Lily's DH Project: Intro

My project is concerned with the general American and Chinese view on ‘Chinese students studying in the US’ during the covid-19 pandemic. I am taking an archival approach to this project, as I will be collecting opinions on this matter from American and Chinese social media (a variety of them, to get a better understanding considering different social media have different target groups). I believe that this project is valuable because this very particular social group is experiencing xenophobia in the US, while the Chinese public is rejective towards them (us) in fear of a secondary outbreak and as a reaction to the American anti-Chinese propagandas.

In my vision, the final product will be a gallery of social media posts that cover a variety of voices from both sides of the world (I will be actively searching for different opinions when doing data collection, but also will take notes on which one seems to be the mainstream). Of course, the posts in Chinese will be translated into English and vise versa. Extra context will be added if the posts are discussing a specific case/news. I want to add my personal comments, just still debating in what form (Per post? Per social media?). Overall, I hope people will put themselves in the position of ‘a Chinese student studying in the US’, and start to think more about the consequences of demonizing, othering, and scapegoating in the covid-19 pandemic.

The situation right now was easily predictable, as I’ve always been aware of the public’s subtle approval for anti-Chinese voices in the US (understandable as we have conflicting values in literally everything), and the strong nationalism in China (we fell from the world’s superpower to the “Sick Man of Asia”, and getting back on feet was another long history of struggles, so yes the Chinese people are more defensive of their country). However I was not expecting the xenophobia and scapegoating in the US to be so straightforward and coverless, and that the opinions about international students would be so acute in China. I have been a direct target of xenophobia multiple times in video games (not in real life, phew), and have seen discussions on the internet about ‘what attitude should people be taking when it comes to international students trying to come back to China’. We’re not a huge community but we aren’t small either. There are a lot of people in the position I’m in that are dealing with this situation better or worse. Now that we’re forced into this awkward position, as a member of this awfully quiet group, I thought that our experiences and perspectives are worth recording and should be seen.