Here are the people mentioned in the text and a brief description of their accomplishments:
* Xie Xide: A renowned physicist who received her phd from MIT in 1951 and became the first woman president of a major Chinese research university in 1983.
* Wang Jisi: One of China’s most prominent America watchers,who spent seven years herding sheep in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution before entering Peking University in 1978.
* Lang Ping: A Chinese sports icon who coached the U.S. women’s volleyball team to a silver medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympics and then led China’s team to gold at the 2014 World Championships.
* Gong Peng-Peng: Trained at the Juilliard School in New York, he walked away from a lucrative career as an international concert pianist and returned to China as the resident composer of the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014.
* Ji Chaozhu: A diplomat and interpreter whose life mirrored the dramatic ups and downs of Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations. He made English transcripts of the armistice negotiations in Panmunjom during the Korean War.
