Washingtonians in China – A Conversation with Jim Mullinax, the Consul General of the Recently Closed U.S. Consulate in Chengdu
In the first installment of our series “Washingtonians in China”, we will converse with Consul General Jim Mullinax of the recently closed U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, China. Jim is a “local boy” who graduated from University of Puget Sound (UPS) before embarking on a career in the foreign service.
Jim was very prominently featured in the news recently delivering an eloquent address to his staff and the people of Chengdu on the Chinese government mandated closing of the consulate. Prior to assignment to Chengdu, Jim served in posts including Jakarta, Manila, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
In this session Jim will share with us some stories of his life in China, particularly in the last, tension filled months of his assignment there. He’ll remark about the changing attitudes among Chinese people towards the U.S. at both the personal and national level. We also hope to discuss how his experiences at UPS launched him into a career in international diplomacy and hope that he will share with us some of the exploits of his wife, a respected author with several books to her name, including Anthropologist in the Kitchen, which was listed on China Daily’s list of “100 book everyone should read.”
This is a joint program with the Seattle Shanghai Expat Society.