{"id":28043,"date":"2010-07-23T19:40:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/?p=28043"},"modified":"2023-11-04T20:19:46","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T20:19:46","slug":"sven-hovmoeller-and-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/blog\/2010\/07\/sven-hovmoeller-and-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Sven Hovmoeller on China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1980 Sven Hovm\u00f6ller was a postdoc in EMBL Heidelberg\u2019s Structural and Computational Biology Unit. His lifelong interest in China meant he was thrilled to meet another postdoc, Yun Li, who joined the unit from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry. Thirty years later, Sven \u2013 now professor of chemistry at Stockholm University \u2013 would like to find his long-lost colleague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cMy interest in China started when I was a child,\u201d he explains. \u201cI was always fascinated by the idea that if you dug a hole from Sweden you would end up in China. During the 1968 student revolution, I was very interested in politics and China\u2019s cultural revolution. It was only later that I grew to understand that it was a terrible time in China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yun Li was the first Chinese person Sven had ever met. \u201cShe was very friendly, interesting and kind. I remember being moved by her stories about how poor the conditions were in China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yun Li<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Both eventually left EMBL, but Sven\u2019s interest in China remained. In 1984, he recruited his first Chinese student, Da Neng Wang, who later also joined EMBL to work with Werner K\u00fchlbrant. \u201cI discovered that the Chinese PhD students who were allowed to go abroad were exceptionally talented,\u201d says Sven. \u201cTypically, they were the best in the province at the university entrance test \u2013 in other words, the best among 10,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having been one of the first professors in Sweden to have Chinese PhD students, Sven says there are now thousands of Chinese in Sweden with a university education. \u201cIn my department, we have more Chinese than Swedes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does China still send their best students to Europe and the US? \u201cYes, but many of them are now attracted by business and law. But if all the Chinese scientists moved back, China would be number one for science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1987, Sven got a second PhD student. \u201cXiaodong Zou is now my wife and a very successful scientist,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have two wonderful sons, who speak Chinese better than me. I would love to find Yun Li and tell her my story!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1980 Sven Hovm\u00f6ller was a postdoc in EMBL Heidelberg\u2019s Structural and Computational Biology Unit. His lifelong interest in China meant he was thrilled to meet another postdoc, Yun Li, who joined the unit from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry. Thirty years later, Sven \u2013 now professor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-28043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/yun_li_1ov.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28043"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28095,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28043\/revisions\/28095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28043"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=28043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}