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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to an American high school eight years ago has had a profound and lasting impact on the students, providing them with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and serving as a catalyst for fostering closer ties between Chinese and American youths.
This visit has injected fresh momentum into the development of China-U.S. relations and positioned the students as new ambassadors of friendship.
Xi, with his wife Peng Liyuan, visited Lincoln High School in Tacoma of Washington State in 2015 during his first state visit to the United States as Chinese president.
Xi presented gifts to the students, including books on China and a ping-pong table. Xi also received gifts from the students: a football and a personalized jersey bearing his name and the “No. 1” on the back.
However, it was President Xi’s speech that truly changed the lives of many students at the school: 100 students from the school would be invited to visit China. “Through travel, you will know China better, and hopefully, you will like China,” Xi said.
In 2016, Rigel Bruce Adams, a senior at University of Washington Lincoln High School Graduate, visited China as one of those invited.
He recalls excitedly applying, hoping to be one of the fortunate ones.
“I remember hearing over the intercom in the morning for morning announcements that there was an application and 100 students who had good grades were going to be able to fly to China. And I heard good grades, and I was like ‘Oh I bet I can get it’,” he said.
The one week and a half he spent experiencing Chinese culture and meeting students left an indelible mark.
“I just remember how kind and how inviting everyone was, everywhere that we went. I met so many different people as we toured different schools and they were also wonderful and so different as well. It was quite an honor and quite a special thing,” he said.
The trip was also an eye-opening experience for Adams as it impacted his views on education.
“After I went to China and met so many of my friends and met so many different people, and I saw what their attitude was about school, and the way that they knew it was a stepping stone to something greater. I finally started to understand that education is a tool for future success, and that if you treat it like that, it will reward you,” said Adams.
Most significantly, Adams says he feels the exchange displayed how U.S.-China youth can cooperate instead of competing.
“[What] the visit by President Xi showed me and his gracious offering to send a hundred of us to go to China to meet Chinese students of our own age showed me is that there is no need for an adversarial relationship between our two peoples, that we have so much in common and that the world would be a better place if we work together than if we work against each other,” said Adams.
It is a coincidence that San Francisco was the first stop of Xi’s maiden trip to the United States decades ago. In the spring of 1985, Xi, at that time a county leader of Zhengding in China’s northern province of Hebei, took his initial steps onto U.S. soil.
Much like any other city visitor, Xi, a young man in his early thirties, had his picture taken with the Golden Gate Bridge.
That trip helped Xi get acquainted with the United States, and from then on, he fostered friendships with Americans, especially young people who hold the future of China-U.S. relations.
Established in 1913, Lincoln High School was forged a sister-school relationship with China’s Affiliated High School of Fuzhou College of Education in May, 2008.
