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Michelle Kwan, skater, works 'magic' as Michelle Kwan, diplomat to China

Schoolchildren in Beijing flock to the new "public diplomacy envoy."

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 19, 2007

BEIJING - Michelle Kwan's first performance as an American diplomat was almost flawless.

In two hours Thursday at a school for migrant children - and two more at one of Beijing's most prestigious high schools - America's most decorated figure skater turned on the charm.

"She skates, she's Chinese, she's Disney and she's magic," said Zheng Hong, principal of Dandelion School, an abandoned factory converted into a middle school that has 380 students on the southern edge of the capital.

The dusty classrooms have virtually no heat. It was colder inside than out, where the temperature hovered around freezing.

Kwan seemed unfazed as America's first "public diplomacy envoy," a position created to try to improve the U.S. image abroad. Greeted by students two- to three-deep, Kwan waded into the crowd and surprised a young boy, Luo Haoming.

"Hi. How are you? Nice to meet you. Give me five," Kwan said.

The boy smiled and instantly responded.

"It's a bit of a scrum," U.S. Ambassador Clark Randt said.

By the end of the visit, Kwan's ankle-length black coat was smudged with white dust, and she nearly cried when a girls choir sang the school's anthem.

"I got teary-eyed," Kwan said. "I had to look around and just compose myself."

The five-time world champion figure skater got the diplomat job last year. Sitting at a White House dinner with Chinese President Hu Jintao, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Kwan told Rice she was studying political science at the University of Denver.

Rice, who earned her doctorate at Denver, later made her an offer.

The daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong and southern China, the 26-year-old Kwan was born in California. She speaks Cantonese - used in southern China. She got loud applause when she asked the Beijing crowd for help with her Mandarin, the predominant language there.

Kwan was greeted like a world star at her second school stop. Students at a high school affiliated with Renmin University, one of China's top schools, asked about Kwan and her family in fluent English, some with American accents.

"I like her because she's pretty, she's very outgoing and very nice for a person who is such a star," said 14-year-old Zhang Min, who lived for two years in the United States.

Kwan also will visit the southern city of Guangzhou and Hong Kong before returning home.

Her only slip came when leaving the Renmin school, where she almost fell; Kwan's high heels caught on a step outside a university building.

She made a quick recovery and laughed at herself.

"That's typical of me," she said. "Off the ice, I'm the biggest klutz."

[Last modified January 19, 2007, 01:47:11]