Many people have attempted to find a word or phrase to encapsulate the breakneck pace of development that China has undergone since 1978, when the Opening and Reform period was initiated by Deng Xiaoping. In Chinese, this development is often characterized by the phrase “tūfēiměngjìn,” which loosely translates to “advancing by leaps and bounds.” In Western commentary, it is most often described using the term “China model,” employed in an attempt to make sense of the monumental changes that have occurred across China’s social, political, and economic spheres in the past fifty years.
However, as many China scholars have explained, the problem with using expressions such as the “China model” to explain this course of development is that there is no fixed definition of what the term means. It is easy to write off China’s unprecedented success in lifting millions of people out of poverty, becoming the world’s second largest economy, and developing a cutting-edge electric car industry as the product of taking a different developmental path from that typically prescribed by Western development institutions. Yet such an approach overemphasizes the idea of Chinese exceptionalism and precludes the chance to evaluate China’s transitions within their own context, in terms of how changes have been initiated and how far they have progressed.
In China in Transition, rather than accepting broad labels like the “China model” to explain the course of Chinese development, the concepts of modernity, humanity, and sustainability were used as a framework to critically examine the transitions within individual spheres, such as politics, law, society, the economy, and environment.
Yet “China in Transition” is a bit of an abstract phrase in itself. It is one thing to learn about the gradual evolution of the Chinese legal system, but those are not changes that the average person, let alone the average international student, is likely to feel in their everyday life in China today. Similarly, modernity, sustainability, and humanity all leave themselves open to multiple interpretations. What may seem modern, or indicative of a sustainable lifestyle to one person, may be of no notice, or may even be regarded as a hindrance by another.
With this variety of possible interpretations in mind, I wanted to capture my own understanding of modernity, sustainability, and humanity in contemporary China as an exchange student experiencing China for the first time, and only over the course of a semester. Through photography, I wanted to explore how China’s modernization, sustainability efforts, and social change might be communicated visually. Taken together, I believe these photos underscore how the meaning of these ongoing transitions is felt most strongly through everyday experiences.
PICTURE 1
01
Modernity现代性
Xuchang, Henan
Technological Modernity
I remember the first night we were in Xuchang; it was
gray and drizzling, and everyone was listless and tired.
Instead of going out to explore and finding something
to eat along the way as we had been doing for the past
few nights, we decided to order 外卖. By this point, I had
gotten a bit more used to the 外卖 culture in China, and
so when the delivery driver came up to our room with
my dinner, I was just grateful.
Roughly 20 minutes later, Kayla and I heard our doorbell
ring. Assuming that another delivery worker was here
with Kayla’s food, I opened the door mindlessly, ready to
take the food with a thank you already at the tip of my
tongue. The sight on the other side stopped me dead in
my tracks; my mouth, already slightly open, froze. There
was no delivery worker. Instead, a box-like robot stood
just outside the door, announcing its arrival, while a
window-like panel unrolled simultaneously, revealing
the bag of food inside.
I had never seen anything like this before in my life. I
knew before coming to China that people often spoke
of China’s technological advancement, but I had never
imagined the extent to which creativity had brought
these innovations into people’s everyday lives. This type
of robot, if someone had told me in advance it existed,
was something I would have imagined could only be
found in Beijing or Shanghai, and even there, probably
only in a museum or technological display, where you
could look, but not interact with it directly.
I saw the robot making its rounds a few more times
during our stay in Xuchang, yet not a single other hotel
guest seemed surprised by its presence. The idea of
something like this being so normal, even in a third-tier
city like Xuchang, completely reformed my
understanding of the scale of China’s technological
innovation over the past twenty years. The shock I felt in
this moment made me realize, more than anything else I
encountered throughout the semester, how seamlessly
these systems have become integrated into people’s
daily routines.
IMAGE 2
Dali, Yunnan
Ethnic Minorities and Modernity
The first night Brittany and I stayed in Dali, we stayed in a
guesthouse in the Dali Ancient City, run by a Miao family.
