In this paper, I narrate highlights of my long process of learning and teaching English as a foreign language in mainland China and Australia, presenting a picture of the practices of learning and teaching English in mainland China from the bottom up. Over the past 50 years, English learners in mainland China, as Gao Yihong has written, have demonstrated four different identity prototypes-- faithful imitator, legitimate speaker, playful creator and dialogical communicator. Framed by Gao's classification, this autoethnographic narrative responds to these identity prototypes and reflects on how the process of learning and teaching English interacts with the identity of a Chinese learner of English. I then propose a pedagogy for teaching English effectively and invite university teachers of English in mainland China to consider whether and how this could be applied in their future practice.