Hopkins-Nanjing Center Blog

Matthew Chitwood, HNC Certificate ’10, Johns Hopkins SAIS MA ’11, is currently on a two-year fellowship with the Institute of Current World Affairs to research infrastructure development and its impact on people, land, the economy, and governance in Yunnan Province.    Tell us about being a fellow with the Institute of Current World Affairs (ICWA) in Bangdong, Yunnan. It’s almost too good to be true. ICWA asks you what you would do if you could pursue any personal and professional development opportunity for two years. My answer was to understand rural China. I’m familiar with China’s massive urban centers after living in them for over a decade. But roughly 40% of China’s population still lives in rural areas - a big number when you’re talking about the world’s most populous country. And it’s a critical demographic to understand if you want to grasp where China is coming from and where it’s going. So I’m living in a small village - I mean "350 people small" - in rural Yun...

Taylor Jones graduated from University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 2014 and received a Certificate in Chinese and American Studies in 2017 from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. Since 2017, she has worked as a marketing consultant and senior operations manager for Walland Technology Company Ltd. in Nanjing, China. Tell us about your current role. I am a senior operations manager at Walland, a Chinese e-commerce company that specializes in women’s fashion products. Walland has multiple brands with products that range from luxury wigs to wedding dresses and invitations, and their brands cater to mostly the European and American markets. I primarily work with the RPGShow luxury hair brand. In my role, in addition to strategic planning, I organize and prepare logistics for our offline events in Europe and the United States. These events include mini offline locations, where we partner with local hairstylists to display our products, and larger pop-up shops in places like London, New York, a...

Student blogger Cady Deck, Certificate ’19, interviews the Hopkins-Nanjing Center student committee (banwei) representatives about their experiences. Every semester, students elect four representatives to the student committee, known as banwei (班委). There are two Chinese students, one male and one female, and two international students, also one male and one female. The banwei acts as the intermediary between the student body and the administration, advocating on behalf of the students. It deals with issues within the community as well as planning campus events such as the annual Halloween party, seasonal holiday parties, weekly coffee discussions, barbecues, etc. I talked to a few banwei representatives from last semester and this semester to learn more about their responsibilities. The Fall banwei representatives (left) and the Spring banwei representatives (right) Why did you decide to run for banwei? Shelby Tuseth, banwei Fall ’18 : I wanted to learn how the Hopkins-Nanjing Ce...

Student blogger Sam Olson talks about what members of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center community did over Winter Break. The Hopkins-Nanjing Center academic calendar includes a number of breaks to celebrate both Chinese and American holidays. Our longest break, in the winter falls from early January to mid-February to coincide with Chinese New Year and gives students the opportunity to intern, travel abroad, or go back home to spend time with family and friends. Below is a snapshot of how some students spent their winter break. “I spent almost the whole break interning at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Beijing office. Despite working for most of the break, it was totally worth it. I liaised with the secretaries of TNC China board members to confirm the board members’ participation in TNC activities. In addition, I helped work in conjunction with the TNC Africa Office to design three visits to Kenya, Namibia, and Botswana. Now I have a better understanding of how international NGOs work in Chi...

Student blogger Hope Parker, MAIS ’20, describes the different opportunities to get involved with moot court, a law competition where students participate in international law court or arbitration simulations, at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. At the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, many students join one of the moot court teams as an extracurricular activity. Moot court is an international law competition where students participate in preparing and arguing case simulations in front of judges. Each moot court competition has at least two major events during the year: the memorials deadline and the oral competition. Memorials are written arguments that must be submitted to the judges prior to the oral round. The memorials lay out legal arguments that become the basis for the oral round, which gives moot court members serving as oralists a chance to focus on their public speaking and oral arguments. During the oral rounds, teams compete against each other by making their arguments to judges who ask ...

Hopkins-Nanjing Center Certificate + Johns Hopkins SAIS MA students reflect on their student life experiences in Nanjing and DC. “In my experience, life in DC tends to be more fast-paced than in Nanjing. In DC, there are multiple events going on every day at Johns Hopkins SAIS, nearby think tanks, and other places; you sometimes have to pass up opportunities because there’s so much going on. Life at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center offered a bit more time to do things like take an evening walk around the city with friends. Getting to experience both cities is one of the best parts of being a student at both the HNC and Johns Hopkins SAIS.”  - Brian Hart, HNC Certificate ’18, Johns Hopkins SAIS MA ’19  “We were just talking the other day about how much we actually miss Uncle Pizza (a pizza restaurant in Nanjing).... It was great seeing a whole cohort of familiar Hopkins-Nanjing Center faces when I arrived in DC for the first week of classes — it has been great getting to know th...

Student blogger Tarela Osuobeni shares her experience adjusting to the bilingual community at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and her strategies for overcoming the learning curve. Arriving in China to start my year at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, I first experienced the benefits of language immersion at the Shanghai airport. Having been in the U.S. for a month after being in Suzhou for the Critical Language Scholarship eight-week language immersion program, I was initially afraid that I had lost some of my language skills. However, the flow and familiarity of the words came back to me as I asked for directions and talked with my taxi drivers. I arrived at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center near midnight and found an HNC staff member waiting at the desk to hand me my room keys and check me into my room. When I got to my room, I fumbled around for the information I needed to connect to the internet, trying not to wake up my roommate. I found the sheet that provided directions, but panicked when I re...