck me as a perfect symbol of America’s open, civilized, and fair democracy, a blazing contrast to the oppressive darkness I had known in years past.
Our group went through security at the entrance to the West Wing, and a staff member came to greet us in the lobby.
“A presidential appearance might be possible,” he said, “but I can’t guarantee anything. Vice President Bush will meet with you first.”
I admired both of these leaders. George H. W. Bush was well known in China, since he had spent more than a year as the head of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing in 1974. I also knew that Ronald Reagan had been an actor before he became president. His move from Hollywood to the White House amazed me. I was astounded that such an opportunity to go from actor to president could exist in any country. But I also appreciated President Reagan’s accomplishments, how he restored confidence in the American dream and promoted freedom at home and abroad.
We were ushered into the Roosevelt Room, a large conference room across a corridor from the Oval Office. The eight of us remained quiet in such an esteemed place. We sat on thick, high-backed chairs around a long, shiny table set with green tea in Chinese porcelain cups. I was positioned in the middle of one side of the table, with my compatriots on either side of me. We faced the doors and looked up in anticipation whenever they opened.
The staff member who had greeted us in the lobby poked his head in the door. “We still don’t yet know if the President will show up.”
The next time the door opened, Vice President George H. W. Bush walked in with a few associates. He sat directly across from me on the other side of the table and proceeded to tell us how much he and his wife, Barbara, had enjoyed living in Beijing.
“I really appreciated being able to ride bikes everywhere,” he said. “If I did that here, I would get run off the road.”
I smiled at the image of George and Barbara Bush riding bikes in China. I was certain he had ridden a much better bike than the rundown one I pedaled to the paper-wrapping factory when I was a teenager.
“We appreciate your support of Chinese student programs,” I said. By that time, some ten thousand students from China had arrived to study at universities across the United States. I asked the Vice President if he knew how many American students were in China, and what subjects they were studying.
“You know, I’m not sure. But we’ll find out,” he said.
After nearly half an hour of relaxed, amicable conversation with Vice President Bush, the doors suddenly swung wide open. An influx of nearly fifty people swooshed into the room so fast that a breeze swept over us. The first to come in was a group of reporters with flash cameras, who made their way to the perimeter of the room. Standing tall in the middle of the next group to enter was President Reagan himself. He walked right up to us, leaned in and shook each of our hands.
“We are delighted to be going to China,” he said. “China and the U.S. have been building a very strong relationship in recent years. I have great hopes for what we can accomplish together.”
In that moment, I felt like I was living in one of the movies I had screened at the film festival on campus. I was just a poor kid from Hangzhou who almost didn’t make it to college. And now here I was, face to face with the President of the United States in a West Wing conference room. Amazing!
President Reagan talked about the history of educational collaboration between the two countries. He described the Boxer Rebellion near the end of the nineteenth century, and how America had asked the Chinese government to use the money that it otherwise would have paid the U.S. for helping to put down the rebellion, to instead send students overseas to study in America. That resulted in the first wave of Chinese exchange students who came to the U.S. in the beginning of the twentieth century.
After he talked with us for a few minutes, President Reagan said, “I’ll be happy to meet each of you for photos.”
As head of the U.S. Chinese Student and Scholar delegation, I was the first to be escorted across the hall to a smaller room, where President Reagan was waiting with a photographer and other members of his staff. He welcomed me and shook my hand again. I held this leader in great esteem, so I was surprised by how warm and friendly he was. He asked me how I was doing, where I was from, and what I was studying in graduate school. He was down-to-earth, and we had a wonderful conversation. Talking to him felt like being with my own grandfather.
We had our picture taken in front of an oblong mirror on the wall, my young face beaming as bright as the mirror’s flowery gold frame. While it may have been hard for me to believe, the truth was that I wasn’t on a movie set, and Reagan was no longer an actor. The eight of us who met the Vice President Bush and the President Reagan that day were completely ecstatic when we left. The photo of the President and me arrived in the mail at my home not long afterward, signed with the President’s own hand. Little did I know at the time that this event, along with many more to come, would inspire my interest in making a difference in social and political issues in America.
I have treasured that photograph with President Reagan ever since that day, and so does my family back in China, where world leaders are esteemed as kings. I sent copies of the photo to Hangzhou, one of which my family framed and hung on the wall, right near the front door where visitors would surely see it. One of my uncles showed his copy of the photo to his manager at work, and was soon promoted for apparently being so well connected. Though I lived so far away, I continued to fulfill the promise I made to my family when I first came to America—to bring great honor to the Wang family name. At the same time, I was indebted to those who had given me the chance to shine, both in China and here in the States.