My China story began in 2019, when I traveled there with my father. During that trip, we visited some of the country’s leading universities, including Peking University where I visited Yenching Academy. At the time, I was still trying to understand what kind of academic life I wanted for myself, so I did not leave China with a finished plan. What I did leave with was a very clear impression. I remember the campuses, of course, but even more than that, I remember the atmosphere around them: the seriousness, the quiet ambition, and the sense that study was being treated as something meaningful.
That visit changed the scale at which I thought about China. Until then, it had been a country I knew mostly through reading and through the broad outlines of its rise. Being there made it real. I was drawn in by the culture, by the level of teaching and research I encountered, and by the feeling that China carried its history without being held back by it. What stayed with me was not a single moment, but a general sense that this was a place I wanted to return to with more time, more maturity, and better questions.
Over time, that first impression became something more precise. As I moved into law and began working in international trade, I found myself returning to China from a different angle. Many of the questions that matter most to me now—about trade, industrial policy, technology, sustainability, and global cooperation—cannot really be understood without taking China seriously. From where I stand, much of the future of international commerce will be shaped by choices made in and around China. For Brazil, that is not a distant fact. China is one of our most important partners, and understanding it more deeply feels inseparable from understanding the world my generation will work in.
That is what drew me to Yenching Academy. I did not want to keep studying China only from a distance. I wanted to experience it from within: to study in Beijing, to listen more carefully, and to think through these questions in a place where law, politics, economics, history, and culture are constantly in conversation. What attracts me most about Yenching Academy is exactly that combination of rigor and openness. It feels like the right place to turn curiosity into understanding, and interest into a more serious form of engagement.
What I hope to discover here is academic, cultural, and personal at once. Academically, I want to deepen my understanding of China’s role in international trade and global governance, especially in relation to Brazil and the Global South. Culturally, I want to move beyond admiration and into familiarity: to better understand the habits, references, and ways of seeing the world that do not always appear in books or policy debates. On a personal level, I hope this experience makes me more attentive, more precise in how I think, and more capable of living with complexity without rushing to simplify it.
Looking back, it feels meaningful that this path began with a visit I did not yet know how to interpret. In 2019, I left China with a strong impression and a vague sense that I wanted to return. Now, returning as a Yenching Scholar feels less like a sudden change of direction and more like the continuation of something that started years ago. The difference is that this time I arrive with clearer questions, a stronger sense of purpose, and a much deeper curiosity about what I still do not know.
