My First Impression of China: Washingtonians' First Trips to the Middle Kingdom

Praise for My First Impression of China “Today, … the sense of distance between China and the U.S. has greatly diminished. We remain different societies with at least partially different values and expectations, with each country’s citizens feeling pride in their national accomplishments … and each government looks on the other with what appears to be growing concern and perhaps fear. But these accounts by Washingtonians highlight that that is not all there is to the relationship between the United States and China. And perhaps these recollections tell us that governmental concerns are the least important aspect of the ties between our two countries.” —David Bachman, Professor, University of Washington

The year 2014 marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the normalization of the diplomatic relations between the United States and China. Author Wendy Liu chose to honor that relationship by compiling thirty-five essays that detail some Americans’ first impressions of their trip to China.

My First Impression of China presents reflections from a group of prominent Washingtonians, including those who established the Washington-Sichuan friendship-state relationship and the Seattle-Chongqing sister-city relationship. Their first trips to China took place from 1973 to 2008, covering the time the two countries cautiously opened liaison offices in each other’s capitals to the time of the Beijing Olympics.

My First Impression of China provides insight into the changes in American attitudes toward China as well as changes in China’s political, cultural, and technological landscape.