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Don’t get me wrong. It is not about an adventure of a well-mannered American man who manages to survive in the wild like the hero of the movie Life of Pi; nor does it show an uneven wrestling competition between DHSS Associate Dean and DBM Acting Associate Dean. We sit down and get to know the real backgrounds of these two men. We discover what brought them on this journey to UIC as well as what they like to enjoy when they are not working.

By Deen He

It is a never ending process – there is always a dazzling list of books waiting for him to read after he finishes one. Being a bookworm by nature, Associate Professor Dr Charles Lowe surprisingly organises his life very well despite a great workload.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut in the USA, he is not a pedantic literature professor. His students describe him as a kind, gentle, patient and affable person. He speaks tenderly, walks lightly; but do not be deceived by that – he is not a slow thinker or an indulgent teacher. He is very strict with the students about their homework and likes to give various kinds of assignments with a rich array of requirements. He is open to a diversity of answers though, as long as the students make a point.

Some might think Charles is a bit old-fashioned and conservative. Until last year he used a small-sized ancient Nokia-ish cell phone. “When my students saw my cell phone, it always inspired laughter,” Charles cannot help grinning. His daughter ended such response by buying him a “recently updated” smartphone.

He adds that he keeps up with the news but it is taking him quite a while to get used to WeChat, an instant messaging service. “My students are helping me with the latest technology. That’s an accomplishment. I have become part of WeChat.”

The other Associate Professor of business who sits beside us, is Dr Uchenna Cyril Eze from Nigeria. When asked which animal he would be if he had to describe himself as one, he was unequivocal with his response – lion. Well, it’s not a fierce and greedy beast that simply preys on innocent animals, but a leader who bravely takes good care of his realm and the creatures in it.

Uche does not tend to confine himself to his cocoon. He travelled from Nigeria to Malaysia, Singapore and now China, where he tried his hand at banking, financing and teaching. Although he is far from his home country, he still has an eye for the economic and political situations that are developing there.

Uche is talkative, funny and easy-going in class. He is good at encouraging students to play to their strengths by praising them. Nevertheless, if students forget to insert page numbers in the documents where they should have done, he will make a serious point.

August 2012 – coincidentally, the month when Charles and Uche joined UIC is at one with each other. It is not the only thing they have in common. Family is the centre of their lives. Charles wants his daughter to be linked with Chinese culture, and goes back to the USA every summer to look after his mother who is getting older. According to Uche, his family motivates him to work hard. He also sends money home to support his parents.

This academic year, Charles and Uche have both been promoted to new academic positions - Associate Dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences and Acting Associate Dean of the Division of Business and Management, respectively.

In this interview, Charles and Uche answer some of the same questions from us. Charles also mentions his writing career, his secret of engaging with the students, and his way of adapting to the life in Zhuhai. Moreover, Uche talks of his hopes for his students and the College, investment strategy in real estate, his views on Nigeria and his advice for Chinese businessmen who want to try their luck in Nigeria.

It was a long journey coming down to UIC for Dr Uchenna Eze. He finished his Bachelor’s Degree in Banking and Finance, and then worked in a bank and a marine company in Nigeria. Like many other Nigerians, he left their country for further development. He pursued his master’s at the University of Technology Malaysia in 1995 and then went to Singapore for a doctorate at Nanyang Technological University. Deciding to step into academia, Uche returned to Malaysia onto the platform of classroom for seven years. He became the Acting Programme Director of Marketing Management until August 2016 when he became the Acting Associate Dean of the Division of Business and Management.		Dr Charles Lowe obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in English and Economics from Drew University, USA, and a PhD degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. After being a visiting faculty member at universities in New York and Shanghai, he began to lecture in Zhuhai as an Associate Professor as well as the Programme Director of Contemporary English Language and Literature. He is now Associate Dean of UIC’s Division of Humanities and Social Sciences. His research interests include Victorian Literature, Creative Writing, American Literature and Modernist Literatures.

On what brought them to UIC…
Charles: My wife’s family is from China, so this seems to be a natural place for us. We have a daughter. We wanted to continue her development of her language and the connection with her culture and so I gave her a chance to be with her grandparents.
Uche: One of the reasons why I decided to work in UIC was to stay closer to my family. I had been away from my family for almost eight years, as my wife and two kids reside in Hong Kong while I worked in Malaysia. My wife is a Malaysian Chinese and works in Dongguan. As my kids turned four and two, they started asking more questions, it became increasingly difficult to connect with them from a very long distance.

