Leta Hong Fincher '90

A woman with shoulder-length curly medium brown hair, wearing silver hoop earrings and a black and white textured blazer, smiles

Harvard College '90
AB, East Asian Studies, Harvard College
MA, East Asian Studies, Stanford University
PhD, Sociology, Tsinghua University

It was an easy choice for me to major in East Asian Studies (EALC) because I spent my childhood traveling to China as the daughter of two China scholars. My Chinese mother had raised my brother and me to speak fluent Mandarin, but it wasn’t until I attended Harvard that I became competent in reading and writing Chinese as well. I had a wonderful honors thesis advisor, Professor Lydia H. Liu, and senior tutor, Professor Meir Shahar, and I feel lucky to have kept up a relationship with them both after so many years. I then pursued a Master’s in East Asian Studies at Stanford University, where I wrote for the university newspaper and decided to become a professional journalist.

After obtaining my MA, I landed my first job as a research assistant for ABC News in New York. Over many years, I worked as a TV and radio journalist in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, as well as New York and Washington DC. I loved my journalism career, won several industry awards for my work, and along the way, became intensely interested in women’s issues in China. I had thought on and off about doing a PhD, but it never felt like the right time to disrupt my career. Meanwhile, I also got married and had two children. Our family moved back to Beijing for a second time in 2009, and my foreign correspondent visa was held up (as has become rather common over the past couple of years). The stars had finally aligned for me to embark on the PhD program that I had contemplated for a long time, and so here I am, the first American doctoral candidate in sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

[Since the time of this interview, Leta Hong Fincher earned her PhD from Tsinghua University and is now an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. Leta’s first book, Leftover Women: the Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (2014), was named one of the top 5 China books of 2014 by ChinaFile, one of the best foreign policy books in 2014 by FP Interrupted, and one of the best Asian books of 2014 by Asia House. In 2018, Leftover Women was named on the New York Times list of recommended books on China. Her second book, Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China (2018), was named one of the best books of 2018 in Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Foreign Policy Interrupted, Bitch Media, and Autostraddle. She was also named by the Telegraph as an “awesome woman to follow on Twitter.” You can also visit her website: http://www.letahongfincher.com.]

I think the most wonderful thing about being an undergraduate at Harvard is that you have extraordinary freedom to try new things. I have always been very eclectic and spent just as much time performing in student theater, singing, directing, playing piano and socializing as I did studying. (That’s probably not what your advisors want you to hear.) Take advantage of this time to explore your interests, question the world around you and learn to listen to your inner voice. I actually don’t think it matters too much at the undergraduate level what your major is, but a degree in East Asian Studies does open your horizons beyond the confines of the United States when the world is becoming increasingly interdependent. In my case, my degree has led to an extremely exciting career revolving around East Asia, so yes, I would choose to do it all over again.