Still, no reason was given. My past experiences have involved unexplained decisions which only made sense in retrospect - no first year students one year (because, it emerged, they were needed for a patriotic parade), double sized classes the next (to absorb the last year's students). Perhaps we'll learn that this year's decisions are also based on some unrelated factor. My sponsor says we should apply again next year.
To be honest, I was concerned that this year's summer school might not allow a virtual option. I was invted to confirm my interest in returning just a week before the government's abrupt about-face on covid, and the expectation at that point was that things might stay virtual for years. I was prepared to ask to defer if teaching required being there in person, given the continuing difficulty and considerable expense of travel now. But I might have found a way to go anyway. One reason I value this opportunity is because the picture one gets of China from here has long been so one-sidedly grim, and only getting darker; spending time there was a way to get a more balanced view, or at least a more complicated one.
Colleagues I met at the international summer school the first time I went said one of the best things were the unscripted conversations with students between and outside classes, and that proved to be true. I missed out on those during our years of virtual instruction; the classes all happened on a Chinese zoom-analog called voov and were all of course recorded. But meeting students in small groups still allowed us to engage each other as human beings, full of curiosity and care. Laughing together was especially sweet.
It's been over three years since I was last in China, three years in which so much has happened domestically and internationally. This may not be a "cold war" but it's getting chilly. Humanizing unscripted conversations are more important than ever, but rarer and rarer.
