My last blog post was a little chaotic, so I’ve reverted back to bullet points to list the more concrete developments of my sophomore year. :)

(Academic & career) highlights of last year:

• Researching with CISAC, or the Center for International Security and Cooperation. I learned a lot about varying U.S. perceptions towards China, the realities of policy and government, and the relationship between A.I. and different military cultures.

• Working with ZhenFunds. For all that I’d bemoaned selling out, and for all that I hadn’t expected to enter the private sector, my internship definitely shaped the way I view China and my career. While I don’t plan on working in investment (more thoughts on that in another blog post about my summer), I was forced to learn about business and finance and Chinese work culture—all in Chinese. It was a steep learning curve, but I think it would’ve been impossible for me to understand Shenzhen without working there. And what better to do in the city than investment?

• Class with several extraordinary professors, including Robert Rakove, Yiqun Zhou, and Michael Sears. I was lucky to indulge all my academic interests this year: the history of American foreign policy; China’s transition through the Republican Era and the Warlord Era (including a fascinating study of teahouse culture and student protests); gender, religion, and violence in Chinese classics (I headcannoned one of the Water Margin bandits as gay—and was smugly joyous when my professor considered and accepted it); the Asia-Pacific region (the history of Southeast Asia and current interstate relations); how to write a short story that did not feature 1) angst, 2) Asian American identity, or 3) body image as its focal point.

• Double-majoring in East Asian Languages and Cultures. Funnily enough, I’d planned as a freshman to double major in IR and EALC, but was deterred from adding EALC due to the extra requirements. However, the further I progressed through the IR plan, the more I realized that my enjoyment of the social sciences couldn’t quite compare to my love for the humanities. The Chinese study of literature and history is vastly different from its Western counterpart—literature and history are inseparable, and history is considered the ultimate source of wisdom. Additionally, historical/literary analysis is a way of thinking, in contrast to the social sciences (which is a field of study). My history classes have challenged my thinking processes in a way that my IR/econ classes haven’t. Also, the EALC major commits me to learning Chinese and niche facts about Chinese history.

• Co-presidenting for FACES! I can’t understate how incredible my experience in China was: meeting the leadership of our chapter universities, learning about Chinese politics and economics, gaining a sense of different cities’ cultures via students my age.

(Academic & career) plans for next year:

• Moving towards cultural/educational exchange, instead of staying in national security—I realized that the latter just isn’t my thing. I don’t like how individual issues are used to demonize whole parties or states; I don’t like taking sides; as an Asian American, I don’t like the trajectory of current discourse about China and Asia. My major advisor told me in no uncertain terms that I’d never be able to have a full-fledged career in national security due to my connections to China, and I was totally fine with that. Moving forward, I want to explore cultural and educational exchange: but not through a historical lens or with the goal of enacting policy, which are the two most immediate/common avenues in college. I want to define (or at least narrow down) which part of culture/education exchange I want to explore, how I want to approach the issue, and whether that approach will be in the private sector, academia, or an NGO. I do want to stay out of government for the time being.

• Planning for my honors thesis. I want to combine my interests in the humanities and social sciences in an analysis of cultural/educational exchange…but I have no idea how to approach that. I also don’t know if such a study would be in the EALC or IR department.

• I’m taking three Chinese classes next year: modern Chinese, classical Chinese, and Cantonese. Of the three, I’m most nervous for classical Chinese, since 1) it’s at 8:30 AM, 2) I cannot read traditional Chinese to save my life, 3) and I can’t understand most classical Chinese philosophy even when it’s translated into English.

• More broadly, I also realized that (at least at Stanford) the whole study of IR is inadequate for understanding shifting geopolitical realities. Authority figures in IR gain their street cred with several decades of field work—by the time they return to academia, the world has changed beyond their personal experiences. I saw this in professors who kept tying current geopolitical events to their own experiences in the Cold War, and the whole leaderboard of Stanford’s IR department is old, white, and male. I really needed to supplement my classes with extracurricular interactions: talking with TA’s and fellow students, reading books that didn’t come from those same voices of authority.