That night, as we all gathered around a low table to share
dinner, our hosts started talking about Miao culture and
the Miao language, as well as the languages of a few
other ethnic minorities that had a sizeable presence in
the area.
When another guest at the dinner asked our hosts if they
could speak the Miao language, they said they could, and
frequently spoke it among themselves. They also noted,
however, that the Miao language has no written form.
Because it has traditionally been passed down orally, and
because younger generations are going to school where
Mandarin has been increasingly emphasized as the
language of instruction, fewer and fewer young Miao are
able to speak the language. The hosts described this
decline as a trade off tied to job opportunities, with
better job opportunities in settings where Mandarin is
spoken rather than Miao.
Of course, this not a story that is unique to the Miao, nor
is it unique to ethnic minorities in China. The number of
speakers of indigenous languages across the world has
declined as language itself has become a means of
advancement.
However, I found this dinner and the thoughts that our
hosts were sharing to be particularly interesting,
because it was my first time traveling somewhere in
China where the surrounding population was not
overwhelmingly Han Chinese. Indeed, as a city in the
southwest, far away from the country’s more familiar
urban hubs, it was striking to me to see how language
itself had become the marker of modernity and
modernization that exerted the greatest influence on
people’s lives in Dali.
In our next few days in Dali, I was able to see how Miao
culture had also become increasingly situated within the
framework of modern tourism. Where it was convenient
to be Miao, or to assert Miao traditional customs was
selective, in practices that could respond to tourist
demand, like wearing the traditional silver headdresses.
Originally, these headdresses had a deep social
significance, and were meant to symbolize the wealth of
the Miao women. Yet on the streets, they were used to
draw in tourists, like magpies to a treasure, to encourage
them to do a photoshoot in an ethnic-minority style.
In this way, I found Dali to be a window into how ethnic
minorities have increasingly navigated modernity by
adapting tradition to new economic and political
conditions. However, Dali was also telling of the tensions
that have emerged between the preservation of cultural
heritage and government’s broader project of
development.
Lijiang, Yunnan
Social Morality and Modernity
IMAGE 3
When we went to see the Terracotta Warriors, I found
myself somewhat taken aback when an older woman
grabbed me by the waist and physically moved me
aside to take the spot where I had been standing to
take pictures.
This moment, alongside the countless others where
someone had darted in front of me in line to have their
身份证 checked more quickly in the gaotie station, or
their ticket scanned faster at a tourist attraction, made
me stop and ask myself: how many times had I seen this
sign, or at least its essence, distilled into the
characters “文明” over the course of the semester? If I
had seen it, surely everyone around me had seen it too.
In some ways, I think my frustration spoke to my own
preconceptions of what “modern” behavior looks like. I
had assumed that practices like waiting in line were
part of a standard that people would hold themselves
to everywhere. These experiences made me more
aware of the intention behind the signs I was seeing so
frequently, and of what a public campaign to establish
“modern” social values looks like in real time. In a
society in transition, reforms are often made to the
economy or systems of governance first, while
people’s behavior, and shared norms of what is
considered acceptable are rewritten more gradually.
But these experiences also made me wonder, are these
signs enough? What impact does this twenty-four
character 价值观 have on people’s everyday lives? New
patterns of thinking take time to cultivate, and it is not
always clear how these values can be translated into
action.
To me, this picture encapsulates the very nature of
social modernity in transition. Although these values
are visible and named, they are still in the process of
being internalized. In a country as large as China, where
unevenness exists across rural and urban spaces and
between generations, it seems unclear to me if the
practice of “文明” will ever gain a singular or shared
interpretation.
Yuanmingyuan, Beijing
Historical Past and Modernity
IMAGE 4
Of the places I visited in Beijing, my favorite by far was
Yuanmingyuan. The garden stretched endlessly in every
direction, and as I wandered around, it was easy to find
quiet corners tucked away from the main paths where I
could stop and appreciate my surroundings completely
on my own.
