More than 30 years after Roberta Lipson arrived in a city of somber colors and camels on main streets, she's still here in Beijing - and loving it.

Lipson might understand modern China much better than many Chinese people. She can speak fluent Mandarin, just like a native Beijinger, and has seen the whole reform and opening-up process through the eyes of a Westerner.

She came to China in 1979 as a marketing manager when the country was still closed to the world, and she still remembers her first day in Beijing, the "day that changed my life".

Roberta Lipson is an old China hand.[Provided to China Daily]

Due to the lack of direct flights between the United States and China then, Lipson had to transfer flights four times before arriving in Beijing on a rainy August afternoon.

"It was dark because of the huge storm. I arrived in the old Beijing air terminal, which was only like four times the size of this room," she said, pointing at her modest office.

In those days, everybody only wore three colors - black, blue and gray. On the roads, there were very few cars, but many horses, donkeys and bicycles.

"From time to time I could see camels on Chang'an Avenue at night," she said.

"It was hard to imagine what China would be like before actually coming here. But everything was a surprise; everything was so different from the world that I knew."

Now, China is the world Lipson knows very well, after more than 30 years of close contact. She is now chief executive of Chindex International Inc, an American healthcare company, providing healthcare services in China through United Family Healthcare (UFH) and medical capital equipment and products through Chindex Medical Ltd, with a market capitalization of about $280 million.

"I have been interested in the healthcare sector all my life and have also been interested in China ever since president (Richard) Nixon's trip here in 1972. So this was something that brought all of my interests together," she said.

Lipson studied at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1972, the year Nixonmade his groundbreaking visit to China. Media coverage about China was extensive. This was, after all, a mysterious country about to come out from behind the curtain.

Lipson, who majored in history, became interested in China, its history and the language. At that time, not many US schools taught Mandarin, so she spent her summer in a 10-week intensive language program at Cornell University in New York, which took up to six hours a day, plus three hours of homework.

"After 10 weeks I could actually have a conversation and really learned a lot," she said. The following year, she continued to study Chinese for a full year in Taiwan.

"And I ended up with a skill that was quite unusual in the US at that time, to be able to speak Chinese," she said, adding that she was hoping to find a career to use that skill as well as her knowledge of China.

In 1979 she landed a job in a trading company that sent her to China, which eventually led to new business opportunities in the healthcare industry.

"That was an amazing opportunity," she said. "Very few Americans got the chance to come to China at that time."

When she first arrived, the huge gap between China and the rest of the world in terms of medical technology caught her attention. Some big hospitals were in terrible need of modern medical technology.

In 1981, Lipson co-founded Chindex, which has expanded from its core business of capital medical equipment sales and marketing to medical consumables, healthcare related consumer products and, most recently, healthcare delivery.

At that time, most foreigners were not comfortable with the available medical service, and many hospitals needed improvements, especially in services and management.