Jiang Hong
General Manager
Shaanxi Xiaoyao International Travel Service Co., Ltd.
LANGUAGES. PEOPLE. CONNECTIONS.When I was ten, China was just beginning to open up to the world. Foreign visitors were still uncommon, and everyday material comforts were modest compared with today. Life beyond China felt distant and unfamiliar.
My American English teacher, John Broman, gave me a few colour photographs and a box of twelve crayons. Something you could buy in a Japanese stationery shop felt extraordinary to me in China at the time. Together, those photographs and crayons made the world beyond China feel real.
Through him, I began learning about the Western world. I studied French from primary school through high school, then Japanese at university. That curiosity about language and culture stayed with me.
“I still remember how much it meant to have someone share their world with me.”
I went on to spend thirty years working in inbound tourism, welcoming overseas travellers to China.
Mr Broman and I met in Beijing in 1988. In August 2024, we reunited in Japan, thirty-six years later.
Today, that memory shapes the welcome I hope our guests receive in China: someone who listens, explains with care and helps them understand everyday life here.
Jiang Hong
Mr John Broman is Chairman of Miyagi MeySen Academy in Sendai, Japan ↗. This link provides biographical context; it does not imply the school endorses our travel services.
The year of the preserved group photograph.
A meeting in Beijing.
Reunited in Japan in August, after 36 years.
