When I was 16 years old, I came across a book in a small, state-owned bookstore in China. I don’t know how it escaped the government’s censors, but I was soon mesmerized by Chatting About America. Here I encountered a world foreign to my experiences but intriguing to my curious soul. It was about a land of freedom, where people were encouraged to think independently and critically and to participate in a market of ideas. This place was America.
During a book-reading report, I talked about this book and the idea of liberty with my classmates. My zeal was received with apathy from my classmates and dismissed by the teacher. That’s when I started to dream about escaping from the Chinese schools that seek nothing but to indoctrinate young minds and transform human beings into “animal laborans” (in Hannah Arendt’s apt words). I wanted to pursue a classical liberal arts education in America so badly that the daydream tormented me for years.
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