High school students will have the opportunity to work with outstanding university students from both Western and Chinese educational traditions who serve as Teaching/Residential Assistants.

Teaching Assistants from China typically include a diverse mix of talents from different parts of the country, with different family and religious background, interests and hobbies.

Listed below are some of the Teaching/Residential Assistants who served in the Glimpses of China program, which was founded, organized, and supervised by the Head of China Programs throughout its operational years (2002-2009).

Zach is currently a PhD candidate in government at Harvard University, with a focus on Chinese foreign policy and Chinese domestic politics.  After growing up in Denver, Colorado, Zach went to college at Brown University, graduating with a degree in political science in 2006.  After college he spent a year on a Fulbright grant in Taiwan, where he taught English at a rural elementary school and began his study of Mandarin.  He was immediately fascinated by the language and culture, and by the end of the year, he was hooked.  When Zach started his graduate program, he decided to make China the focus of his studies and to continue learning Mandarin.  Since then, he has spent two summers in mainland China, including one as a teaching assistant with Glimpses of China.  In addition to teaching courses on China’s role in international affairs and the Chinese political system, Zach led students on excursions and served as a residential advisor.

Liz Berger is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where she majored in archaeology.  While in college, she had the opportunity to work in two New York City museums, including the American Museum of Natural History, and spent considerable time studying Chinese, linguistics, and physical anthropology.  She also spent all her summers abroad.  In addition to studying Chinese in Beijing and traveling through China, she worked on two archaeological digs.  In the summer of 2009, she was a TA at Glimpses of China where she enjoyed sharing her passion for Chinese history and culture with a younger generation of students.  Currently serving a one-year term at AmeriCorps, working largely with the Chinese-speaking community of Brooklyn, New York, she intends to continue her study of archaeology in graduate school.  She is looking forward to her next trip to China where she can continue learning about an incredible country.

Jeanne Tong calls many places “home”: Sichuan, China (where she was born); Milwaukee, Wisconsin (where she grew up); and Providence, Rhode Island (where she is currently attending school).  In May 2010, she will graduate from Brown University with a degree in International Relations and East Asian Studies.  Despite having exposure to Chinese language and culture when growing up, she did not begin seriously Mandarin until college where she discovered that China offered an exciting backdrop for studying the practical application of many different disciplines – economics, sociology, political science, and history, to name a few.  Since entering college, she has spent every summer in China, traveling to places like Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Tibet. Additionally, she spent a year abroad at the London School of Economics.  In 2009, she served as a Glimpses of China teaching assistant.

Hu Xiao ranked number seven out of over 175,173 high school students in Chongqing, western China, on the National College Entrance Exam.  Currently a student at Peking University, School of International Relations, her interests include politics, philosophy, literature, and mixed martial arts. As part of the Miao ethnic minority, she takes a special interest in minority cultural affairs and has conducted research on ethnic minority issues with a university team in Xinjiang, China.  Hu Xiao studied at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark and has traveled as far as Russia, England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Sweden, Greece, Norway, and North Korea, as well as 23 cities in China.  She served as a teaching assistant for Glimpses of China in 2009.

Xu Sheng is a physics major at Peking University, where in addition to conducting research in nuclear physics with a sponsorship from the Junzheng Fund, he is an active member of the student union and the free combat team.  He received first prize in the National Physics Olympiad Competition and second prize in the National Mathematics Olympiad Competition.  Xu Sheng hails from Hefei, the capital city of Anhui province in eastern China and has a keen interest in history and culture.  He enjoys running marathons and is willing to try anything that involves a challenge.  Xu Sheng was a teaching assistant for Glimpses of China II in 2009.

Liu Di ranked first in the Department of Sociology at Peking University during her freshman year. Born and raised in Zhengzhou, Henan Province in northern China, she has family roots connecting her to many different regions of China, including an ethnic minority group ‘Bai’ native to China’s southwest, numbering less than 0.5% of China’s population.  Her multi-cultural identity has made her particularly interested in China’s societal makeup and social issues.  While at Peking University, she was selected to participate in the Stanford-Peking University program, to study abroad at the University of Hong Kong, and to study during the summer at Cambridge University.  Liu Di joined Glimpses of China in 2008 as teaching assistant and shared with students her family’s stories during the turbulent decades in contemporary Chinese history.

Johnny Cui, from Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, is currently a second year JD student at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City.  After graduating from Peking University with bachelor’s degrees in international relations and economics in 2006, he accepted a Dean’s Merit Scholarship to study at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.  Prior to attending law school, Johnny completed a short internship with a senior Justice in the New York Supreme Court.  In 2008, he worked as a summer associate in a US law firm in Shanghai.  Johnny first worked for Glimpses of China as a TA in 2005 during his third year in college, and joined the program again as TA in 2007.

Ma Lin is an economics PhD student at the University of Michigan, where he focuses on quantitative international macroeconomics and trade.  Growing up in a Muslim family in Beijing, Ma Lin received his bachelor’s degrees in finance and history from Peking University.  He spent two years at the University of Pittsburgh, during which time he focused on the transmission of economic fluctuations across countries, graduating with a Master’s degree in economics.  Ma Lin has a keen interest in East Asian economies, including China, as well as political and military history.  He served as a teaching assistant for Glimpses of China in 2006, where he led discussions on Chinese economic growth, Chinese history, as well as minority and religious issues in China.

Zhou Danjie currently works as a consultant in a global executive search firm in Boston, focusing on technology industries and cross-border searches across the United States and Asia.  Growing up in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province in eastern China, she attended Shanghai’s Fudan University, where she studied English Literature and served as President of the Students’ Union at the School of Foreign Languages.  She moved to New York to study for a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology at Columbia University, during which time she interned at the United Nations Chinese Language Program and worked as a Learning and Development intern at American Management Association and NBC Universal.  Danjie served as a teaching assistant for Glimpses of China in 2004.

Mei Rui, born in Shanghai, is an international award-winning concert pianist, a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at Yale University, and an adjunct professor at the Sophie Davis Biomedical School at the City University of New York.  Mei received her bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, and proceeded to obtain her master’s degree and Artist Diploma under the tutelage of world-renowned pianists, Claude Frank and Peter Frankl, at Yale School of Music.  The recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including the Van Gelder Memorial Award, the Lowenthal Fellowship, Sheffield Scientific Scholarship and the Joseph Selden Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts, she has given solo recitals in Beijing, Brussels, Hong Kong, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Vienna, and has soloed with the Beijing and Shanghai Philharmonias, the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra, the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, and Yale Symphony Orchestra.  Mei served as a teaching assistant for Glimpses of China in 2004.