Spring Quarter Updates: Week 5

5 weeks of traveling, research, and ~ networking ~ later, I’m back in Shenzhen! This quarter has been a whirlwind thus far, and I wasn’t quite sure where or how to start this post.

To summarize: I’m on a flex term, as I’m pursuing a dual historical research/creative writing project funded by Stanford. I’m taking CHINA161 (Soldiers and Bandits in Chinese Culture) with Professor Yiqun Zhou, and we’ve been reading the English translation of Water Margin. I’ve loved everything about the class, and with Professor Zhou’s help, I’ve finally resolved the question that’d plagued me since winter quarter: to double major or not? I’d seriously considered adding the History major to supplement my IR education, but after talking with a ton (I mean a ton) of people in the department, I’ve committed to an East Asian Studies major instead! I wasn’t a fan of the gateway requirements for History, and because Chinese culture posits history and literature as a single field of study and source of wisdom, I get the best of both. Although she rightfully roasted me on my Chinese skills, I’m honored to be working with Professor Zhou as my advisor. (For those who are curious, Professor Oriana Mastro is my advisor in IR.) I’ll write a bit more about my decision later, but the TLDR is that IR is a social science and doesn’t speak to me in the way that the humanities do. I think it’s impossible to study IR without studying some of the culture/history in my region of interest.

Other than CHINA161, though, I practically have no commitments on Zoom. And my free time has allowed me to travel—to travel by myself through northern and southern China, to get lost about a million times in Beijing and Shanghai, and to finally meet up with friends and FACES chapter members. My research centers on the warlord Yuan Shikai and China’s failed attempt at democracy that was the Republican Era, with the goal of beginning a new SFF novel based on Yuan’s demilitarization efforts and interactions with the west. (Again, I should probably write another blog post on how my writing has changed and where my goals are right now…so much has happened lmao.)

Somewhere along the way, I encountered a problem: Yuan Shikai is not a very well-memorialized figure. He may have been strong enough to oust Sun Yat-sen, but people generally portray him as a pussy who maneuvered his way into power and caved into declaring himself Emperor—a move unpopular with the crowds in both 1916 and 2021. His early (and surprisingly natural) death in 1916, coupled with the Republic’s rapid deterioration into a decade of civil war, meant that his name was relegated to the background. Centering my field research and travel plans around him and his Beiyang Army, therefore, was not a very fruitful endeavor. The Army Drilling Grounds had been torn down, the old National Congress Hall in Nanjing was closed and in disrepair, and the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was (obviously) not open to visitors. The remaining structures that had been erected during his lifespan—or even his time era—made practically no mention of him. Only one museum in Nanjing went into depth about his life and the politics of the Republican Era; everything in Beijing was predictably centered on the decades that came afterwards.

And so, upon realizing that my initial field research would only yield shallow findings, and unwilling to commit myself to the archives after a decade away from Beijing, I decided to explore. I refused to take a taxi and walked eleven miles on my first day in Beijing, a tour that saw the entirety of the Forbidden City, a hike of Jichang Pavilion, and a confusing network of hutong’s and neighborhoods. It’s impossible to overstate how perfect that first Tuesday was: alone—for real, this time, given how I had no family in northern China—in Beijing, filled with smug exhilaration as I pushed through traffic with 高德地图 on my phone, a candy dragon in hand. Buying as much yogurt and radio bread from street vendors as I could hold. Getting shoved around by rude Beijing natives at a pastry shop, where I ordered a huge box of rose and yam cakes for my family in the south. Finally collapsing at the top of the Jichang Pavilion, and calling my best friend to show her the view of the Forbidden City: it was a clear day, and we could see all the way past the front gates. The bird life in Beijing was beautiful. I hadn’t expected that. That night, I met up with one of my friends for roast duck at Siji Minfu—my first dinner with a fellow student in a year. I walked home alone at night, leftovers swinging from my left hand, my shadow sharp and ruddy beneath the lanternlight, swaddled in my winter coat because the north was still so cold. I couldn’t stop smiling.

