As a staff member in the Public Relations office, interviewing and filming students and faculty members of Yenching Academy are major responsibilities of her daily workings. Therefore, our talk with her offered us a unique insight into the beauty tucked away in the seasonal scenery of Jingyuan: w...

01 May 2021

Before coming to Yenching, Hana Lord’s understanding of Asia was centered around Japan, where her family is from. She quickly learned that the cacophony of Beijing bore few similarities to Tokyo’s quiet orderliness. From the rapidly developing urban landscape to the galavanting adventures of Ye...

30 April 2021

Zexin Chen’s story with Jingyuan started from his undergraduate years. Unlike beautiful scenery memories mentioned by many other scholars, he focuses on different interactive scenes that play out in Jingyuan: crowded, barren and changeable, with people crowding around, messy grounds after a heav...

30 April 2021

Enrolling at NYU Shanghai as an undergrad, for Zoe Jordan the appeal of China was, in part, its distance from her Maryland home. Over time, NYU gave Zoe a close community of friends in Shanghai. For YCA, Zoe embarked on a second journey; this time, she moved to Beijing. Her new surroundings felt ...

30 April 2021

Zac Marcone completed his undergrad at Columbia University. Comparing the architecture of his undergrad college — an iconic American institution renowned for its Greek architecture — to Jingyuan, he could not help but feel that the latter reflected a distinctly Chinese aesthetic. Yet, at the sa...

30 April 2021

Coming from Hungary, Péter Sczigel found China to be drastically different from home. Yet, he adapted quickly. Soon, Péter was exploring both on Beida’s beautiful campus and in the outskirts of the city. As he carved out his own Beijing experience, Jingyuan became emblematic of university life i...

30 April 2021

Duanling Fu graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Wuhan University. As a self-described “pioneer” who loves trying new things, Duanling joined Yenching Academy in 2015 as a member of the 1st cohort. In her eyes, Jingyuan can be understood as the quiet witness of many enthusiastic and intense...

30 April 2021

For Paulina Zofia Uznańska who had previously studied Chinese language for a year at Peking University, studying in Beijing may not be a distinct affair. Yet, she could not help be enamoured by what she recounts as the ‘magical’ charm of Jingyuan. She found herself being drawn to it every day ...

30 April 2021

After 8 years of Mandarin study and several years in Shanghai, Olivia came to the Yenching Academy of PKU (YCA) with a firm Chinese cultural foundation. Yet, her time in Beijing still managed to strike her in surprising ways. It was several “cities in a city,” as Olivia notes. Developing at bre...

30 April 2021

A frequent traveler, Kourosh Houshmand  built on a lifetime of trips between East and West upon entering the Yenching Academy of PKU (YCA). Within Beijing, he quickly found his home through the restaurants of the city, carving out a personal nostalgia. Memory itself strikes Kourosh as an ephemera...

30 April 2021