During my MA in Chinese Studies, I was trained to understand China from an interdisciplinary perspective, and then became intrigued particularly by anthropology. What I love most about this discipline is ethnographic methods. I am always moved by anthropologists’ endeavor in seeking for insiders’ view, appreciating the minutiae of human experience, and giving voice to the voiceless. Many evocative and revealing ethnographies are based upon the long-term, intimate relationships between the ethnographers and their informants – they learn not only from, but with people. It just sounds so attractive to me!

As to my own project, I plan to explore how people experience eating disorders in contemporary China. My interest in this topic mainly came from my own experience of this mental illness. I am fascinated by the differences in the way I perceive the world before and after recovery. I thus want to have a closer look at how eating disordered sufferers relate themselves to the outer world as well as their own bodies. In consideration of the low literacy and limited treatment resources for the illness in China, hopefully I would design and conduct my study towards a way that could serve more practical purposes like improving public health education.