Blog Diary

Semester Summary and Future Plan

As the semester draws to a close, it’s time to summarize progress and plan for the next phase. For the proof of concept, I received valuable feedback from classmates. There was widespread agreement that the film’s sensory narrative perspective is unique, and I will continue to retain my “collage” style editing approach. Additionally, the delicate presentation of everyday objects was particularly impressive. Some of my classmates also suggested enhancing visual continuity between scenes, a very pertinent recommendation.

The conversation with Kristina proved highly useful. She advised narrowing the research scope to focus on the “international student” cohort, a refined direction that has helped clarify my subject group. Regarding the advisory committee, I have extended invitations to several professors and am awaiting their confirmation. It is confirmed that Professor Sarah Drury will be one of my committee members.

Based on this feedback, my concrete plan moving forward is: complete primary filming during winter break, including Victor’s kitchen scenes and documentation of Chinese Student Association activities, while finalizing equipment borrowing and other preparations. The spring semester will prioritize film editing and thesis writing.

Regarding the project’s long-term development, I aim to submit the final work to Temple University Television (TUTV), because I will take the TUTV Practium course next semester. I hope this project is not only as the culmination of my graduate studies but also as a potential signature piece for my future career, showcasing my ability to integrate documentary creation with academic research.

In the end, I want to say thank you to Prof. Zaylea and Dr. Shaw, thank you very much for your help!

1. Summary of the article

The article examines how professors’ everyday behaviors signal inclusion or exclusion to international students and how these signals shape students’ academic goal pursuits and sense of belonging. Drawing on in-depth interviews with international students at two large U.S. research universities, the authors use a belongingness framework and resilience-based models of acculturation to analyze student narratives. They identify three key dynamics in student–faculty interactions: participation and inclusion (professors’ small, caring gestures that invite students into classroom dialogue), personal ways of knowing (students learning to connect their own experiences and identities to course content), and possible selves (professors acting as role models who influence students’ imagined futures). While most participants describe interactions marked by joy, trust, anticipation, and surprise, the study reveals sharp inequalities when looking at subgroups defined by academic preparedness and financial resources: students with low financial resources report more intense and varied experiences, and those with both low finances and low academic preparedness almost never describe positive faculty interactions. The authors argue that student–faculty relationships are central to international students’ well-being and success and that universities have an ethical responsibility to address exclusionary practices and neo-racist attitudes in academic spaces. 

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2. How it contributes to my project

This article directly supports my project, which explores the lived experiences of international students and the fragile, everyday process of “belonging” in a new academic and cultural environment. Glass et al.’s focus on small, ordinary interactions with professors gives me a strong theoretical lens for understanding and framing the moments I want to highlight in my own work: the awkward first office-hour visit, the teacher who slows down to check in after class, or the silence when help is not offered. Their concepts of participation and inclusion, personal ways of knowing, and possible selves help me think more precisely about what is actually happening in these scenes—how a comment in class can either open a space for an international student’s voice or quietly tell them “you don’t belong here.” The attention to uneven experiences across financial and academic backgrounds also reminds me not to treat “international students” as a single, unified group in my project, but to show how class, race, and preparedness shape very different trajectories. Finally, the article justifies why my project matters: if belonging is a fundamental psychological need tied to mental health and academic success, then documenting, visualizing, and complicating these student–faculty encounters is not just personal storytelling, but a way to make visible a structural issue in U.S. higher education.

3. This Saturday I completed the test shoot for the kitchen interview. I experimented with two camera angles, baked a Basque cake, and filmed part of the process as a rehearsal for my interview with Victor on Monday afternoon. The feedback I received was quite positive. Aniyah mentioned she would be interviewing four people, which also gave me a reference point for the interview length needed for my project. I also met with the librarian and received advice from Kristina. My target audience will focus on international students, rather than all “new” arrivals as I had initially envisioned.

4.

Since my project will ultimately be presented as a documentary, I plan to create a short film showcasing my work. I intend to film my interviewee Victor speaking while cooking, capturing a relaxed, leisurely atmosphere. I’ll also walk and talk with Victor, conducting the entire interview on the move and during activities.
Additionally, I’ve reached out to Kevin, a piano major at Berklee College of Music who currently resides in Philadelphia. Since his teacher is based here, he commutes between the two cities, returning to Boston every Wednesday. I will conduct a follow-up interview with him in the piano practice rooms on campus.

