Spring-Festival Thoughts

Greetings again. For many AuthorAID members in East Asia or Southeast Asia, the lunar new year is about to begin.

Thus, for example, on February 3 my colleagues in China will celebrate Spring Festival, welcoming the Year of the Rabbit. And those in Vietnam will celebrate Tet, welcoming the Year of the Cat.

This season brings back happy memories of the 2 years I spent teaching in China. This teaching, which was early in my career, was the beginning of my international work. Perhaps it was one beginning of AuthorAID.

After returning to America, I was lucky to do more work with China, in addition to my US work. I especially enjoyed leading the US aspect of a program to teach medical writing and editing in China and some other Asian countries.

In the proposal for this program, we wrote, “A broader goal is to produce a model program that can be drawn on for the teaching of scientific writing . . . at various medical and scientific institutions in China and other developing countries.”

That was in 1995. And since 2007 there has been AuthorAID.

AuthorAID has indeed drawn on this program. For example, the AuthorAID Resource Library includes materials from it. Also, as noted, 2 graduates of the program have been translating AuthorAID blog posts into Chinese.

This team has now translated many posts. Today, 24 more of them were added to the AuthorAID Resource Library.

Wishing everyone an excellent week—and an excellent Year of the Rabbit (or Cat)! —Barbara