• I’m interested in exploring and challenging the Western conception of modern Chinese history. In Western schools of thought, Chinese history becomes inseparable from modern Chinese politics—politics which carry unwanted weight—at some point in the twentieth century. Starting somewhere in the 1930’s-50’s, it becomes impossible to separate politics from history, or to study history without commentating on politics. I think this phenomenon deters a lot of honest dialogue around China, at least in academia; people debate politics because there’s genuinely no non-political way to study recent history.

• Planning for FACES’ annual summit! This year, we’re pivoting towards Track II+ diplomacy: so, everything from economic history to political economy to media to art exchange. Our current speaker line-up has some pretty big names, including the head curator of the Asian Art Museum, the winner of the Sun Yefang Economics Award, and an anchor for BBC China, so if you want to apply as a delegate ;)……. https://faces.stanford.edu/summit

Miscellaneous highlights:

• My relationship to dance has improved so, so much. This might be the first time in my life that I’m not wrestling with the guilty urgency of falling out of shape—I basically haven’t danced in August, and I don’t feel bad about it. My time in a studio gifted me a newfound, healthy appreciation for the art, and a corresponding sense of closure.

• My two reading habits: audiobooks for fiction, and Jstor articles for nonfiction. I lose interest really quickly while reading nonfiction books, or books that are even mildly scientific, but I can read Jstor articles for hours on end. Audiobooks don’t let me skim. I have to parse through each turn of phrase—especially helpful for someone who learns by audio and has a scarily short attention span.

• Authenticity: I feel a lot more stable in my life and self-perception. Part of this was finding a network of genuinely supportive friends, and outlining myself in the contour of their perceptions. Part of this was documenting all the blind spots in my self-perception with a wild frenzy—blind spots which included dance, body image, and the general goings-on of my life—and correcting my internal dialogue to suit objective reality. Gradually, I stopped depending on old narratives to hold together my identity (narratives such as trauma and various struggles through difficulty).

• Authenticity, pt. II: I also realized that there was no way to be entirely authentic, especially for a woman—we’re taught to continuously view, pose, evaluate, document, edit, frame, and adjust ourselves through a third-person perspective. There was no better place for me to realize this than China, where (hyper)femininity and gender roles were inflated to an extreme. Ultimately, self-acceptance (which felt more like neutrality towards myself than any forced positivity) was less an act of rebellion than one of desperation—I would’ve gone insane if I’d begun editing myself towards the impossible beauty standards of another country.

• Authenticity, pt. III: I think I’ve finally started valuing my time as more than just a resource for resume-packing. I’ve started setting more boundaries, such as refusing a second internship during the summer or letting myself P/F a class. It’s taken a while for me to realize that my best/most productive self isn’t my most authentic self, and that it’s definitely not my happiest self. That being said, I don’t know how much authenticity actually has to do with personal happiness. I derive a lot of happiness from performing my identity, but also from being seen and accepted.

• I think I’ve gone through a whole cycle of the hero’s journey. I’ve moved through the anxious-high-achiever stage and the depressive-loss-of-all-meaning-in-life-and-all-self-worth-without-external-validation stage, and now I’m starting to look up towards the rest of my life. Junior year almost feels like what I’d wanted freshman year to be: about as new of a start as I can get.

• I’ve started on a new book! It’s set in modern-day Shenzhen—through it, I (hope to) discuss modern Chinese identity, prosperity and neo-colonialism, and intergenerational heritage. It also features a lot of venture capital and ghosts. Overall, I’m trying to get a bit better at talking about my writing to other people, and at embracing first drafts/general imperfection as a natural part of the writing process. Usually, I value my privacy to the point of zealousness—writing is just about the one part of my life I don’t overshare on social media.

Anyways, that’s about as comprehensive of a list as I can make right now. It’s a little scary to think I’m entering the second half of my college education, but (for the first time in years!) I’m genuinely excited for my future. Have a great rest of summer. :))