1.

Strange Encounters reframes “the stranger or other” not as a stable identity but as a relational position produced in concrete encounters. For Ahmed, everyday meetings like yielding a doorway, exchanging greetings, returning a gaze, pronouncing a name, producing documents, etc. They are never neutral, they are pre-scripted by histories, state policies, media narratives, and ordinary etiquettes. Therefore, who counts as us and who is marked as them is not given in advance but reiterated through small, embodied practices of seeing, hearing, and touching. Central here is “stranger fetishism”, the tendency to pin diffuse historical and structural tensions onto a figure of the stranger, as if problems arrive with an outsider rather than with long sedimented exclusions. On this view, “hospitality” versus “suspicion” is not just an attitude gap; it is a matter of spatial choreography, who occupies inside/outside, who is addressed first, whose accent gets corrected or ignored. Ahmed shows how affective economies such as fear, curiosity, disgust, warmth, circulate in encounters and stick to certain bodies, making some subjects appear “risky,” “teachable,” or “manageable.” Rather than appealing to a vague ideal of “integration,” the book returns change to the craft of meeting: modulating distance, rewriting etiquette, practicing naming and being named to loosen the hard edge of us/them in repeatable micro-moments. The proposal is not a sentimental inclusivity but a political ethics of embodiment: through bodies, sounds, and gestures, relocate welcome and coexistence from slogans back into techniques of everyday life.

2.

This book provides a framework for my Beginner’s Guide to elevate micro-moments—yielding at doorways, nodding greetings, being called by name/misnamed, queueing distance, entering/exiting groups—into theoretical questions: self-introduction is not information exchange, but a “positioning within an encounter.” Through Ahmed’s lens, can I interpret the renaming trajectory “from Helen → Zoya → Ziran” as a shift “from being named to self-negotiation”? Can I read the minor failures and successes in “finding a group/finding work” as the body’s process of reallocating intimacy or strangeness within space and rules? For my tentatively scheduled interviewees Victor and Merlyne, can I probe how Victor was welcomed? and how she welcomes new students (Merlyne), capturing subtle clues through the lens (gestures, distance, gaze, the sound of being called by name). This would weave humor and observation into a theoretical framework, making the film both naturally engaging and academically grounded. Expand on the content in the above paragraph.

3.

This week’s practice day focused primarily on preliminary project preparations. I have completed comprehensive testing of the filming equipment, including the stabilizer compatibility of the DJI Pocket 3 and the low-light performance of the Canon camera. Simultaneously, I conducted test shoots at Temple University Library, with a particular emphasis on fine-tuning the audio pickup of the lapel microphone in high-ceilinged spaces.

I haven’t met Kristina DeVoe yet, but I’ve already booked an appointment with her this week on Tuesday. I will meet her in person in Charles Library.

Additionally, I confirmed the interview schedule with Merlyne, the administrator of the Temple University Chinese Student Association, who will be interviewed.

Reference

Ahmed, S. (2000). Strange encounters: Embodied others in post-coloniality. Routledge.

1.  The article that I read this week, it examines global student mobility trends, the status of the U.S. as a study destination, and the challenges it faces. The article notes that while the U.S. remains the largest host country for international students due to its excellent academic system, diverse institutions, and cultural and economic appeal, its dominance is being challenged by increasing competition and domestic policies. The author analyzes the “push” and “pull” factors influencing student mobility and highlights the negative impacts post-9/11, including stricter visa regulations, safety perceptions, and aggressive recruitment by competitor nations like Australia, the UK, and the EU. Furthermore, the article anticipates the potential effects of emerging transnational higher education and distance learning on student flows and points out the lack of a coherent national strategy for international education in the U.S., which could undermine its long-term competitiveness.

2. This paper provides a particularly crucial backdrop for my project. My short film captures the authentic details of daily life for international students in Philadelphia—the awkwardness of boarding the wrong bus, the embarrassment of not understanding supermarket labels, or the delight of finding familiar ingredients from home for the first time in a foreign land.

