Our visit on the first day of the installation had the pomp and circumstance of a State occasion. We were met at the door of the hospital by foreign affairs officers in full uniform and escorted through many corridors to a very large and impressive reception room which, in my memory, rivaled some I later visited in the Great Hall of the People.
The general who was the president of the hospital sat at the front of the room on an overstuffed, anti-macassared armchair, and we sipped tea and talked in grandiose terms about China and "the friendship of our two nations" and other ceremonial topics.
Of course this scene, which repeated itself hundreds of times in similar and other circumstances, made us feel very important. And in a way we were. Or at least it seemed that every encounter - be it with officialdom, or any Chinese person - was an opportunity to further our cause.
Not only our cause of building our business, and improving the technological level of Chinese healthcare, but also making our small contribution to the positive development of the relationship between the United States and China, theoretically making the world a better place.
This may well seem laughable and naive now, but in those days there were so few of us, and it seemed that every word we uttered had the potential to either advance or set back the "cause" - and we all took it very seriously.
Our little company was staffed by scores of idealistic Chinese and young foreign people, each with an interest in and understanding of each other's culture, making us feel like we could be a model for world peace.
We were all on a mission and pulling in the same direction. This enthusiasm for our mission, although it now covers a much broader age spectrum of employees, continues today. And how could it not? Everything we do is intended in some way to improve how healthcare is done in China.