Why they have been staying for long…
Charles: I wouldn’t say four or five years is a long time for working in a university. We have great students, I have a very supportive dean, and we have a good president. That’s the best situation for a teacher from my perspective.
Uche: I have been in UIC for a little over four years and there is a strong supportive environment in the division and the college. My dean, my colleagues and the great support staff we have at the division including the hard working students are instrumental to the comfort and welcome I feel in UIC. Supporting the division’s and UIC’s initiative to enhance the quality of stakeholders received from us remain a key motivation for me.

Differences of teaching experiences in different countries…
Charles: The culture of teaching in the USA emphasises cooperation and working together more than that in China. I think to foster a sense of community in classroom is very nice. That’s the positive thing. Sometimes the differences are overestimated because of good teaching. A good teacher-student relationship at UIC, which is fostered with trust, interest, engagement, organisation and clear goals, is the same as if you were in the USA. We are here to teach young people information but we are all here to listen and to learn. It’s a relationship that both can learn from each other.
Uche: The difference is probably the challenge. The challenge here is our students are generally not very strong in English language but the students in Malaysia are. So, on that ground, it is a higher challenge to teach here. But in terms of quality of students and in terms of the calibre of students, there are no differences.

Language talent…
Charles: English is what I’m most comfortable with. I was trained a little to speak Russian but I am now very rusty. My grandmother was a Slovenian, my grandfather Ukrainian, and my school offered the opportunity to learn Russian. I was curious and I liked literature. Now I speak yidiandian (a little) Chinese. I learned it in China and a little before I came to China from my wife.
Uche: I speak four languages. I speak English, I speak Bahasa Melayu, a Malaysian language, I speak Pidgin English, a creole Nigerian language, and then I speak my native language, Igbo language.

Hobbies…
Charles: Swimming is becoming my hobby. Zhuhai’s weather is nice. It’s a good exercise. I like all kinds of music. I like Jazz: Miles Davis, John Coltrane... I like some folk like Bob Dylan, and many different pieces.
Uche: I love sports and I like walking, and jogging. I like to play ping pong and football as well. Nigeria is a football nation and has produced top players. I enjoy watching such as Jay-Jay Okocha. Nwankwo Kanu too was fantastic in his prime. He played for Arsenal and I’m an Arsenal fan, but generally I love clubs that play good football.

Favourite books…
Charles: My dissertation was on Thomas Hardy. I like his reading. I have a long list of works and people who I like. Some of the people I know are very good authors and are people from whom I can learn a lot. I have always been intimidated by people who are well-known; however, I was actually surprised to find a lot of the times they are generous because they have reached a certain point of their career. They are actually helpful and generous so more than just spirit. Recently I’m reading War and Peace, Russian literature; I enjoy it.
Uche: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, but he’s passed away. This book was about colonial days in Nigeria, the relationship between Christianity and tribal rules in those days and how they influenced the local culture. It’s been adapted in many countries. I like it because it’s about culture, modernism, learning about whom you are, how foreign cultures influenced and then restructured most of the things we knew and in fact abandoned most of them.

New roles…
Charles: I’m responsible to assist the dean in helping run the division. I attend committee meetings and give feedback. I also help maintain the records and do a lot of the bureaucratic labour, which is important, like working behind the scenes. I also help her in whichever way she wishes me to and as much as I can. This semester we will continue to adapt to our students’ needs and always increase in the quality of teaching.
Uche: My key role is to support the dean and the division in ensuring that it runs based on objectives and targets that are set out, and my duties come in different forms. Currently, I am working on several initiatives including the plans to develop a new programme and to streamline some activities across all the programmes in the division related to course administration. I am also assisting with the plans and guidelines being outlined to ensure that the key aspects and activities of the new programmes, E-Business Management and Information Systems, and Marketing Management remain smooth.

Accomplishments…
Charles: I feel accomplished when as a teacher, I feel my students are learning and our classes are a positive place. As a writer, I create something that people find fulfilling and fit for them in whatever way. They wish to experience a story and when you write something it’s always in the readers’ hands. So when someone can find something meaningful in whatever form, I feel accomplished. In terms of administration, most of all, I can support the teachers. After all, the job of administration is for me to help teachers create a great classroom environment.
Uche: I feel a sense of pride in seeing my students learn and develop into their own. Empowering students or people around me to become who they should be through teaching, mentoring, sharing of personal and professional experiences, , is part of what makes my life beautiful. My background, history and experiences shape my approach to everything that I do with my students, especially as it relates to teaching and learning. Talking about experiences, I advised a team of students who won the championship in the HKICPA national accounting QP Case Analysis Competition 2014, which was a big honour. That experience is one example that validates my belief that every student is important, irrespective of his or her academic excellence or otherwise.

