He then moved to Taiwan to study at the Chinese Language Institute in Fu Jen Catholic University (1968-1970) and at the Department of Sociology at National Taiwan University (1970-1971).
in Religious Studies (1972) and Ph.D. in Sociology (1977), both on East Asia from Harvard.
[2] He joined the University of California, San Diego since 1983 and was promoted to Professor in 1985.
He was a co-director of a Ford Foundation project to help revive the academic discipline of sociology in China and was Director of UC Fudan Center at the School of Global Policy and Strategy.
[3] He is the recipient of several book awards, including a Jury Nominee for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the L.A. Times Book Award for Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985), as well as the C. Wright Mills Award for Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (1984).