A chance to learn firsthand

From her small classically renovated courtyard office in a hutong in central Beijing, Holly Chang is busy helping organize a planned invasion of Americans get off the ground.

The 32-year-0ld Texan woman has the backing of US President Barack Obama but there is nothing sinister about their plan; just the opposite in fact.

She's working on the US government's "100,000 Strong Initiative," announced by Obama in 2009 and formally launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in May 2010.

The plan is to bring 100,000 US students to study in the Chinese mainland before the end of 2014. The high-minded initiative's goals are twofold: give American young people a firsthand chance to experience China as it really is, and narrow the gap between the number of Chinese students studying in the US and the number of Americans studying in China.

Chang, who is a fourth-generation overseas Chinese, first came to China as a teenager and was shocked by the reality she found.

"I lived in the south in Texas where China was portrayed in the news as a very dark place… It was seen as a threat, as something to be feared," said Chang.

Her preconceived notions made for a rather unpleasant first trip to China. "I wouldn't even get off the bus, because I really didn't feel comfortable," recalled Chang of her first visit to China with her parents in 1993.

Preconceived ideas of China

Chang's epiphany occurred on a subsequent visit to China almost five years after her first. It shocked her to realize how comfortable her life was in the US compared to the hardworking porters she saw carrying goods on their back up Huangshan Mountain. "It was the first time I really thought about how different our societies are. It was the first time I started thinking about China from a human perspective."

China began to tug on Chang and five years ago she studied Mandarin for a semester at Tsinghua University and then set up her grass-roots organization in Beijing dedicated to bridging the cultural gap between the two countries.

Now she's hoping to help tens of thousands of Americans to have a similar awakening about Chinese society.

The US plan to bring 100,000 students to China over four years will surely need all the help it can get.

Announced with fanfare the "100,000 Strong Initiative" is supported but not funded by the US government, which pays only for a small staff in Washington DC and provides resources for Chang on the ground in Beijing. To achieve its goals the initiative must rely on corporate sponsorships to pay for the intended scholarships.

Corporate funding lagging

Yet more than two years after Obama announced the initiative and with just over two years remaining in the initiative, donations appear to be lagging. The Obama administration estimates the initiative will need at least $68 million to meet the target of bringing 100,000 students to China. So far it has raised only $11 million.

This is where Chang in Beijing comes in. She is managing a website launched earlier in December that's designed as an online community of current and future alumni for the 100,000 Strong Initiative. It's also not funded by the US government and offering corporate sponsorships starting at $25,000.

So far the website, titled Project Pengyou (friend)， has 1,000 registered users and expects to become the social network for Americans who have had a "China experience" through the initiative and a platform to tell their stories. So far 13 Americans have posted stories about their time in China.

Chang says many of the Americans who have come to China to study gain a new perspective on the country.

"They might not understand China from a Chinese perspective, but they build strong bonds to China and their life is changed. They are the first line of defense for culture understanding," said Chang.

Statistics show that while academic exchanges that bring Americans to China are growing, China is far from their favorite place for overseas study. Chang said only one percent of American college students ever take the opportunity to study in another country and less than five percent of them come to China.

More Chinese students in the US

The opposite is true for Chinese students wanting to study aboard as the US remains their favored destination.

In the 2010-11 academic year there were fewer than 14,000 Americans studying in China, compared to more than 158,000 Chinese studying in the US.

If enough private funds are raised and the 100,000 Strong Initiative achieves its goal, 40 percent more Americans are expected to be attending some sort of course of study each year in China by 2014. If the growth in the number of Chinese students going to the US continues its upward spiral, they will still far outnumber Americans studying in China.

The US Secretary of State's Web pages outlining details of the initiative acknowledges that while the number of Americans studying in China is on rise, a program to boost their numbers is required.

"While this organic growth is encouraging, the current trends may be insufficient to meet the real challenges and opportunities of this vitally important relationship" between China and the US, states the website.

The Director of the 100,000 Strong Initiative, Carola McGiffert, who is a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, told the Global Times in an e-mail that US-China relations are "perhaps the most consequential of our time."

"We must ensure that the next generation of leaders from both sides has the cultural skills and substantive knowledge to constructively manage the US-China relationship," wrote McGiffert.

McGiffert insists that fund raising for the program is going well but notes that American students will need a lot of financial help.

"Americans are very interested in China, and the demand for studying in China is growing. However, due to the global financial crisis, many Americans cannot afford to study overseas. That is, in part, why we are helping raise funds from the private sector to provide financial aid and scholarships for Americans to study in China," wrote McGiffert.

The 100,000 Strong Initiative is designed to help students with all or part of the cost of attending a study program in China.

China providing financial support

While the US program is relying on the philanthropy of American corporations, the Chinese government and universities are also jumping with financial assistance for students from the US.

The Chinese government has offered to provide the 100,000 Strong Initiative 20,000 scholarships to American students in addition to the student financing it already gives American students.

The Shanghai municipal government has also become a contributor to the US program, offering 400,000 yuan ($63,300) a year to bring 40 American students to attend Fudan University's five-week summer study program. The program will cover all student expenses in China, but not the cost of flights. This past summer, its second, some Canadian students were among the 40 to Fudan's summer program.

The 100,000 Strong Initiative has already been at least partially credited with helping increase the enrollment of American students at Fudan University where enrollment jumped from 568 in 2009 to 1,058 this year, making US students the second largest group of oversea students at Fudan, after South Koreans.

University officials say the program is having its desired effect of raising cross-cultural awareness.

"Most of these American students had very limited knowledge about China when they came. But after a short stay their experience of writing calligraphy, making dumplings and talking to Chinese people and friends everyday brought them closer to a very true China," said Zhang Yi, deputy director of the International Students Office at Fudan University.

Changing people's lives

A survey conducted by the Project Pengyou website shows that 98 percent of the more than 700 respondents said living and studying in China dramatically changed their lives.

David Young, a 23-year-0ld American student enrolled in the Mid-West US-China Flagship Program of the Ohio State University, won a Chinese government scholarship at Fudan University this September.

"It's not easy finding a scholarship to come to China, as there are not many on offer, and a majority of students who come to China only get short-term scholarships to study Mandarin."

Young hopes someday to become a consultant for US businesses in China and says his research into China's contemporary value system and cultural history will help him achieve his goal. "Business problems are always relationship problems, without understanding the culture, you cannot understand the relationship," said Young.

James Long, a 24-year-old American student who had studied at a US naval academy before coming to Fudan for his Master's degree says visiting China firsthand has changed his view of the country. "My perception of China was that it is simply another communist country and that it could be very restricted and isolated. The people were a lot more hospitable than I imagined, and the fact that there are so many foreigners working and living in Shanghai was sort of shocking to me," said Long.

Providing people like Young and Long with a broadening experience is exactly what the 100,000 Strong Initiative is all about, says Chang from her hutong office.

"That's why coming to China is so important; it really humanizes China. We can't just talk about trade conflicts, weapons and money, currency wars… we have to understand each other as people," said Chang, who remains busy trying to talk US corporations into supporting the experience.