Alterbach’s research acts as a commentator, helping me understand why we came here and why we face these challenges. The visa policies and safety concerns he mentions actually impact our daily lives.

Now I can connect these broader contexts with my personal stories. For instance, while filming Temple University’s international student services, I thought about the article’s mention of a “lack of national-level strategy.” When documenting Chinese students gathering on Fridays, I saw what the article didn’t explicitly state—their efforts to find a sense of belonging within the gaps of policy.

3. Writing in class activity

Arriving in Philadelphia as a newcomer, I treat belonging as something the body learns to do over time. Classen’s account of culturally specific “sensory regimes” becomes my starter kit for orientation: I listen, smell, and touch before I claim to “see,” letting the city’s atmospheres tutor a novice body. Sutton’s idea of food as a “sensory anchor” reframes early survival rituals standing in bakery air, prowling Chinatown aisles, cooking a familiar dish and sending that first steam back home, as practical tools for self-maintenance rather than nostalgia. Thrift’s non-representational theory steers the camera toward these pre-reflective practices and affects, the subway’s low rumble felt through bone, diamond-shaped sun on a fire escape, so the film traces process instead of hunting for perfect pictures.
As routines accumulate, objects begin to “speak”: bilingual labels, grease-stained wrappers, and reused coffee cups circulate with traces of trade and migration, making quiet co-narrators of my settling-in. Gradually, paths harden into habits and place attachment takes shape, one library seat, a Friday gathering, the smell of Kenyan spices in a friend’s kitchen echoing Altman’s multi-dimensional account of how space turns into place. Framed by narrative inquiry into cross-cultural study and everyday adaptation, this memory map shows belonging not as a single epiphany but as a slow accretion of sensory routines, object histories, and micro-rituals that let a newcomer begin to lead the way for others.

4. This week I submitted equipment borrowing requests to the equipment office and successfully reserved core gear including a Canon video camera, tripods, and reflectors. This equipment will ensure stable image quality for upcoming interviews and shoots, particularly providing professional support for indoor lighting control in Victor’s kitchen scenes and street follow-cam footage.

While compiling the equipment list, I realized filming is about to enter its substantive phase, a prospect that fills me with both anticipation and a touch of nervousness. I’m currently contemplating how to translate the theoretical framework into concrete visual language.

Reference:Altbach, P. G. (2004). Higher education crosses borders: Can the United States remain the top destination for foreign students?. Change: the magazine of higher learning, 36(2), 18-25.

Komissarova, O. (2020). International student enrollment trends in the United States: Economic perspectives (Doctoral dissertation, Seton Hall University).

1. Low and Altman laid a crucial theoretical foundation for the field of environmental psychology. This study systematically elucidated the core concept of “place attachment”—the deep-seated connection humans form with specific physical environments across three dimensions: emotional, cognitive, and practical. The authors profoundly revealed the transformation mechanism from abstract “space” to meaningful “place”: this shift occurs when individuals project emotions and meaning onto physical environments through sustained lived experiences, personal memories, and social interactions. The literature particularly emphasizes three key dimensions in the formation of place attachment: the affective dimension manifests as feelings of belonging, security, and comfort toward a place; the cognitive dimension is expressed through memory storage, knowledge accumulation, and symbolic understanding of the place; and the practical dimension is revealed through daily behavioral patterns and personalized rituals. This theoretical framework provides a systematic analytical tool for understanding the complex relationship between humans and their environment.

2. This theory infuses my project with its soul, granting scattered visual fragments a profound narrative logic. When filming Victor, a Kenyan student, meticulously grinding spices from his homeland in the kitchen, the lens captures not merely an act of cooking, but the moving process of an exile constructing an emotional sanctuary in a foreign land through taste memories. The Friday gatherings of the Chinese student association transcend ordinary social events, becoming a collective practice where young people carve out spiritual enclaves within an unfamiliar culture.

Viewed through this lens, the same street traversed repeatedly transforms into an exploratory journey, a physical measurement of the city, a mapping of the soul. That fixed seat in the library becomes a personal sanctuary seeking stability amid turbulent studies. Even the tactile feel of an old iron door, the cacophony of traffic at a street corner, or the focused profile during worship become visual language exploring universal themes of modern existence—the eternal dialectic of dispersion and rootedness, alienation and attachment.

