Bio short: Hugo de Burgh
Hugo ‘Huge’ de Burgh has just published WHO ARE WE, and how will we survive in the Age of Asia?(CamRivers 2024), which looks at the UK in the light of his experiences of Chinese people. He was first in China in 1972 as a young gofer on the British Industrial Technology Exhibition. From being a community development worker and then broadcast journalist in Scotland, he went on to teach journalism in Nottingham, in London and in China, along the way publishing books such as China’s Media in the Emerging World Order (Legend 2021). In 2017 he founded Europe’s only bilingual English-Chinese school, Kensington Wade, in London. He has just completed a fourth term at Tsinghua University, as Walt Disney Professor of Media in Schwarzman, the US college of International Relations.
WHAT CHINA TAUGHT ME ABOUT MY COUNTRY AND ITS CULTURE
I first went to China in the 1970s when even a youngster such as I could see that both China and the UK were in dire straits. In the subsequent 15 years, remarkable leaders of both countries arose to tackle what they saw as the disintegration of their societies. Although both countries changed, thanks to their guidance, it has become apparent that China has been much more successful in escaping from those straits. Our two countries are very different, in size as in history, but is there anything the British could learn from China’s experience, that would help us rejuvenate?