Though I could have spent hours roaming these more
deserted areas, I did make it a point to rejoin the crowds
and go to visit the 西洋楼, or the Western ruins. These
buildings, which were the only European-style
structures built within the garden, were also the only
ones to survive after British and French forces swept
through in 1860 and burned the garden to the ground.
The crumbling pillars that are left offer a very tangible
symbol of China’s “Century of Humiliation.”
I think that an important part of modernity and the
development of a modern identity is the way a country
engages with its past, and particularly how its history is
taught to the next generation. Before coming to China, I
was curious how this “Century of Humiliation” was
understood today, and the connotations that the term
carries. Passing by the 西洋楼, I found one answer in the
way that parents spoke to their children about the ruins
in front of them. While the language they used was not
harsh, there was a subtle emphasis on the fact that what
the children were seeing was the legacy of an ill-fated
entanglement with the West.
As I stood there, I felt my own question about what role
the past plays in defining a “modern” society being
answered in real time. These children belong to the next
generation that will lead China. However, by socializing
them into the same collective understanding they had
been taught themselves, these parents, intentionally or
not, are embedding the past into the way this next
generation learns how to see the world. For my
generation of China scholars, I think awareness of this is
invaluable. We cannot make sense of China, nor work to
understand it better on the international stage if we are
not first aware of the narratives that shape its own social
understanding of its place in the world.
Central Park, Tianjin
Cultural Modernity II
IMAGE 6
As we roamed around Central Park in Tianjin, my attention
was caught by the pieces of paper that fluttered slightly
on lines strung between trees and looked strikingly
similar to the “resumes” used for blind dates and
matchmaking that I had only ever heard of online.
When Eliza and I took a closer look, we found that that was
exactly what these papers were. Somebody, likely one of
the older people sitting nearby who appeared to be
managing this matchmaking corner, had taken the time to
painstakingly write out the most important statistics of
each single person. Age. Height. Weight. Educational
background and current salary. Family situation. Qualities
they wanted in a partner, and qualities they wanted to
avoid.
To me, the prospect of choosing a partner from a sheet of
paper where they were distilled into a single set of
numbers felt impersonal, somewhat anachronistic, and
difficult to reconcile with modern dating culture and its
emphasis on mutual affection.
However, as 王老师 explained, in a fast-paced society
structured around long working hours and career
pressure, this method can actually be more convenient.
Although it may look outdated, having someone else
manage the process is practical because it reduces the
emotional and logistical burdens that dating often
entails. As I looked more closely, many of these
individuals were highly educated and financially stable,
and were looking for someone equally so. They were likely
aware of how old fashioned this practice looked, yet
chose to participate anyway.
I found this experience to be a very tangible example of
how traditional cultural practices can adapt in response
to the demands of modern life. Because cultural norms
and social customs are often some of the last features of a
society to change, their continued presence can evolve to
take on a new meaning. If I were an office worker in Tianjin
with a demanding job, but still looking for connection,
perhaps I would also choose to have a poster made with
my information. Knowing that this was an option might
bring me comfort, regardless of the cultural era it might
recall.
Ciqikou Ancient Town, Chongqing
First Tier Cities and Modernity
IMAGE 7
Staring through the gate of Ciqikou Ancient Town, which
framed the skyscrapers across the river, the view for me
encapsulated modernity as the physical impact it exerts
on cities, creating new spaces for people to go, new
things for them to do, and new experiences for them to
have.
Though Chongqing has now earned the designation of a
“new first tier city”, according to criteria set by the
financial magazine Yicai, walking through the streets, it
feels much older than Beijing or Shanghai. Beyond its
‘cyberpunk’ skyline that is highly lauded online, the streets
are narrow and graying storefronts abound. Yet as the
effects of economic reforms deepen and tourism demand
increases, more cities like Chongqing are able to meet
economic and population criteria set by monitoring
groups and earn a new tier designation.
To me, this photo represents the way that modernity has
brought old and new pieces of cities into the same frame.
In some places, like Ciqikou, the divide is clear and
distinct; elsewhere, historical residences and temples are
more subtly slipped between towering new financial and
commercial districts.