More about Charles

Charles meets his students in an outdoor activity of the Mentor Caring Programme. 

On being a writer…
Charles: One of my fictions Your Flower Boy was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, submitted by the editors of New Writings in Criminal Justice at City University of New York. It is a collection of short stories about relationships between couples and individuals across different cultures. My stories often show the perspectives of both and some of the difficulties of economy they confront, communicating from one linguist in a cultural landscape to another.

I’m writing a book. It’s similar to the previous one. But I’m working at a larger novel telling from different perspectives and experiences so as to picture the life and the neighbourhood community. I’m trying to retell the story from different points of view.

How to engage with students…
Charles: I think in any classroom the best way is to give your knowledge, and then also to be open to get feedback and to probably agree to make a conversation. The best classroom experiences are when you provide the basis where a conversation can form and then get their responses. Especially in China or when in any different culture, you sometimes get responses that surprise you, which makes the classroom experiences more rewarding.

I always try to listen and to have real relationships with students as an individual human being and get to know them.

Adjusting to Zhuhai…
Charles: My wife is from Tianjin, north of China. I would say I’m familiar with being in a different culture. Tianjin and Zhuhai are different worlds. In terms of weather I’m a bit more used to the north. On the other hand, I like the food in the south. Zhuhai is clean and it is easy to adapt to as opposed to Tianjin and other places.

More about Uche

Uche and Dean of DBM Prof Stella Cho celebrate with the champion students at 2014 national QP Case Analysis Competition.

On investing in real estate...
Uche: We have a home in Malaysia. My wife moved to Hong Kong about 13 years ago, so we bought a home in Hong Kong for economic reasons in terms of saving on the rent. The home we bought in Zhongshan is merely for my work in UIC and my kids. Just in case of a worst case scenario, they would be able to find resources to take care of their future academic interests.

I have invested a lot in Nigeria and bought a lot of land even before I came to China. It’s much cheaper there. I bought some areas for agricultural purposes and others for buildings and development. But most of the land I bought is barren, and will remain that way for a while. Eventually, when the areas develop further, and the government or developers indicate interest to purchase the land, then I may consider selling. I go back to Nigeria, probably once in two to four years, and I have four brothers who manage the acquisitions.

I love real estate, but I tend to buy strategically, avoiding areas where I might get burnt.

Nigerian economy…
Uche: The president of Nigeria implements very cautious policies, which I think are needed. The main problem is that Nigeria has relied heavily on the oil industry for the past 40 years. When oil did well in the market, the country had a lot of money. But we wanted to develop the economy. That’s why we needed to end the dependence on one resource. However, the government has been unable to diversify the economy because of poor governance and ill-conceived, implemented policies. Hopefully, the citizens are able to keep their faith in the incumbent government’s initiatives and policies for any positive development in the future.

Nigeria and the West…
Uche: As the most populous country in Africa, with over 175 million people, Nigeria has been a close partner with the USA for the past decades. The number of Nigerians in the USA is unbelievable. If you go to many American universities, you will find a Nigerian professor. Recent past USA presidents have visited Nigeria before the end of their terms in office. So, you can imagine how disappointed some Nigerians are with President Barack Obama for not visiting Nigeria throughout his eight years in office.

The western culture helped to establish a very solid foundation in South Africa, which Nigeria lacks. Even if they had, because of decades of corruption, they would have destroyed most things. So, that could be one reason why South Africa tends to be considered No 1 in Africa, even though Nigeria is considered the Giant of Africa.

Chinese investors in Nigeria…
Uche: If you plan to visit Nigeria for business, you need a good Nigerian to get your foot in the door. You can’t go there alone; otherwise it’s going to be very difficult. Chinese companies that would like to invest in Nigeria should consider household equipment. Any company that produces household products such as appliances, utensils, materials, and anything that is used in the home, would be able to establish and grow rapidly. I went back to Nigeria in 2015, and saw many Chinese in Nigeria, who were doing business. For example, Huawei has a foothold in the country now. Chinese companies are in real estate, railroad, information technology, textile, construction, marine and more.

(UIC magazine New Dimensions presents the college‘s latest achievements in the areas of teaching, learning, research, and its engagement with society. 1) To download the original PDF file, please click here.  2) To view an online version, please click here.)