My university has a business relationship with a number of Chinese universities but staff at my university know virtually nothing about it. Knowing I was going to China I approached the public relations department to suggest I write a little magazine piece on one of these universities. My proposal was approved but the finished article was never published and I was never told why.

I conducted the following interview with Prof. Yuan in Shanghai on the 19th August 2005. He checked and approved every word so what remains is not the least controversial from his point of view. The Shanghai Fisheries University is one of several in China where my university teaches various subjects and this area of activity is intensely political within my university. Perhaps this is just an example of how sometimes doing business with China is harder than we Australians expected.

Professor Yuan Hong Chun is Associate Professor in Information Technology at the Shanghai Fisheries University, head of the School of Information Management and Information Systems, a Phd. and Supervisor of Masters Students. He is 34. I first met him in early 2005 while he was a visiting academic in Information Systems at the University of Tasmania.

I once remarked to my Chinese lecturer, Tao Min, that on my next visit to China I would like to visit the much-fabled city of Shanghai. Tao Min introduced us and with typical Chinese generosity Professor Yuan immediately offered to be my guide should I make it to his hometown.

The Fisheries University has two campuses; one in Shanghai and the other at Nan Hui where Professor Yuan is based. True to his word he met my overnight train from Beijing, found me accommodation at his university and took me on a whirlwind three-day tour of what is arguably the most exciting city in China. It is a boomtown; a crowded, busy city bustling with commercial activity, ostentatious wealth, soaring buildings of the most flamboyant design and at the same time many beautiful parks and public amenities. The Shanghai Museum, for instance, is definitely worth a look for a lesson on China’s five thousand year culture.

Professor Yuan argues that in China it is common for university professors to be even younger than him. Notwithstanding his passion for Shanghai, he has only been here for three years, being born in Jiangsu province. In many ways he embodies the new China; completely happy if not excited by the rapid economic growth of his city, married with a daughter, a wife who works in one of the glass towers in the city centre, and living with her parents in a beautiful one million yuan apartment on the 10th floor of an ornate apartment block close to the university.

He also points out that the cost of his apartment is normal for Shanghai and he doesn’t drive a car because he doesn’t consider he can afford (rather than out of any concern for the environment which he acknowledges is somewhat polluted). He does ride a non-polluting electric scooter like many staff and students at his university. Shanghai is currently the only Chinese city where authorities charge a significant fee (averaging over 30,000 RMB) for a number plate. In number terms the salaries of Chinese academics look almost close to their Australian counterparts – until you realise that the Chinese yuan (RMB) is only worth one sixth of an Australian dollar.

Professor Yuan enjoyed his visit to Tasmania. He found the climate very mild after the extremes of hot and cold at home. He also applauded the efficiency of our university; “The cost of administration is far lower than in China where most faculty staff are involved with student support rather than teaching.”

Chinese students live on campus and until recently their lives were very closely supervised. Relations between male and female students were strictly forbidden. As recently as 2004 regulations were changed to allow students to marry… but they can’t live together. The next controversy is expected to be what happens when a pregnancy occurs!

Shanghai Fisheries University is a normal university with a general curriculum, but with a specialty in subjects related to fishing. In China it is normal for a university to have such a specialty to make them more competitive. For instance there is an authority on the campus responsible for testing the effectiveness of fishing nets and a large “Whale House” dedicated to the anatomy of whales with skeletons and a huge model that revealed to me how big and how weird-looking whales really are.

Some of SFU’s buildings are currently being demolished to make way for a massive new ring road and in two years the whole campus will move out of the city to a completely new campus at Luchao Port, leaving this site to be absorbed by a neighbouring university. There are over 30 universities in Shanghai.

I had meals in both the student and staff cafeterias (the latter more like a restaurant) and the major issue that students raised with me was that many of them would like to improve their English but seldom got a chance to use it. I thought there was a lesson there for the way we teach languages in either country.

Professor Yuan doesn’t know when he will make it back to Tasmania but when he does I will owe him a heavy debt in hospitality.

(Click on images to enlarge)