A Happy Return

By BAO WENQIN

After spending half of her life in the U.S., Liu Weiyun has returned to China and made her home in Beijing. She has, as she puts it, completed a circle of happiness.

Liu Weiyun was born in Beijing in 1938 and moved to Taiwan at the age of 10. After graduating in 1958, her good English and stenography skills helped her find a job as secretary to the most celebrated lawyer on the island. The post brought Liu the opportunity to make contacts and form relationships with senior officials at many transnational companies. This was how she became interested in international business. Liu later worked as secretary general to the Consultant Panel of the Taiwan National Chengchi University in Michigan State University, whose task was to formulate Taiwan's first PR and business management department. The panel was also responsible for training personnel for the department. Liu learned a lot from the American professors on the panel, and began to comprehend the importance of business  management. As secretary general, she also became experienced and skilled at staff supervision. 

One sweltering summer day in 1964, Liu attended an interview at a U.S. navy medical center as part of her application for the post of office director. To her delight and surprise she was offered the job. Her boss later explained: "Although unversed in medicine, you are competent in other areas, such as English and secretarial skills. You also have the experience and ability to handle matters on your own initiative." Liu played the role of bridge between Chinese and American experts. Four years later, having already gained American citizenship, she married her boss, Professor Russell Alexander.

After her first daughter was born, Liu moved to the United States. As wife to the dean of Washington University's Epidemiological Department, Liu needed to understand and adapt to American life. She learned to cook, drive, manage household finances, fill out tax returns, understand grassroots politics, and enjoy outdoor exercise. But a good American wife also needs a profession.

At this time feminism was at its zenith. After attending a series of lectures on gender equality, Liu became convinced that she, along with other women, should step out of the kitchen. But when it came to finding work, she was dismayed to discover that she had no competitive edge in the U.S., where there was a wealth of native English speaking shorthand typists. After the birth of her second daughter in 1974, therefore, Liu decided to go back to school.

In August 1981, after six years' study, Liu, then aged 43, received a master's degree in agricultural economics. Soon after graduating she paid a visit to her hometown on China's mainland, and was immediately overwhelmed by love for her native home. To her disappointment, American agricultural economics could not be applied to China's particular agricultural conditions. Liu consequently returned to the U.S. to study a subject that would have more practical use in China. She chose comparative economics, and gained another master's degree.

It was during Liu's studies at the University of Arizona from 1980 to 1983 that China adopted its opening and reform policy. Many Chinese scholars went to the U.S. at this time, either as students or visiting scholars. Liu often received friends from the mainland, and was able to obtain from them an insight into the progress being made in China.

In 1984 Liu's family moved to Atlanta -- the transportation, commercial and economic hub of southeast America. One year later Liu got a job at IBM that took her to Beijing. Her husband was loath to be parted from her, but eventually agreed to let her go. IBM had come to an agreement with China's Fourth Ministry of Machine-Building Industry whereby the two entities would cooperate in implementing industrial automation in China. As interpreter and coordinator of this cooperative project, Liu toured China's key reform projects, including the Anshan Steel Plant, Shanghai Oil Refinery, Chongqing Seamless Steel Plant, and the North China Power Plant. She thus witnessed at close hand the rapid changes that were occurring in China, and was able to gauge its industrial, commercial, and sci-tech requirements.

By the time Liu returned to the U.S at the conclusion of the IBM project, American enterprises already had their eye on the immense Chinese market. In an effort to facilitate US-China cooperation, a consulting company was co-founded in Atlanta. Its main shareholders were the Coca Cola company, the then largest telephone company in the U.S., the largest local bank in Atlanta, and the China Association for Science and Technology. Liu was one of the company's project managers.

On one occasion, a young American businessman came to Liu for advice on how to trade with China. Liu suggested he import China-processed silk garments. In the 1980s China's clothing market was undeveloped, and exporting required much travel and personal overseeing. The young American merchant found all this so wearing that he decided to give it up, despite having orders to fill.

Liu subsequently decided to engage in the business herself. She quit her job with the consulting company, and went to China. After laborious research she set up cooperative ties with Chongqing Municipality, and founded a joint venture based in the U.S. The garments were designed in New York, the fabric was printed in the Republic of Korea, and they were made up in Shenzhen, before being sold to the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Despite fierce competition within the garment trade, Liu's company recorded successive increases in business volume. Its silk dresses were retailed in U.S. luxury chain stores and remained popular for several years.

The expansion of her business meant that Liu had less and less time to spend with her family, which made her husband unhappy. The marriage consequently suffered. In 1995, after their first daughter had married and the second had gone to college, the couple separated, and Professor Alexander moved to Seattle to take up a new job. Liu was left alone at home, musing over the thought: "This is a twist of fate, rather than retribution. Half of my life is in the U.S, and the other half is in China." Liu made up her mind to return to China.

Liu handed over the U.S. side of the business to her Chongqing partner, sold her house, and left for China. She worked initially at her brother's company in Sichuan, and then went to Beijing, where she met and married sculptor Li Xingjian. 

Liu takes the civilized American approach towards divorce. She exchanges daily phone calls and e-mails with her daughters and grandchildren, and is also on good terms with her former husband, who has remarried. His second wife is American, doctor of chemistry.

Liu has no regrets, because she has reached her career goal and achieved even more than she expected in her family life. "Russel and his wife are a perfect match. She takes much better care of him than I ever did. My husband Li Xingjian and I are still working on how to accommodate each other. Despite the differences in our cultural and educational backgrounds, we are very similar, being more or less the same age, coming from north China, and having a passion for the arts. Li is kind and honest. He has retained the pure heart of an artist despite having experienced 60 years of China's vicissitudes. This is both rare and commendable. The course of my life has so far been in a series of arcs: half of them in the U.S and the other half in China. Retirement marked the end of my sojourn in the U.S. and the resumption of my life in China. That means the final arc of my life will join the first to make a perfect circle. I seem to have clinched a win-win deal, don't I?"