Richard Yarrow '19

Richard Yarrow, wearing glasses, smiles and holds up an EAS travel mug and tote bag in front of a canvas printed with the EAS lion head logo

Harvard College '19
BA, History and Philosphy
Secondary Field in East Asian Studies

I joined EAS during my junior year. Midway through college, I studied as a visiting/exchange student at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where I was supported by Harvard’s Asia Center and the Orlins research fund. I had previously focused more on European history and philosophy, but my time at Tsinghua in the 2010s made me excited to study more about China when I got back to Harvard. For the rest of my time in college, I took many EAS humanities courses—on Chinese history, ancient literature, and anthropology—and spent many afternoons happily browsing through China-related materials in Harvard’s various archives (for me, these were HUA, Schlesinger, Yenching, and Fung). The EAS undergraduate office was kind and supportive (with delicious tea and study breaks), and I loved Harvard’s many communities for Asia studies that grow around the Asia-related departments and centers.

Harvard has been strong in East Asia studies for a century, and I found the study of East Asia to be one of the most intellectually (and also in “real world” terms) exciting areas on campus. So many remarkable visitors would come to Harvard: I remember attending off-record seminars at HKS with leading Chinese businessmen and diplomats, and at one point I was seated next to the president of a Chinese university at a dinner at Lowell House. Harvard also had many renowned faculty who would give or organize talks on history and current events—these included Ezra Vogel, Richard Cooper, and Dale Jorgenson. With so much happening on campus, EAS provided endless opportunities for intellectual excitement.

Many undergraduates worry about the “practical” or career relevance of taking humanities courses. I probably wish Harvard had more East Asia-focused social science courses while I was a student, as well as more courses reflecting on the historical and cultural links between Asian countries (including in South and Southeast Asia, in addition to Japan and Korea). However, I found that the EAS courses I took in history, literature, and philosophy gave me strong foundations for understanding societies and relating to people in very different circumstances. For instance, studying under Xiaofei Tian (who, fairly rarely among Harvard professors, insisted on precise memorization!) enabled me later on to seamlessly quote Du Fu and Hongloumeng to convey points to academics and government officials in China and elsewhere in Asia. Additionally, I found that many of Harvard’s East Asia-related faculty, such as Dwight Perkins, Mark Elliott, and Liz Perry, were willing to keep on engaging and providing feedback for my work even after I was no longer a student.

After graduating, I did not have a very clear career path in mind, but I knew that I wanted to do some work related to East Asia and that I wanted to live in China for some time. Partly due to the disruptions of COVID-19, I ended up staying for almost two years in Southeast Asia, in addition to several months at the Australian National University in Canberra and the National School of Development in Beijing. While much of my undergraduate coursework centered on intellectual history, since then, I have written on topics ranging from Thai economic policy, to the activities of overseas Chinese scientists and the ideologies of the Chinese Communist Party. Harvard and EAS gave me deep background knowledge that helped me engage or branch into many new areas, the freedom and motivation to explore new topics as a student, and the encouragement to keep on exploring and broadening my skills and interests related to Asia after graduation.

UPDATE: Richard undertook graduate studies at Princeton University in the Department of Politics with a focus on International Relations, and is currently a Harvard Fellow at Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. He has also been affiliated with the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research at the Australian National University, the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, and the Fairbank Center and Weatherhead Center at Harvard University. He is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Outside of universities, he has also worked at think tanks in Washington, DC, and with Harvard's Institute of Politics.