Then—in a very predictable turn of events—I came down with a stomachache and fever. After a morning lying curled on my side, I stumbled onto Wangfujing Street to find medicine. I was desperate—I had no idea where I could find western painkillers and fever medicine—and the giant white 药’s above each medicine shop yielded only apothecaries. I almost cried with relief when I found a pharmacy, and despite my temperature being alarmingly high (37.5 degrees Celsius; I was still wearing my winter coat for some delirious who-knows-what reason) and having no Chinese ID, the pharmacist was kind enough to sell me medicine before shooing me out. I called another one of my friends on a bench on Wangfujing, beneath a massive Olympic countdown billboard, as well-dressed shoppers swept past with matcha ice cream and Gucci sunglasses. The day afterwards, despite having eaten only a bowl of rice and a slice of bread in the thirty-six hours before, I walked through the Summer Palace and explored some reconstructed Buddhist ruins behind it, before circling the West Lake: a grand total of nine miles.

Wow, Ana, even in this you’ve got to flex your athleticism despite its probable contribution to your stomachache you should probably do some serious thinking about why you still want to brag about self-destructive tendencies huh.

Nanjing, a week later, proved relatively similar: poking around the Presidential Palace and Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum, walking through the city (which had a much more agreeable temperament than Beijing), hanging out with a friend, and looking at Ming architecture when I ran out of Republican-Era things to explore. By the time I reached Shanghai—I was there to meet up with family and FACES chapter members—I was in full-blown vacation mode. I bought my first qipao’s, both of which blew me away when I first tried them (I usually feel self-conscious about wearing dresses, but the tailors were very enthusiastic about me having the ass and boobs needed for a tighter qipao—and I think I pull off both designs very well), and walked along the Bund and international districts. I stopped by the Peace Hotel for a much-needed milkshake and pasta. I bought a pair of scissors at a 1600’s shop that used to make knives and weapons. I wandered through Old Shanghai and the renovated alleyways. I strutted through malls. I bought street food. I argued with a jeweler who insisted that my wrist was too big for any of her designs. My family took me to a fusion Shanghai/western food place that boasted an incredible avocado/shrimp/pastry dish and grilled pomfret.

So, all in all, research was…not very productive. But I’ve had a blast traveling: I really needed to get out of Shenzhen, with its tunnel-vision skyline and one-track youth. I also met with my co-Presidents and the other leaders of FACES (Forum for American-Chinese Exchanges at Stanford) in Beijing and Shanghai—we have a total of four partner universities (Renmin University and Peking University, both in Beijing; Zhejiang University in Hangzhou; and Fudan University in Shanghai), and I’ve met with three this month. It was such a relief to talk with youth my age, and to shape FACES’ virtual programming upon the foundation of an in-person interaction! Talking to them also made me intensely nostalgic—as the Fudan leadership argued about which subway line to take back to campus, a lump rose to my throat. My friends and I used to argue exactly like that after a night in San Francisco.

And now I’m back, with a lot of archival research ahead of me and junior year right around the corner. I spent my nineteenth birthday with family a week ago, and it’s crazy to think that I’m almost at the halfway point of my college education. Again, a longer reflection is due on what sophomore year meant to me, and how much I changed in the process. But I’ve still got a few weeks and papers left before I need to do that, and I think now is a good time to end this blog post. This summer, I’ll be selling out to Zhen Funds, a Shenzhen-based VC place, and helping with their foreign companies. Their CEO, Anna Fang, is one of the only female CEO’s in VC in China, and I’m really curious about the work culture and opportunities in China’s private sector. And right now, I’m currently interning for Tsinghua University’s Institute in A.I. and International Governance—my jobs mainly involve translation and listening to people talk. I’ve been choreographing for CBC’s production of Cinderella, and I’ve been reaffirming my earlier claim that Yue (Guangdong) cuisine is the best Chinese cuisine.

That’s about it! Apologies for the month-long delay, good luck with midterms, all that jazz. In a few weeks, I’ll be traveling to Hangzhou and Suzhou, and then Guangzhou for more research.

Follow my Instagram for travel pictures because they’ll take forever to upload with my VPN blah blah blah it’s @writerina, bye