Alexander Zirui Zhang '20

In an artistically grainy photo, a young man with close-cropped black hair and a high white collar looks seriously at the camera at a downward angle in front of a deep orange background

Harvard College ’20 (Eliot House)
AB, Social Studies and East Asian Studies

East Asian Studies was a very natural progression from my background in Social Studies, as I was already starting to develop a focused interest in the study of Chinese pop culture and media. It wasn’t long, however, before I realized that a joint concentration with EAS made more sense not only in terms of area focus, but also in method, resources, and faculty. My courses in EAS helped me build a more critical, postcolonial framework that wasn’t readily available in the Western social sciences at Harvard, allowing me to incorporate key approaches from Eastern history and tradition. With the help of my incredible advisors Jie Li and Shuang Lu Frost and support from resources like the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, I was able to spend half a year in China conducting ethnographic fieldwork on hip-hop culture and eventually wrote an honors thesis that I really loved. Because of that experience, I have been inspired to continue developing my education and academic practice in the coming years.

Outside of school, EAS has proven to be extremely relevant and useful in a variety of research and strategy roles in the creative industry, where I frequently work in between East Asian and American markets. One of the most striking things about studying a country like China as an anthropologist is realizing just how distorted Western perceptions of Eastern cultures and communities are, even among “experts.” As a Chinese person myself, this process of realization has also been a journey of self-discovery, and I am grateful to EAS for bringing me so much personal and spiritual enlightenment.

I only wish that I had known to study East Asia earlier on in my academic career! Every day, I become more aware of how these frameworks continue to apply to our daily lives, whether it’s the more obvious political-economic tensions of the modern era or more subtle philosophical and cultural influences like the increasingly popular practice of mindfulness. I think any undergraduate would have much to gain in life from a better understanding of that background.