Of Roses and Jasmine – Auto-ethnographic reflections on my early bilingual life through China’s Open-Door Policy

ABSTRACT

China’s Open-Door Policy has brought significant changes in terms of economic, education and cultural development both inside and outside China, creating valuable opportunities for understanding the cultural stereotypes Asians and Westerners have about each other. In this paper, I interrogate my experiences as an English as a foreign language (EFL) learner and then as a lecturer in multilingual and multicultural environments from the early 1990s until a lecturer in a Chinese university in the twenty-first century. My series of auto-ethnographic dialogues between a cast of characters, recalling experiences, perceptions and emotions provides readers with opportunities to actively respond to the text. Through this auto-ethnographic memoir and performance, I hope to contribute to new directions for narrative research in intercultural contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Auto-ethnography
• reflection writing
• bilingual
• identity
• cultural shock

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr Sally Denshire for her valuable advice on multiple drafts of this article. She enlightened me in thinking of many ways to take this work further. Also, I appreciate the anonymous reviewer´s helpful comments and valuable suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jinjin Lu

Dr Jinjin Lu completed her PhD in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania in Australia. She was a full-time research fellow in Charles Sturt University between 2015–2017 in Australia. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Languages at China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), China.