Levine sports his trademark red-starred straw hat on the Great Wall during the filming of a recent documentary.

Levine has also written songs of his own, including Mood from the Chinese Countryside, My Lovely Asian Eyes, It's the Kites that Own the Sky and To Make its People Strong.

He's become interested in early 20th-century foreigners who played a role in the shaping of modern China - from American writer Edgar Snow to battlefield doctors Norman Bethune (Canadian) and D.K. Kotnis (Indian) to less-known partisans from abroad like George Hatem, Joseph Needham and Israel Epstein.

Levine recently participated in a TV series about those individuals titled Red Dream Catchers that was broadcast in January. He also organized a lecture series, They Helped Build New China, for university students and interested groups, which featured the surviving descendants of those historical figures. "We need to remember their stories and their contributions," Levine says.

A sociologist as well as a teacher, he loves being a judge at English speaking and writing contests.

"I really like being the one who asks the questions," he says with a grin. "If the theme is about the importance of modernizing, I like to ask if China can afford to let its traditions go by the wayside. And if the theme is about honoring traditions, I ask if China can let tradition stand in the way of progress.

"I came to China to teach in Huai'an, the hometown of Zhou Enlai, who is rather a hero of mine," says Levine. "I could have stayed there teaching happily forever, but they have a two-year limit on foreigners teaching there. I didn't know that - nobody told me until it was time for me to go," he chuckles. Soon after, he was in Beijing interviewing for teaching jobs at Tsinghua and Minzu universities on the same day.

"The energy at both places was tremendous," he says, "and I went back to my hotel that night really torn. But then I thought about how Minzu was the national university for the country's ethnic groups - including children who had struggled with difficult circumstances to get there.

"I had a moment of clarity then: My mission in life had never been with students who were the best and the brightest," he says. "The students at Tsinghua, one of China's premier universities, were going to have a great future whether I went there or not," he decided. But going to Minzu was more in line with the work he'd always done, as a labor organizer in the US for struggling seasonal workers and a volunteer in poor communities.

"I haven't regretted it for one second," he says, grinning under the brim of a straw hat that sports a red star pin. "I will stay here as long as I'm welcome, and I spend my life making myself welcome."

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn.