China Info

A Tale of Three Decades in China
Michael Kahn-Ackermann can look
back on more than 3 decades of
breathtaking changes in China. He
was a student at Peking University at
the end of the “ten chaotic years,”
then founding father of the first Western
cultural institute in China during
the reform and opening up period in
the 80s, and he later became head of
the Goethe-Institut in Beijing at the
beginning of the 21st century.
From his office on the 17th floor of
the Digital Tower, Michael Kahn-
Ackermann looks out at the busy Sitong
crossroad, a construction site of subway
line no. 4 and the compound of the
Friendship Hotel. On a clear day, he can
see the Western hills behind the everrising
skyline of new multi-story
buildings. The view today could not be
more different from when Kahn-
Ackermann first came to China in 1975.
Back then, Kahn-Ackermann studied the
Chinese Language at the Beijing Language
& Culture University with a grant
from the DAAD, and later he enrolled
in Modern Chinese History at Peking
University.
Thinking back to how Beijing
looked at the time, the only thing Kahn-
Ackermann deplores is the failure of city
planning officials to preserve the heritage
of ‘historical Beijing,’ a city which
“I suddenly felt at home here. This is what the Chinese call
yuanfen (destiny).”
Michael Kahn-Ackermann, Director of the Goethe-Institut China
is considered one of the most important
cultural monuments in the world. The
traffic-choked Chinese capital of today
thus fills him with a sense of “visual
pain.”
After two years in Beijing, Kahn-
Ackermann spent another year in Taiwan
before he returned to Germany.
There he wrote the well-acclaimed book
‘China -- Drinnen vor der Tür’ about his
experiences in China, and worked as a
journalist before joining the Goethe-
Institut in 1981.
“As early as 1981 it was my dream
to be the first director of a Goethe-
Michael Kahn-Ackermann, Director of the Goethe-
Institut China. Photo: private
Institut in China,” he says. But before
his dream came true, Kahn-Ackermann
was seconded to Shanghai for three
years where he held the position of
spokesperson for the German-Chinese
College at Tongji University. At that
time he made a name for himself as a
translator of modern Chinese with his
award-winning translation of Zhang
Jie’s ‘Heavy wings’ ( ).
Negotiations for the founding of a
Goethe-Institut in China dragged on for
several years, and it was only in 1988 that
Kahn-Ackermann finally returned to
Beijing with the mandate to set up the first
Western cultural institute in the capital.
The first
years were not
easy. “Before
1993, we were
only allowed to
teach the German
language,” Kahn-Ackermann recalls.
“Only in 1993, did we receive permission
to organize cultural programmes.
But as soon as they were set up, they
would immediately be banned.” In the
aftermath of June 4th, 1989, the
institute’s language courses were interrupted
for 2-3 months. “But it was very
important for us to stay on at the time
and I fought for that against some forces
in Germany who advocated a
withdrawal,” says Kahn-Ackermann.
In 1994, Kahn-Ackermann left
China to run the Goethe-Institut in
Moscow. This was followed by a term
in Rome from 1999 to 2006. He only
came back to China once in 2003 for a
visit to his wife’s family. Unfortunately,
at that time the capital was paralyzed by
the SARS epidemic and the visit turned
into a bizarre experience of empty streets
and isolation.
When he was approached in 2006
to take over the Goethe-Institut in China
one more time, Kahn-Ackermann hesitated
at first, and so did his Chinese wife.
But a visit to Beijing in the spring of
2006 changed their minds almost
immediately: “There was such an unbelievable
energy,” says Kahn-
Ackermann, “And I suddenly felt at
home here. This is what the Chinese call
yuanfen (destiny).”
The Goethe-Institut’s headquarters
in Munich also pledged a handsome increase
in the operating budget for China,
which would enable Kahn-Ackermann
to face up to the new challenges: “There
will be completely new strategies for
cultural cooperation between Germany
and China, which will potentially cover
all territories including Hong Kong and
Taiwan. We plan to considerably extend
our network and build up a presence in
locations where there is currently no
Goethe-Institut,” he explains. “Negotiations
are underway with several secondtier
cities like Xi’an, Chengdu, Nanjing
and Qingdao to establish entities similar
to the Chinese Confucius Institutes
in Germany. Fortunately, there are
hardly any political restrictions these
days to the work of the Goethe-Institut
in China, only economic ones.”
At the moment, the director of the
Goethe-Institut is overwhelmed with
work, coordinating a series of cultural
events to be held in China as part of the
“Germany in China” program. The first
of these events is scheduled to take place
in October 2007 in Nanjing.
If things go according to plan,
Kahn-Ackermann has another four years
to shape German-Chinese cultural
exchange. Although he has no specific
retirement plans, it seems unlikely that
he would sit idle. And with Beijing being
his newly rediscovered home, it is
most likely that he will stay.
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DAAD China Info 1/2007 15