Sports and the arts have long played an important role in connecting people from different cultures and countries.
Sharing Culture
The arts have long been one of the most effective and transferable ways in which people from around the world are able to share cultural and moral values, making our world seem just a bit smaller. In the past century, the University of Minnesota has embraced Chinese art and culture in various ways from sending musicians to China to sponsoring a variety of Chinese plays on campus. American and Chinese arts and music have transcended national boundaries, opening the door to a vibrant relationship that would not otherwise be possible.
Students Take the Stage
In 1921, the University provided funds to the American Relief Administration to address the famine in China. The University’s Chinese Students’ Club staged a play titled “The Double Tenth” to raise funds, adding $400 to the $3,000 raised through a student and faculty campaign.
Following the Cultural Revolution, the University had the honor to send its student band as the first foreign band to tour China in 1980. The band played shows in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Beijing.
Chinese Arts on Campus
The University has displayed several exhibitions of Chinese art on campus in the past century. In 1962, the University welcomed the Foo-Hsing Theatre from Taiwan whose performance troupe included 50 Chinese children. The troupe performed the play “The Beautiful Bait.” In 1987, the University’s China Center sponsored the Nankai University Theater Group to perform two Chinese plays, “Rickshaw Boy” and “Thunderstorm,” on campus.
More recently, the University Department of Art collaborated with the Beijing Film Academy to produce several exhibitions on campus. In 2011, the photographic exhibit “Crisis=Opportunity” showed and then in 2012 the exhibit “Transition” was developed and displayed, in collaboration with the University’s Department of Asian Languages and Literatures. In 2013, the artwork of University students and their peers in China displayed as “Mirror/Window.” University students traveled to China to work with their counterparts to develop the exhibitions.
Sports
Sport has long played an important role in connecting people from different cultures and countries, creating shared experiences that build profound understanding and friendship. Recognizing the strength of sharing common values through sport, the University of Minnesota has created opportunities for students to interact with Chinese peers in sport since 1914.
Chinese Athletes on Campus
During the 1914 soccer season, the University’s team won the championship, due largely to the excellence of three Chinese players, also the first three Chinese students at the University: Pan Wen Ping, Pan Wen Huen, and Kwong Yih Kum. Pan Wen Ping was later elected captain of the University soccer team and Pan Wen Huen served as the captain of the University tennis and hockey teams.
In 1981, the Chinese national basketball team visited the University and played several games against the Gopher women’s basketball team. This demonstration of diplomacy through sports is yet another example of early camaraderie between the University and China.
Opportunities in China
The culture of sport is strong at Chinese universities and provides opportunities for cultural and academic exchange. In 1980 University study abroad students played basketball with their Chinese peers at Nankai University. More recently, the College of Education and Human Development’s 2013 study abroad course “Managing Mega Sport Events” took students to China to study how to manage large sporting events. They had the opportunity to tour incredible Beijing Olympic venues such as the Beijing National Stadium and the Olympic Green Tennis Center.
University and other U.S. experts in sports and athletics now have the opportunity to interact with a Chinese audience at the University’s American Cultural Center for Sport. The center was established in 2011 to bring culturally oriented instruction, exchanges, and engagement to Chinese people. It is a collaboration between the University of Minnesota’s China Center and School of Kinesiology, and Tianjin University of Sport. The center is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of State and holds an office at Tianjin University of Sport.
This information was compiled in 2014 for China 100, a yearlong celebration honoring the first students from China and the wealth of connections that have come since.