John Flower

John Flower is the Founder of the China Folk House Retreat, along with his wife, Pam Leonard. They saved a Yunnan farmhouse from a dam and rebuilt it as a site for experiential learning, environmental sustainability and people-to-people cultural exchange in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Flower is the retired director of the Sidwell Friends School’s Chinese studies program, a former associate professor of East Asian History at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and a fellow at the University of Virginia’s East Asia Center. His scholarship focuses on local history and folklife in China and Tibet, and he teaches courses on China and East Asian History, including the China Fieldwork summer and semester experiential learning programs in Yunnan.