According to Yicai, fourteen cities joined the list of “new
first tier cities” alongside Chongqing in 2025. Though I
only had the chance to visit two (Chongqing and
Chengdu), seeing the rapid pace at which an
once-exclusive ranking has expanded has been one of the
most influential markers of the scale and pace of growth
that has occurred across China as a whole.
2 Sustainability
永续性
IMAGE 8 HEADER 2
Huanghuagou, Inner Mongolia
Green Energy and Sustainability
IMAGE 9
The 草原 was almost empty when we showed up in
September, if you could overlook the two camels and the
hundreds of windmills spinning lazily in the background.
China is often described as an international leader in
green energy generation. However, during my first month
in Beijing, this reputation was not immediately apparent. I
saw electric cars on the streets and bicycles everywhere,
but there was no sign of the massive renewable energy
projects I had heard about before coming to China.
I chose this picture because it captures both the scale of
and intentionality behind China’s green energy initiatives
in a way that would have been impossible to appreciate
without our trip to Inner Mongolia. Watching the
windmills rotate relentlessly, I found this to be an example
of sustainability in China on the most macro level.
These large-scale energy projects, such as the wind farms
in Inner Mongolia and the solar parks on the Tibetan
plateau do not represent the type of sustainability that an
individual might practice in their daily life, nor are they
something a single person can contribute to directly.
However, they have an enormous impact on the country’s
wellbeing as a whole. More than simply being towering
landmarks on the horizon, they have integrated China’s
peripheral regions into national conversations about
sustainability, and physically embedded sustainability
into the country’s infrastructure.
Fengcheng, Jiangxi
Sustainable Transportation: Gaotie
IMAGE 10
By the time I took my final train out 北京南站, I had passed
through that station at least seven times already, traveling
to nearby cities like Tianjin and Hohhot, and farther
destinations like Xi’an and Shanghai. The gaotie was my
companion weekend after weekend; as the train raced
along the tracks, I would work, sleep, or chat with whoever
I was traveling with. In many ways, I have the gaotie to
thank for making this project possible, allowing me to
explore corners of the country that would have otherwise
been out of my grasp.
The multitude of experiences I had with the gaotie left me
better able to reflect on its broader impact on
sustainability efforts in China. The gaotie shaped the
rhythm of my weekends, but also daily life for millions of
people across the country by making both long distance
and everyday travel possible.
On the macro level, one of the gaotie’s biggest
contributions to sustainability is the way it significantly
reduces carbon dioxide emissions generated by travel. A
trip from Beijing to Shanghai by gaotie has only a fraction
of the environmental impact as the same journey by air.
For people who travel frequently, substituting flights for
gaotie rides can reduce their carbon footprint
substantially.
In the context of daily life, the gaotie makes
intra-provincial commutes both practical and affordable.
Fengcheng, for example, is a fourth or fifth-tier city, yet it
is still connected to the gaotie network. Every day, at least
ten trains run from Fengcheng to Nanchang, the
provincial capital, at an average cost of 25 yuan per trip.
Not only in Jiangxi but across the country, such
accessibility makes commuting to local urban centers
possible, opening doors to education, work, and
economic opportunities that may not be available in
county-level towns and villages.
In this way, I think the gaotie is one of the most critical
pieces of sustainable infrastructure: it reduces the impact
of long-distance travel on the environment, while also
equipping individuals with the means to pursue personal
economic growth in a way that may not have been possible
even 10 years ago.
Suzhou, Jiangsu
Sustainable Transportation: Cycling
IMAGE 11
The first time I unlocked one of the blue Alipay bikes was
in Anyang. I was with Andrew, Brittany, Eliza, Ivan, and we
were looking for an exciting way to see what the city
looked like at night. Someone suggested we try biking,
and we quickly found a nearby sidewalk that had enough
bikes for everyone. Even though it was the first time any of
us had tested the renting feature, all of us had it figured
out within five minutes. For an hour, we sped through the
city, paying only two yuan each for the experience. As we
parked our bikes near the hotel, I was a little taken aback
by the ease and convenience that made our adventure
possible.
