Harvard College China Forum happened! 🌻🌻🌻

感谢你，哈佛中国论坛。这一年过得忽快忽慢，有时磕磕碰碰，但终归时常能让我深夜里兴奋得睡不着。从一开始担心文化分论坛一个演讲嘉宾都请不到，到奇妙地看到一位位重量级嘉宾加入，再到最后在Seaport会展中心看着座无虚席的剧场和台前分享的方文山、李路、童之磊、杨晖、陈楸帆和刘林老师，也许那一刻感受到的是几百人思想上的碰撞和略微不可思议的欣喜。这是一个有魔力的平台，吸引着太平洋两岸、各行各业的人才一起前来贡献他们对于这个世界的想法。谁能想到一年前在香港红馆《地表最强》演唱会挥舞着荧光棒、亲眼看到台上的周杰伦时泪流满面的我，一年后能有幸邀请到方文山老师出席文化分论坛？反正我一年前跟全家一起追着看《人民的名义》时，完全想也想不到一年后我能亲自与李路导演交谈。

作为大一新生参加哈佛中国论坛的团队是我2017年做的最好的决定之一。感谢向我强烈推荐HCCF的Zara Zhang学姐（who happens to run an amazing blog; she was also last year’s Co-President）、整个Organizing Team （尤其是我所属的Programming Committee），以及热心帮助和引导我的每一位学姐学长。团队的力量真的令人震撼。一年前的我很青涩，但这一年来我学会了如何待人处事。这些点点滴滴我会放进人生的行囊里。感激每一次成长的机会和与我一同成长的你们。

Now, time for some life updates! It has been a week since Harvard College China Forum concluded at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. Time has been hurtling forward since Spring Break came and went. Classes are ending in two weeks’ time (on April 25th), with a week of Reading Period, followed on its heels by college-wide finals (I don’t have any sit-down ones), and before we know it—

My freshman year at Harvard will be over.

Sometimes there are days when nothing seems to happen other than the routine cycle of classes, paper-writing, and endless piles of readings. And then there are weeks when a lifetime takes place in a blink, which is how April feels like thus far.

This past week has been spent religiously in the world of fiction. By sheer chance (or luck, depending on how the imaginative process unfolds), two of my classes allowed for the option to do creative projects in lieu of a final paper/graded assignment. Counting my fiction writing workshop class, I have three creative projects to complete before Spring semester ends—a piece of fiction to workshop (which I will craft in this upcoming week), a personal essay on the genealogies of global imagination (I’m currently envisioning something to do with arrival and displacement, in the style of V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival), and a modernist retelling of Bai Ju-yi’s Song of Everlasting Sorrow 《长恨歌》 (which I just finished a draft of last Friday—maybe I will post it here?). These characters I have been or will be in the skin of—my fictional self, Yang Gui-fei, Emperor Xuan-zong and their motley crew, and the yet-to-be-conceived ones dancing in my skull—seem to exist corporeally in a different time and space. Yet, the more I write, especially in such a concentrated stretch of time, the more I’m struck by the constructedness of fiction and creativity itself. Where do all these stories come from? Am I some conduit of the invisible? It’s a fathomless, marvelous process of magnitude and mystery:

Out of the dark emerging, out of nowhere: first not there, then there, like a newborn child, heart working, brain working, all the processes of that intricate electrochemical labyrinth working. A miracle.

The quote above is from a book I just finished reading last night—J. M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello. Is writing creation out of the void? A transition from non-being to being? Words, from an unknown place of shapeless thoughts and abstraction, translate onto the blank pages as a concrete gospel of the human condition.

It’s funny how easily I oscillate between the abstract and the ultra-practical. During the three days of Harvard College China Forum (April 6th to 8th), my psyche was orbiting in a different hemisphere. The Culture Panel I organized was decidedly rooted in a business perspective of the Chinese cultural landscape. As an avid consumer of new models of content,  I came up with a panel topic that was very close to my heart. I’m not sure where these varying concerns will take me as I explore, but in experimenting on my own and hearing the thoughts of those who have been in the creative industry for decades, I hope to slowly formulate why culture matters to me and what I want to do as an individual.

Culture: China’s Contemporary Content Revolution

China has one of the most dynamic and fast-changing culture industries in the world today. Contemporary Chinese society avidly consumes and creates avant-garde culture, from music streaming to web literature to video streaming. What underlines such shifting cultural trends is the content revolution that is taking place in the form of IPs (intellectual properties). Originality and creativity are key markers of valuable IPs, which can be translated into various artistic mediums, constitute well-known franchises, and form a crucial part of China’s cultural narrative. In an age when content lies at the heart of cultural consumption, we will explore how lyricists, directors, writers, and producers create resonant, defining, and thought-provoking content that captures the modern imagination. We will also look at the challenges and opportunities these content creators face in the midst of China’s unprecedented content revolution.

These are just some of the thoughts darting around (or brewing) in my mind. Since I’m writing so much for my classes in the last 21 days of Freshman year, I’m really excited to share some of these pieces with you in the coming weeks!

Will be making announcements on my Summer plans soon! Still finalizing some loose ends.

❤

With Fang Wenshan, the lyricist to the soundtrack of my youth (i.e. Jay Chou’s songs). 和方文山老师的合照—我青春乐谱中的字字句句都出自他笔下。

Lots of love,