Capturing these subtle moments ultimately addresses a larger question: In this era of constant flux, how does one truly “exist” in a place? Through the lens’s meticulous observation of daily life, the project reveals the authentic process of building belonging—not a sudden epiphany, but a connection to life that slowly grows through countless moments of dialogue with the city.

3. My edited media received positive feedback from classmates. Zey said my perspective on the world is unique, which gave me a huge boost. Wenyi mentioned she really liked the background music I chose, which made me very happy. I talked with August and Lexi. I shared that I’m feeling anxious right now, but they offered comfort. On one hand, they reassured me that I’m not too far behind schedule. On the other hand, we exchanged advice with each other.

Reference: Low, S. M., & Altman, I. (1992). Place attachment: A conceptual inquiry. In Place attachment (pp. 1-12). Boston, MA: Springer US.

1.

The article delves into the issue of cross-cultural adaptation among Chinese undergraduate students in American higher education environments, with particular focus on the dimension of academic adaptation. The study notes that despite the explosive growth in the number of Chinese international students over the past decade, there has been little scholarly effort to understand their genuine cross-cultural learning experiences from their own subjective perspectives. To address this research gap, the study adopts a narrative inquiry approach within qualitative research, documenting and analyzing personal experience stories of Chinese undergraduates to explore how they comprehend and construct meaning during their cross-cultural transition. Using Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions theory as an analytical framework, the research systematically examines how cultural differences concretely influence Chinese students’ learning processes in American universities. This research approach not only reveals the crucial role of cultural factors in educational contexts but, more importantly, places students’ personal narratives at the heart of the study, allowing the voices of the researched to be heard. The ultimate aim of the research is to provide practical references for American universities, helping them better understand the cultural differences that Chinese students bring and supporting these students in achieving success within a completely new academic environment.

2.

While reading this study, I deeply felt that what it describes is exactly the daily life I have experienced in Philadelphia—the cultural dimensions and adaptation processes rationally analyzed in academic papers are precisely what I have lived through via grocery receipts, museum brochures, and the sounds of the streets. When the research discusses power distance, I recall the sweat on my palms the first time I raised my hand to speak in a classroom; when it mentions individualism versus collectivism, also the stark contrast between the clear sound of cutlery while dining alone in a restaurant and the lively voices in my family’s WeChat group chat. These theoretical frameworks provide me with a mirror, making me realize that those seemingly random sensory fragments actually form a coherent narrative of cultural adaptation. My project aims to externalize this internal adaptation process into a tangible visual poetics, using the camera lens to capture the emotional textures that theory cannot fully contain. In this sense, my creative work is both a response to academic research and a transcendence of it. I want to showcase not only how a Chinese student “adapts” to Philadelphia but, more importantly, how I have established a unique sensory connection with this city, how I transform unfamiliar street corners into coordinates of personal memory, and how I carve out a fluid, personal space of belonging between two cultures.

3.

This week I continued shooting footage and uploaded it to the Arena website (where I store a lot of my materials). I’m also preparing to shoot some additional scenes and plan to edit a rough opening sequence, hoping to present it to everyone smoothly by Tuesday. I reached out again to a teacher from the Chinese Students’ Association whom I might interview, and she was very willing to help. Then I rewatched the documentary “Faces of the Village,” this time carefully analyzing its cinematography to identify elements I can learn from.

Reference

Zhang, H. (2013). Academic adaptation and cross-cultural learning experiences of Chinese students at American universities: A narrative inquiry (Doctoral dissertation, Northeastern University).

1.

I feel the research progress has reached my initial expectations for the semester. The original goal was multisensory documentation, but I have now found a more profound and specific theoretical anchor.

The milestone I’m most proud of is discovering Arjun Appadurai’s theory of “The Social Life of Things” and subsequently developing my own methodology.

I no longer view supermarket receipts, museum brochures, etc merely as personal items but as archaeological sites for understanding cultural integration in Philadelphia. By comparing and analyzing shopping lists from different communities(it’s the plan), I can interpret the stories of cultural adaptation behind consumption habits. This makes me feel that abstract theory is finally firmly connected to concrete creative practice.

