ASU center shares knowledge of Chinese scholars with students

"Ai-si-yo" is homophonoushaving the same pronunciation as another or others but different meaning, origin, or spelling to ASU in Chinese and also translates to "friends who are passionate about ideas."

Dedicated to introducing the most recent social science research by young Chinese scholars at Arizona State University, the International Students & Scholars Center (ISSC) launced their first event this month on the Tempe campus. The program hopes to share the knowledge of Chinese scholars and experts through face-to-face conversations with students while discussing how to report politics in China and in the U.S. through the lens of Beijing-based Chinese journalist Xiaofeng Wang.

Co-hosted by Wang, who’s now a Humphrey Fellow at ASU Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and Tianlong You, a scholarly activist and freelance writer who is attending the justice studies doctoral program at ASU, the event explored the topic at the intersection of the challenges media is facing: fake news, censorship, social media, Eurocentric bias and media ethics.

“I hope this program will invoke people’s curiosity in other fields of study and let them care about things beyond themselves,” You said.

Chinese students filled up the Cochise Room at the Memorial Union for the event.

“It deepens my understanding of China’s media environment,” said Tianyu Xu, a Thunderbird School of Global Management junior. "It's an opportunity to voice our opinions and concerns”.

A second event, featuring Chinese farmers’ “enclosure movement” in East Africa, will be hosted by geography doctoral student Puyang Li in mid-November.

Written by Yu ZHANG