Adelaidean (Winter 2015 edition) | Page 18

CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE “China is the University’s leading partner in science and technology research collaborations.” TO UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF EDUCATION TO CHANGE LIVES YOU NEED TO TALK TO MOBO GAO, PROFESSOR OF CHINESE AND DIRECTOR OF THE CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY. Professor Mobo Chang Fan Gao was born in the “South Australia seemed more hesitant than other farming village of Gao in China’s Jiangxi Province, states to see the potential for business opportunities where he lived a peasant’s life until selected for and exchanges of experts and ideas but the pace university at the age of 21. After a degree in English has picked up now with a major State Government teaching, in 1977 the Chinese government sponsored trade delegation,” Professor Gao says. “China is him to do a Masters degree in the United Kingdom. also the University’s leading partner in science and Gao then did a PhD at the University of Essex on Noam technology research collaborations.” Chomsky’s linguistics, as a self-sponsored student. industry looking to do business in China, including but, disillusioned with linguistics and anxious to tailored language tuition, classes on protocol and understand what had happened to his homeland since the Communist Revolution, he jumped at the offer of a teaching job at Griffith University in Australia. From there he moved to the University of Tasmania before arriving at Adelaide in 2008. From farm labourer to internationally regarded scholar – with four books and dozens of papers and articles to his name – is impressive in any circumstances. But starting in China as it began to engage with the West surely makes Professor Gao’s achievements especially so. His background also gives him a firsthand experience of the subtleties of Chinese politics and society, which make him uniquely suited to leading the University of Adelaide’s Confucius Institute. Yes, he says, changing economic conditions. “It also is a resource for schools teaching Chinese across the state,” he says. This is a role set to expand due to the State Government picking up Professor Gao’s idea for a dual-language Chinese-English school. This initiative could have enormous potential in increasing the number of students who do not have a Chinese background studying the language at the University. In addition to his commitment to making the Institute a real resource for South Australia, and a conduit of ideas with China, Professor Gao also brings to it is his insight into a country transformed across his lifetime. He explains through a history of his village, entitled world, receive funding from the Chinese Government Gao Village: A Portrait of Rural Life in Modern China, and he does not doubt Beijing sees them as a way that the Cultural Revolution was “a golden age” for of projecting “soft power”—of presenting a positive ordinary people in terms of education and health image of China to the world. But unlike European care. “It was still a Spartan life but vastly better,” he equivalents, staffed by government officials, he says. Professor Gao expanded further on this theme works directly for the University. in his 2008 work, The Battle for China’s Past: Mao In any case it would be a committed cadre who tried and the Cultural Revolution. to give instructions to Professor Gao: “I don’t care However, he also acknowledges the extraordinary what the Chinese authorities want, I do what is right impact of the changes adopted by Mao’s successors. for the University. But while it would be up to me to “China industrialised because of a planned economy but when you get to a certain stage you need Confucius Institutes have different focuses, as personal initiative.” suits institutions: RMIT in Melbourne is interested The transformation of his village tells the tale: “When I in Chinese medicine, Griffith University’s