2.

The project visualization is moving towards the John Wilson style I aspired to, finding depth and humor in the mundane. I have concretized this into a visual style I call “Forensic Lyricism”, using macro lenses to observe objects with the meticulousness of a forensic expert. I hope ultimately to present the findings poetically.

3.

My paper will clearly articulate how the project stands on the academic shoulders of Non-Representational Theory and Material Culture Studies.

I will detail my creative choices in the paper. For instance, a prolonged shot aims to visually represent theoretical concepts like the social life of things and negotiation of cultural identity.

The final work itself can be a practice of theory, while the paper serves to clearly elucidate the thinking, process, and academic context behind this practice, fully meeting the requirement of a theoretically informed formal paper.

4.

I am most looking forward to starting the “Things Ethnography” phase, which involves mustering the courage to approach strangers in local markets and inviting them to share their shopping receipts or lists. I believe this will expand the project from a personal diary to a community dialogue.

I am particularly curious to discover if there are Cultural Translator Objects (e.g., a specific sauce or snack) that appear across different cultural communities, potentially acting as subtle connectors between disparate worlds.

Also, I hope to refine the collection of sensory, systematically recording the unique sounds, smells, and textures of each consumption environment. This will ensure the final work offers not only rational analysis but also an immersive sensory experience.

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Lastly, well I haven’t received the feedback of my Project Treatment and Initial Media yet. The status is still submitted not graded.

1.This book presents a fascinating perspective: objects, like people, possess their own life stories. We often assume an item’s value is fixed—that its raw materials or production costs determine its worth. But this book reveals that’s not the case at all.

The meaning and value of an object are created and transformed through its constant flow and changing hands. Imagine an African sculpture: it might have started as a tribal ritual object, then been taken as spoils by colonizers, later becoming a commodity in an antique dealer’s hands, and finally resting quietly in a museum display case. Throughout this journey, its identity shifts, from sacred artifact to trophy, then to commodity, and ultimately to work of art. Each transformation reflects differing perceptions among various groups, shifting values across eras, and the intricate power dynamics underlying these shifts.

By tracing the life trajectories of various objects—not just artworks, but also everyday items like tea leaves and fabrics—this book reveals a profound truth: one of the best ways to truly understand a society is to examine the life journeys of its significant objects. For the history of these objects’ movements is, in essence, the history of shifting human relationships, the evolution of cultural tastes, and a testament to the passage of time.

Silent objects cease to be passively placed in corners; they become active participants with their own stories, even capable of influencing interpersonal relationships. When we reexamine every item around us, we discover they each carry a unique social memory, silently narrating tales of humanity’s interaction with the world.

2. This book provided me with a valuable framework for reflection. It made me realize that before formally raising the camera, I must re-examine every object I intend to photograph. These are not static elements waiting to be recorded, but narrators with rich life stories.

The Philadelphia elements about to enter my lens—the bilingual product labels in Chinatown grocery stores, the grease-stained paper wrapping food at Reading Terminal Market, the coffee cups reused by students in the university district, even a discarded ticket stub on the street—all deserve to be understood through the lens of “social life history.”

I won’t merely mechanically document their visual forms. Instead, I aim to reveal their underlying trajectories and human networks through composition, light, and sound. A simple wrapper can narrate how immigrant families’ culinary traditions took root in this city.
In Chinatown’s grocery stores, tin cookie tins and double-labeled soy sauce bottles cease to be mere static commodities. Having crossed oceans to arrive here, they bear witness in immigrant kitchens to countless moments of homesickness and adaptation. The oil stains and wear accumulated on their surfaces chronicle a culture taking root in new soil.

My work isn’t about collecting objects, but documenting life’s trajectories. Those soon-to-disappear kraft paper bags, faded train tickets, and well-worn coffee cups—they are the city’s most honest custodians of memory. My task is to let these silent objects speak through my lens, sharing the stories they’ve lived alongside this city and its people.

3. This week, I’ve gradually gotten all the preparations sorted out. The new phone gimbal pairs seamlessly with my existing Pocket 3, so now I take it along on walks whenever I head out. Whenever I come across an interesting street scene, I can whip out my phone and capture a quick clip.