Over the course of the semester, the blue and yellow bikes
became a reliable part of my routine. Every Thursday
morning at 8:40, I would scan an QR code to unlock a bike
and pedal over to the SIS building just in time for lecture.
On other days, I would ride a little farther off campus to
explore, scanning to lock and unlock with ease.
My only experience with bike-sharing before coming to
China was in Seoul. While the system was cheap, it
required downloading a special app, and the bikes could
only be borrowed from certain locations. By contrast, the
Alipay and Meituan bikes were fully integrated into the
app ecosystem I was already using, and were ubiquitous.
Scan, ride, return anywhere, repeat. I was pleasantly
surprised by how effortless it felt to integrate them into
my Beijing routine.
To me, these bicycles epitomized what sustainability looks
like in practice, because they made you want to bike.
Because they were so simple and convenient to use,
people chose to bike naturally, rather than regarding it as
some sort of environmental trade off. Walking to campus
every morning, I would pass a sea of people biking on
sidewalks and streets, weaving past each other and
dodging pedestrians with practiced ease. Maybe one or
two out of every fifty people I saw was thinking about
sustainability, but for the rest, it seemed more likely that
they were biking for the same reason as me: because they
couldn’t imagine their daily routine any other way.
Fengcheng, Jiangxi
Waste Disposal and Sustainability
IMAGE 12
With the love that there seemed to be for mascots and
animated characters (Xue Wang and Nezha seemed to
appear just around every corner), I was surprised that the
first time I encountered a character connected to the
waste sorting and management system was not until
December, in Fengcheng.
Over the course of the semester, my perception of
sustainability in everyday practice in China remained
mixed. Both on and off campus, public trash cans I saw
offered spaces to separate trash from recycling. However,
looking inside, I saw tissues mixed with plastic bottles,
cans, food wrappers, and even dead leaves and other
plant waste. Not only was it unclear which items were
meant to go where, there was no strict enforcement of the
system anywhere.
In my neighborhood at home, even a single improperly
sorted item can cause an entire batch of compost or
recycling to be regarded as contaminated and discarded
as trash. By these standards, nearly everything I saw in the
public recycling bins would have to be thrown away as
well. While this is not the way that waste management
operates in China, with this stringent criteria in mind, I
couldn’t help but feel like one of the most accessible
forms of everyday sustainability, waste sorting, was going
largely overlooked.
Additionally, as ordering 外卖, as well as drinks from
brands like Mixue, Chagee, and Luckin, has become part of
the everyday culture, the amount of single-use packaging
being produced and discarded has grown exponentially.
Walking around in public, it was difficult to ignore these
effects as I saw empty drink cups carelessly abandoned
everywhere.
On a national scale, it seems that the development of
sustainable infrastructure to address waste sorting and
disposal has not yet kept pace with new consumption
patterns. People’s attitudes toward everyday sustainable
living practices also seem to still be in flux.
With these thoughts in mind, I found myself unable to
resist taking this photo. Using characters that felt
approachable, and perhaps even appealing, seemed like a
novel way to promote participation in environmental
protection efforts in a way that seemed largely
overlooked in the rest of my experience in China.
Humanity人文性
IMAGE 13
PKU Global Village, Beijing
Service Platforms and Humanity
IMAGE 14
I think it was in week three or four of China in Transition
when my discussion group talked about the platform
economy, and particularly, the role that individuals play
within platforms like Meituan and Taobao.
Looking at these giant platforms, it is easy to reduce the
people who spend hours delivering packages or food to
simply cogs in a machine. Efficiency and technical
optimization are often prioritized, leaving little room to
acknowledge that these transactions are, at their core,
driven by human labor.
Though the human role can be overlooked, I became
aware of just how vital it is when I made a mistake while
trying to return a dress through Taobao. I knew I would
not be in Beijing when the driver came to pick it up, so I
left a short note explaining where I had left my package
outside and asking him if he could pick it up from there.
