Sinophile’s Sojourn Triggers Firm Roots

Great Wall Friendship Award winner John Boutin 

in conversation with BTM’s Daragh Moller

The highest acclamation a “foreign expert” in Beijing can receive is the Great Wall Friendship Award, bestowed each year by Beijing Municipal Government in recognition of outstanding contributions to the city by foreign specialists. Says interviewee Boutin: “I love this place. No two ways  about it!”

Since its establishment in 1999, the Award has been given to 78 experts in sectors as diverse as tourism, medicine, economics and education. In 2004, 18 foreign experts received the prestigious awards from the Mayor of Beijing, Wang Qishan, at a glittering ceremony in December.

Recipients included Canadian Sinophile John Boutin, recognized for his contributions to English-language learning and awareness in Beijing.  A former Catholic minister, Boutin has played a high-profile role in assisting city departments improve English language signage in the capital. He came to the notice of the Department of Foreign Affairs as a popular and enthusiastic English-language communicator.

Now Director of Education at Beijing New Bridge Foreign Language School, Boutin is delighted with the accolade. “It is a statement,” he believes. “It says that if you give your heart to the country, you will be rewarded.”

 Although only in China since 2001, Boutin is keen to share how the seeds of his journey to this country were planted many years ago when he was 16 and living in Saskatchewan, Western Canada.

He had been brought up bilingual in French and English. As a boy, he was an enthusiast of the work of French poet and playwright Paul Claudel (1868-1955) who held diplomatic posts in China between 1885 and 1906. Claudel’s evocative and romantic images of the Middle Kingdom captured the imagination of the young Boutin. Other influences reinforced his empathy for China.

He recalls: “In our local village was a café run by a Chinese man. My father really liked this man, and I really liked my dad, who used to say I was like his Chinese friend. He got into the habit of saying “John, you are just like our Chinese friend!””

Arriving in China in early 2001 as a teacher, Boutin recalls with surprising enthusiasm his dormitory living, orientation to China, and even the jet-lag he suffered. “I couldn’t believe I was here,” he says. “It felt like it had taken years to get here, which of course it had.”

In the intervening years, Boutin had built a career as a Christian minister and Catholic priest in Canada. On retirement he felt free to pursue his dream of coming to China. Today finds him firmly embedded in a busy, exciting life in Beijing.

Ever active in teaching, public speaking and contributing to English Speaking Beijing, a “speak English” committee set up by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Boutin is a part of the city’s determination to bring together 35 percent of Beijingers as speakers of English by the time of the 2008 Olympics in the capital.

“When I’m asked to do something, I tend to say yes,” he laughs. “I was well trained before working as a church minister, when many things are unexpected and flexibility is important.” He admits to being a perfectionist, “continuously learning and always in the pursuit of knowledge”.

Evidence of this currently sees Boutin finding time to work as an English language test examiner, contributing to Marshall Cavendish English Language Teaching, and consulting for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Boutin’s busy-ness reflects many of the changes taking place in the country. “Today, China is a vibrant place. My only concern is how Chinese people cope with the pace of change, and what kind of psychological impact it is having.”

Few would deny that this change is a good thing, and that the Great Wall Friendship Award has been an opportunity for China to publicly show appreciation for the “gift brought by foreign friends”, as Boutin puts it. He adds: “To me, it is China saying a foreigner is no longer an alien but a friend”.