And then I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to China in 1980, which was quite early.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I first came to China as a child on a visit with my family in 1978.
I've been going to China every year now for more than a decade.
After graduating in the summer of 1980, I knew I wanted my life to count.
Growing up in Singapore, I wasn't allowed to visit China. So when I was finally able to go there after the country began opening up to tourism in the 1990s, I found it to be utterly astounding.
I went to China for a brief working visit, and I thought that Shanghai was interesting, but Beijing totally grabbed me.
Every President that went to China, I would meet them and have dinner and talk about the past and the future. That was in the '70s.
I graduated from college in 1980.
I was in the U.S. about 15 years. Especially in New York. And then I came back to Japan.
Once I became interested in China, I flew to Beijing in 1996 to spend half a year studying Mandarin. The city stunned me.
I was posted to China in the summer of 1988, which was the greatest time ever, I think, to have been in China.