Just in case the driver was confused, I also let a friend
know about the situation.
However, due to a small miscommunication, my friend
thought I was receiving a package, and brought it back
inside before the driver arrived. I only realized this when
he called me at the scheduled pick up time, telling me
he saw my note but couldn’t find my package. I
panicked. I wasn’t in Beijing, and had no idea where it
could have gone. To my surprise, the driver was
unexpectedly patient. He told me not to worry, and that
he’d come back later to look for it again.
When he still couldn’t find it later, he shared his personal
WeChat with me so that we could communicate more
easily. He sent me pictures of the location I had
described, asking me if maybe I had sent him the wrong
spot. That day, he came back to the Global Village three
times, eventually picking up my package hours after the
original appointment was scheduled.
None of this was required of him. The only thing that
had been his responsibility was to call me at the
pre-arranged pick-up time. He had no obligation to
share his personal contact with me, or to help me by
going back twice after my original appointment had
lapsed. There was nothing on the Taobao platform
incentivizing his kindness, nor would he have been at
fault if he simply left after not finding the package the
first time. I would have understood too, because not
coordinating correctly had been my mistake.
His judgment to come back was not the judgment a
machine would make, nor one that the platform itself
would encourage, because the time he spent helping
me fix a mistake was time he could have spent
delivering other packages. It was a human judgment,
based on a genuine desire to help.
This interaction was a powerful reminder that while
systems like Taobao operate at an enormous scale, they
are sustained by individual decisions. The messages I
exchanged with this driver ended up being one of the
most meaningful conversations I had over the course of
the semester because they made it impossible to ignore
the humanity within a platform designed to minimize
personal contact.
Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia
Lived Experiences and Humanity
IMAGE 14
Because Inner Mongolia is quite rural, traveling from
place to place required the help of a private driver we
had contacted in advance. The man who picked us up
from the gaotie station on our first day was very kind,
taking us to his favorite 烧卖 spot for lunch, and even
lending Eliza his coat as we made it into the 草原 and
realized just how stark the temperature difference there
was. We parted that night with smiles, expecting that we
would see him again the next day.
The next morning, we were greeted by a new face. The
woman understood our surprise and was very sweet,
telling us to call her 姐姐, and explaining that she would
be the one driving today. She took us to a restaurant she
insisted made the best traditional Mongolian breakfast
before bringing us to the Wulanhada Volcano Geopark.
As we wandered from volcano to volcano, she asked us
where we were from, why we were in China, and what had
brought us all the way to 内蒙古. Though none of our
accents were even close to that of a native speaker, she
praised our 口音 anyway, telling us she couldn‘t hear a
difference. As she got to know us better, she joined us in
lightly teasing Eliza, and repeatedly assured us that if we
needed something, “Jiějie will do it.” At every volcano,
she pointed out the best spots for photos, and
enthusiastically helped us pose for group and individual
pictures. After much cajoling, she even agreed to pose in
a selfie of all of us together.
As we started to head down the last volcano, she took
me by the arm, and we walked together. As we walked,
she quietly asked me questions she had about the US.
She asked me about safety and the cost of living, and
told me things she had heard from the news. Most of all,
she wanted to understand how I had come to live there. I
did my best to answer, and in return, asked her about her
life in Inner Mongolia, and what she enjoyed doing. As we
neared the base, I asked her if there were any other
places in China that she would recommend visiting. A
little shyly, she told me she had never left Inner Mongolia.
This conversation stayed with me because it was the
first time in China that I really had the chance to speak
with a local about their life and experiences in a
personal, unstructured way. In spite of the slight
language barrier, both she and I were able to ask for
answers to the questions we were curious about,
understanding that they came from a place of mutual
curiosity. It reminded me of the online cross-cultural
exchanges I had hosted in high school, where
conversations unfolded from a blank slate and grew out
of the little things that people simply wanted to
understand better. As we neared the car again, I was
struck by how different my life was from
Jiějie’s, and how unlikely, but lucky, it had been for us to share these
twenty minutes with each other.
