Why should Harvard students go on a fieldwork trip in rural China?
An increasing number of students in Harvard University are learning Chinese and showing an increasing interest in China and its culture; while a variety of courses offered across disciplines of history, literature, sociology, government, literature and so on demonstrate Harvard’s willingness to meet the students demand to offer both an overview of the country and in-depth analysis of particular perspectives. Despite the increasing variety of courses offered at Harvard and fieldwork conducted in China, however, much of the university’s attention is still paid to a China narrated by the experience of its centers of developments—Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the coastal areas—while beyond these centers, rural Chinese villages, where 70% of the country’s population still belongs to, are great repositories of traditions and local history that are not yet fully explored. Rich sediments of the agrarian-society that are extinct in urban China remain visible in many aspects of village life
