I shot the China video component for this insightful and sensitive piece by Te-Ping Chen for the Wall Street Journal on why so many Chinese students are choosing to study in the US. It's an interesting read for anyone who wants to understand the aspirations of some of the Chinese students pouring into western universities, especially when there is an increasing stereotype of Chinese students as rich and spoilt. We had a fun day or so with student Fan Yue in Yangzhou, a small (by Chinese standards) city in eastern China, as she prepared to leave. It was interesting, and often entertaining, to hear the expectations and apprehensions that middle class family had about a country that is both revered and resented in China for its clout and cultural ubiquity. Fan Yue was fed up with the Chinese education system and dazzled by the freedoms her US counterparts seemed to enjoy, but worried about fast food and fitting in. In the US she seems to have found some of the freedom, but was sorely disappointed that she indeed struggled to make friends with local students. In some ways she was even discouraged from integrating - she was, for example, placed in a dormitory with only Chinese students, despite her express wishes to share with others. This strikes me as pretty counterproductive when surely part of the benefit of having international students is to increase mutual understanding.