I stopped by the city library and discovered some old Philadelphia photo albums in the rare books section. As I quietly flipped through the yellowed pages, it felt like I could almost touch the city’s past warmth. I snapped photos of many memorable scenes with my phone.

I also got in touch with a friend who works at the school, and he readily agreed to step in as an extra if needed. While it’s still uncertain whether live actors will be required, knowing someone is willing to help puts my mind at ease.

Referance: Appadurai, A. (Ed.). (1988). The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge University Press.

1.Traditional arts and social science have long focused on “representation,” that is, the ways in which language, symbols, and images are used to represent and interpret the world. Thrift argues that this over-reliance on representation obscures a more fundamental and expansive dimension of social life. The core of the world’s reality, he suggests, is constituted by those experiences and practices that occur prior to language and thought—those that are directly participated in by the body, and which are fluid and difficult to articulate.

Non-Representational Theory shifts the focus of research from static texts and symbols to dynamic bodies and practices. It is concerned with the unthinking habits of everyday life, the tacit knowledge contained within the skilled body, and the affects and atmospheres that permeate space and function prior to individual consciousness. These elements are understood as environmental forces that shape conduct and influence perception, rather than as internal psychological states.

The theory seeks to capture not the fixed state of the world, but the process of its continual becoming. It emphasizes the primacy of relations and effects, focusing on how different elements—including humans, technologies, objects, and the environment—mutually shape each other and co-evolve through their interactions. This is a philosophical position that understands the world as a ceaseless flow of innumerable practices and events.

Thrift’s work pulls scholarly attention away from the interpretation of meaning and toward the observation of effect; it turns from the decoding of signs to a focus on practices. It reveals that the substance of life resides more in the realm of embodied, pre-reflective experience than within a clearly represented symbolic order.

2. My lens should capture those moments when language fails. At Philadelphia’s subway station, leaning against a gently vibrating pillar while waiting for the train, the rumble transmitted through my bones recorded the city’s pulse more vividly than any image. I began focusing on collecting these sensory fragments that defy complete translation: How the diamond-shaped sunbeams on the fire escape warped over time, how the aroma wafting from bakeries in different neighborhoods subtly mingled with exhaust fumes at street corners… These fragments collectively form my memory map of Philadelphia—not about how it looks, but about how my body truly existed here. It’s a “backup” of genuine memories, preserving these fleeting sensory dialogues, even though they can never be fully archived or explained.

Refenrance

Thrift, N. (2008). Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. Routledge.

1. Academic Article Summary
In this seminal work, anthropologist David Sutton explores how food and food practices serve as powerful mediums for encoding, storing, and recalling memory.

He argues that taste, smell, and the embodied rituals of cooking and eating are central to the formation of personal and collective identities. Moving beyond food as mere sustenance, Sutton examines how culinary traditions act as “sensory anchors” that connect individuals to their cultural pasts, facilitate the transmission of heritage across generations and geographies, and become sites of negotiation in contexts of migration and change. The book blends ethnographic richness with theoretical depth, positioning the kitchen and the meal as crucial spaces for understanding how memory is lived and felt through the body.

2. Contribution to My Project
This book contributes to my project by providing a theoretical framework to understand my own sensory experiences in Philadelphia. It gives me the language to analyze why searching for familiar tastes and smells is not just a nostalgic act but a fundamental process of identity maintenance and adaptation. Sutton’s concept of food as a “sensory anchor” directly explains my strategy of using comforting familiar smells to navigate the standard strange smells of a new culture. It elevates my personal documentary from a collection of observations to a critical examination of how to use sensory memory to build a sense of belonging.

Furthermore, this article makes me believe my research of focusing on tiny, daily rituals to access these much larger themes of cultural negotiation and identity more.

3. Done and To-do

This week I’ve been mainly reading Sutton’s book to find theoretical support for the project. Though I haven’t started filming yet, I bought a DJI Pocket 3 to make it easier to shoot anytime around town later.

Next week I plan to go out and gather material. I’ll use my camera to capture scenes that catch my interest.

Reference

Sutton, D. E. (2001). Remembrance of repasts. (No Title).