I had the privilege to visit one of the leading law and political sciences university of China during 7-14 April 2018. The Southwest University of Law and Political Sciences consists of six schools dedicated to different fields of law and a faculty of education of international students. My host, Qin Jie, works as a professor at the Civil and Commercial Law School and she serves as the Dean of the International Education School. Her main field of research in intellectual property, and related to that I was invited to co-teach her International Copyright Law class and a PhD course. 51 students signed up for the international copyright course from two distinct schools, but all of them prepared excellently during the whole week. Although the foreign cases and the different logic of copyright law in Europe and the United States posed some challenges for them, they met these challenges with humility and unlimited enthusiasm. They turned to me with excellent questions during the class, in the breaks and after the classes, too. They also shared their own experiences with me on Chinese copyright law.
A significant amount of time was dedicated to the negotiations on a possible collaboration of our institutions. As a part of that I met the Dean of the Civil and Commercial Law School, Zhao Wanyi, and his Vice-Dean, Li Zhaoyu. Teamed up with Professor Qin we discussed the possibilities of a versatile cooperation, ranging from students’ and teachers’ mobility and joint research to joint PhD trainings.
The Leadership of the School expressed its willingness to visit Szeged during the early summer of this year. As a further professional activity, I visited an internet corporation specialized in the application of trademarks and many other related activities. I got familiarized with the corporations operation, portfolio and its global plans.
On the top of these all, I visited numerous exciting historical and cultural places, including the Yuan Bo Yuan park, the zoo (giving home to pandas), the Three Gorges Museum, the People’s Square, the ancient village of Ci Qikuo (that functions in practice as a shopping mall). I got familiarized with the local dishes (no matter how spicy they were), and with many elements of the Chinese language, history and philosophy. Whenever possible, I also shared my knowledge with my hosts on our culture. Finally, the icing on the cake was when I was given a tai chi performance and a karaoke show on the last class with my students.