Lijiang, Yunnan
Navigating Global Tensions and Humanity
IMAGE 15
I had been having a bit of a lazy morning on the last day
Brittany and I stayed in Lijiang, and didn’t come into the
sitting area of the guesthouse until it was close to
noon. When I came in, the owner was there reading, as
were two other guests. I had noticed their books when I
saw them on the table the day before, and had been
impressed; all were dense texts, written in English, on
international relations and the international political
economy.
Before I quite realized what was happening, I had been
pulled into a conversation with all three of them.
Knowing I was from the US, they were eager to ask
about my background, my views on US politics, and my
thoughts on US-China relations. We sat around the
table for at least two hours, exchanging perspectives
on these topics. The two guests told me they had
taught themselves English through the books they
were reading, and were also curious to know if I
recognized the ideas being discussed.
While I found the substance of the conversation
engaging, there were moments where conversing itself
felt frustrating. I couldn’t express all of my thoughts as
clearly in Chinese as I could in English, and at times, I
felt like they were drawing conclusions that I hadn’t
intended to imply. As much as I tried to clarify that
what I was saying were only my personal opinions, I also
felt a bit like I was being regarded as a stand-in for all
American perspectives more broadly.
By the end of the two hours, when they asked if we
could take a photo together, I was a little taken aback. I
didn’t feel like the conversation had answered their
questions in the way they had clearly wanted to ask,
and I wasn’t sure why they considered this a moment
worth recording. However, when I looked back at the
picture after returning to Beijing, I found myself glad
that we had taken it, and grateful that we had talked
together. Even though the exchange wasn't perfect, it
still felt valuable to me because it had created a space
for us to communicate beyond media representations
of each other’s countries, and in a way where greater
mutual understanding could take shape.
Conclusion
As I was planning this project, I had an idea of the types of photos I wanted to include, and so I thought that choosing the specific pictures would be a fairly straightforward process. I didn’t expect to spend hours going through my photo album, trying to decide between pictures with only minute differences in angle or color as I searched for the moments that captured the most unique
encounters I had with Chinese modernity, sustainability, and humanity. Frustrating as some of these decisions were, the scrutiny they demanded was not without its benefits, as it also gave me the chance to reflect on the semester as a whole. Even though I did my best to stay present in every moment, only in looking back through my entire collection of China memories do I feel as though I am able to appreciate the breadth and depth of the places we visited and the experiences we had.
Every time I travel, I am struck by how deeply I feel like my world view expands. I am always surprised by how many different lifestyles can coexist at once, within one city, and in the world as a whole. As I traveled throughout China, for both program field trips and my own enjoyment, I had the chance to visit the some of the biggest, most modern cities in the world, but also cities like Xi’an and Tianjin, where history practically bleeds out of every building and street, cities like Dali, where ethnic minorities’ traditional handicrafts and style of dress feel just as much in place as the electric cars speeding by, islands (on a brief trip to Gulangyu), and even the cǎoyuán, the same cǎoyuán that the Mongols and Manchus swept down from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The photos I took on each of these trips only begin to scratch the surface of how history, the pace of life, and people’s values have intertwined, giving each place a perceptibly distinct character. As the goal for this project grew more intentional, the impossibility of even beginning to understand China without these trips became clear to me.
The China I thought I knew before coming to Beijing was very different from the China I got to know over the course of this semester. I have learned that there are many different Chinas that exist to different people, as a result of their background and the connection they share to the country. Certainly, my understanding of contemporary China is very different from that of Jiějie in Inner Mongolia, who has never once left the province, or that of a Tianjin Foreign Studies University
student, for whom many of the things that were novel to me would likely be routine. While I still find it difficult to articulate these differences, I hope this photography collection helps to convey the way I came to understand them.
After four months in China, I will leave in a matter of days. I think when I do leave China, I will be leaving with a better sense of the China that the CAPS program is fundamentally about understanding, and also, of my own place in the world.