From: [email-masked]
Date: June 1994

This message is to everyone on the EBCCF.

My name is Newton Xuemin Liu and I am honored to be asked to join the 
EBCCF, for which I am obligated to introduce myself.

Well, what can I say?  My great C.V. goes like this:

1978-82   Jilin University, B.S. in Science (Chemistry)
1982-85   Chengdu University of Science and Technology
	  Assistant Lecturer (Institute of Polymer Materials and Science)
1985-86   Monterey Peninsula College (junior), ESL student
1986-89   University of California at Berkeley, M.A. in rhetoric 
	  (Yeap, they have a rhetoric department and I was the first 
          ever PRC person to be brain-washed there)
1989-92   University of California at Berkeley, Ph.D. in rhetoric 
1992-present, Program Manager of Bridge to Asi.

Bridge to Asi is a non-profit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area 
which gives educational aid to developing countries in Asia, mainly China 
(mainland), the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.  We do books, 
journals as well as electronic information transfer via Internet. 
(Contact me if you'd like to learn more)

I am really fond of the Forum mainly because it creates room for different 
voices.  This is a good exercise.  For those who write with all 
seriousness, the Forum is a good mirror for us look at our own image and 
learn from our own making.  For us Chinese, this means almost a totally 
new tradition because I see the editors do not censor opinions but help 
upgrading style and other technical aspects of the presentation.

What can I contribute, you ask?  Up until my graduation in '92, I had 
been a rhetoric TA and Graduate Student Instructor (in the final academic 
year) for five years.  Simply put, I taught English composition to 
freshmen and sophomore classes with the philosophy preached by the 
Department of Rhetoric.  We emphasized lucidity both in style and 
argument.  We were hip because we enjoyed the reputation of being strict 
in assigning grades.  Anyway, what I am saying is that I had corrected 
(labored through) close to 1,000 student papers, ranging from terrible to 
excellent but nothing like some of the writings of the CCF members.  Of 
course we did more to writing than most of the lay people would have 
thought about.  Frankly, I learned my writing (as humble as it is) from 
my teaching experience (please do not tell any of my students).

I love to contribute to the Forum in whatever way I can, although I am no 
all pro in the editing business.  Well, if you guys and gals want any 
reference, you can dig up my arts. ("Crying and Whining" and "Should We 
Make Democracy a Goddess?") in recent issues of the CCF, to see my flaws 
if you wish.  Thus ends my intro.

Sincerely,

Newton X. Liu