QI, Shouhua 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born February 10, 1957, in Nanjing, China; son of Yingyao (a teacher) and Huilan (a farmer; maiden name, Ye) Qi; married Xiaohong Wang (a medical technologist), April 28, 1982; children: Frank Y. Ethnicity: "Chinese." Education: Nanjing Teachers' University, B.A., 1981, M.A., 1985; Illinois State University, Ph.D., 1993.

ADDRESSES:

Home—6106 Ironwood Dr., Harrisburg, PA 17112. Office—Department of English, Harrisburg Area Community College, 1 HACC Dr., Harrisburg, PA 17110. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and author. Harrisburg Area Community College, Harrisburg, PA, assistant professor of English, 1993—. Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, adjunct professor of humanities, 1997—. Central Pennsylvania Little Star Chinese Language School, cofounder and coordinator, 1998—.

MEMBER:

Modern Language Association of America, National Council of Teachers of English, Central Pennsylvania Chinese Association (member of executive board; director of public relations, 1998-99).

WRITINGS:

Transcending the Pacific (essays; in Chinese; also see below), Henan People's Publishing House (China), 1999.

Bridging the Pacific: Searching for Cross-Cultural Understanding between the United States and China (essays and short stories; includes translation of Transcending the Pacific), China Books and Periodicals (San Francisco, CA), 2000.

The New Century Guide in Practical English Communication, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press (Shanghai, China), 2000.

Western Writing Theories, Pedagogies, and Practices, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press (Shanghai, China), 2000.

Success in Advanced English Writing: A Comprehensive Guide, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press (Shanghai, China), 2000.

Contributor to periodicals.

TRANSLATOR INTO CHINESE

Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (novel), Yiling/Translators' Press (China), 1994.

Thomas Hardy, The Well Beloved (novel), Yiling/Translators' Press (China), 1998.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Research on cross-cultural issues and on rhetoric and composition in American, English, and Chinese literature.

SIDELIGHTS:

Shouhua Qi told CA: "It was early 1996. The skies over the Taiwan Strait were clouded with smoke from a recent, live missile exercise. Huge, stoic shadows of aircraft carriers loomed just miles away from the southern mouth of the strait that had been sealed off for war games. The specter of another major, bloody showdown hung in the air.

"As a Chinese scholar living and teaching in the United States, I felt called upon to help build a bridge of understanding across the muddy waters of the Pacific so that there would be peace, not only 'in our time,' but also in the twenty-first century, between two of the most important countries in the world. This self-assigned (and exaggerated, perhaps) mission resulted in many essays and op-ed pieces on U.S.-China relations and on cross-cultural (mis)understanding, published in various newspapers and magazines. Later, I translated and rewrote them into Chinese, put them in a collection titled Transcending the Pacific, and had the work published in China. The English edition, which includes other personal essays and short stories, is titled Bridging the Pacific: Searching for Cross-Cultural Understanding between the United States and China.

"Is an ocean as wide as the Pacific bridgeable? Can we find a happy mean between old and new, East and West, friend and foe? The quest (quixotic?) for understanding and for a peaceful relationship between two of the most important nations in the world today is what drives me to think and write in both English and Chinese. The efforts by many to build a bridge of understanding across the Pacific have encountered many setbacks, sometimes of Sisyphean proportions, but there is no reason to give up.

"The other book-length projects I have undertaken, whether translating classic English novels or introducing Western writing theories and pedagogies into the classrooms in China, are all part of this bridging project. I am a teacher, scholar, and writer, and I am also a self-appointed 'cultural ambassador' of some sort between China and the United States. Being bilingual and bicultural, I'm in a unique position to play this multi-faceted role."