Editor's note: This year marks the 55th anniversary of the China-US Ping-Pong Diplomacy, a historic episode that paved the way for the normalization of bilateral relations. 

To revisit the journey of people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, this series features interviews with representative figures from the fields of sports, culture, economy, current affairs, and education — all of whom have contributed to China-US exchanges over the past 55 years.

Jeffrey Lehman has served as vice-chancellor of NYU Shanghai since the university's founding in 2012. During his years in Shanghai, he has received the city's highest honors for expats, such as the Magnolia Gold Award, Magnolia Silver Award, and Honorary Citizen of Shanghai.

In 1972, when Lehman was a high school junior in the United States, he knew almost nothing about China, yet he loved playing ping pong.

Growing up in Maryland, his family kept a ping-pong table in the basement, where he often played with his father and friends.

In April 1972, his father told him that he had tickets to see the visiting Chinese table tennis team play an exhibition match at the University of Maryland.

"We got to see this incredible exhibition of talent, people like Liang Geliang and Zheng Minzhi, playing a quality of ping pong that I'd never seen before," he said.

The next day at school, he told his friends what he had witnessed. About an hour later, one of them came running into his classroom and said, "You are not going to believe this. A player from the Chinese team is next door at the shopping mall. They’ve set up a table, and she’s happy to play against anybody. You should go play."

He ran out of the high school, went next door, and played against her.

"I don't remember who it was, but she hit the ball harder than I'd ever encountered before. It was thrilling, and that, I guess, was the beginning of my connection to China," he said.

By 1998, Lehman was dean of the University of Michigan Law School. That year, the US and Chinese governments agreed to bring four deans of American law schools to China to meet with their Chinese counterparts and discuss the rule of law. Lehman was invited to join the delegation.

"That was my first trip to China, and it was astonishing for me. It was life-changing. I came over for one year, and one year became two years, and three years, and four years," he said.

In 2012, New York University, East China Normal University, and the governments of Shanghai and the Pudong New Area invited him to relocate to Shanghai to help launch NYU Shanghai.

Today, NYU Shanghai has students from about 80 countries. The university has a rule that every freshman must have at least one roommate who holds a passport from a different country.

Lehman believes this approach encourages genuine cross-cultural communication among students.

"We will continue to do our best to ensure that our students become deeply educated about the world so that, as they take on positions of leadership in their countries, they will be able to share their actual experiences and knowledge of the rest of the world with fellow leaders back home," he noted.

"Follow your curiosity wherever it leads. It's a big world out there, and don't pull back. Always pursue new opportunities to learn wherever they are," he added.

Ping-pong diplomacy

Ping pong diplomacy began in early April 1971 at the World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, when US player Glenn Cowan accidentally boarded a bus carrying the Chinese team, leading to an unexpected encounter with Chinese player Zhuang Zedong.

In the days that followed, the Chinese government invited the US table tennis team to visit China. On April 10, 1971, the team arrived in Beijing, becoming the first US delegation to enter the country since 1949.

The visit became a powerful symbol of goodwill, signaling a willingness on both sides to improve relations.

A year later, in April 1972, the Chinese table tennis team paid a return visit to the US, further strengthening emerging cultural and diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Source: Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries