Recent Publications
I believe that opportunities present themselves to those who seek them.
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That’s why, upon receiving an email from Notre Dame Global inviting me to attend their six-day writer's retreat at Kylemore Abbey, I responded affirmatively without hesitation.
Are you a tourist or a pilgrim?
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Reflecting upon my past 40 years after crossing the Pacific Ocean on a one-way flight when I was 27, I realized I had started out as a tourist, fixating on external appearances, admiring scenes and sights like clouds in the passing. In time, like a pilgrim, I focused more on my internal development, seeking deeper self-awareness through reflection and meeting other people. All along, one question kept nagging me: How does one know who they really are?
When a plant blossoms, it announces the arrival of spring by producing buds before bearing fruit. When people blossom, we likewise flourish. However, when that lush season ends — and it will end, for everything and everyone — do we wither and become forever dormant?
Ethnocentricity should not always be problematic. Hollywood has excelled in spreading American values around the globe. So has Silicon Valley, as a technological leader of the world. In those cases, it's perfectly normal for people to feel superiority and exceptionalism.
Cheng Wang, was featured in an article published in the ND Magazine's Spring 2023 Issue. The piece chronicles the winding journey that Cheng's life and career has taken him to becoming an ILI fellow in the 2022-2023 academic year. You can read the article (you can read here)
Following Mao's call to the young during the Cultural Revolution, Cheng Wang, a so-called “Educated Youth,” boarded a train destined for a secluded village in Inner Mongolia for the compulsory period of re-education. For the next three grueling years in rural exile, he pondered how his once privileged family had been caught in a political undertow, and how his own future might unfold.
A Winding Path from Mao's "Educated Youth" to Published Author, Cheng Wang
From Tea to Coffee is a story of struggle and triumph during China’s modern-day cultural and political drama, and is a rare and personal account that showcases the Chinese national psyche. The author Cheng Wang talks to Book Glow about the memoir.
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What led you to write From Tea to Coffee?
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"...to commemorate China’s lost generation due to the Cultural Revolution. History betrayed our youthful zeal. More than a generation of talented people have been deprived of formal education, as if millions of trees fall in a forest and no one is around to hear it; thus, our voices—and our existences—are forever missing..."
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