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