Four distinguished Pomona College students have been awarded Avery China Adventure Program Grants, which provide funding for individual research projects in China. This year’s recipients plan to study industrialization, women and music, crickets, and dance. The Avery program, which only accepts applications every two years, is open to students of nine Southern California Colleges and makes selections based on academic achievement, previous triumph over obstacles, and detailed travel plans.

Andrew N. Cvitanovich, a senior public policy major with a concentration in biology, will explore the effects of industrialization and urbanization on rural peasant life and the environment in Northeastern China, traveling mainly by bicycle. He sees his project as particularly timely “due to the monumental changes China’s rural areas are experiencing.” He plans to participate in local agricultural practices in order to fully understand the relationship between the people and their land, and how the changes are affecting their lives. Traveling by bicycle, he explains, will not only provide another connection to rural life but will allow him to access remote communities. He will start in Shanghai, travel through the Jiangsu province to the Shangdong province, then into Beijing, and the Hebei province. Future plans include graduate school study in planning and public policy, followed by a career in government, where he hopes to find ways to improve communities and the environment.

Chi T. Ha, a senior biology major with an Asian studies minor, is an accomplished violinist who plans to study how music has affected Chinese female traditional musicians. “These women,” she explains, “lived through the Cultural Revolution, and experienced radical social, economic, and political changes.” Through interviews and other interactions, she hopes to find out whether music gave the female musicians hope to overcome obstacles; how the Cultural Revolution affected them; whether music can truly unite people; and what has allowed some women to play traditionally male instruments, like the er-hu, a traditional stringed instrument. During her travels, Ms. Ha plans to learn to play the er-hu in exchange for violin and English lessons. As the daughter of an immigrant Vietnamese family, she has personally overcome many obstacles, often with the help of music. She plans to spend four months each in Shanghai and Beijing. Following her project, she plans to continue her study of biology with a focus on human disease in graduate school.

Khalid M. Maznavi, a senior English major, will investigate the current revival of cricket culture in Eastern China, focusing on the construction of cages, capture of wild crickets for domestication, and the violent sport of cricket fighting. Mr. Maznavi has always been interested in crickets and related culture and mythology. Cricket domestication, he notes, traces its roots back to the 7th century Tang Dynasty. During his project, he hopes to examine the centrality of these insects in Chinese society not simply as pets or as sporting goods, but as symbols of a very personal and spiritual growth that has been developing in the country. While in China, he will participate in that culture, capturing and fighting these insects. His studies will take him through Shanghai, Tai’an, Beijing, and Xi’an, centers of this practice. Following his research trip, he plans to attend medical school.

HunWen Tao, a physics major from the class of 2001, will purse her interest in Chinese classical and folk dance and the regional cultures that inspire these through connection with retired dance teachers. “Dance” she says, “tells the story of a people and a place foreign to the audience with a clarity that no words in any language can describe.” Her goal is to get a fuller understanding of the spirit of the people and the movements dancers use to portray them, refining the minute details going beyond mimicking motions to expressing character. She will study with dance teachers across the country, including teachers in the cities of Shanghai and Beijing, and the provinces of Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Liaoning. Her future plans include work in the energy sector, specifically energy policy and solar-powered architecture, and possibly graduate school.

The Avery China Adventure Program was founded by Pomona alumnus R. Stanton Avery, who in 1929 joined nine other Pomona students in creating the Oriental Study Expedition. Each had a particular area of interest and scraped together sufficient funds to spend one year traveling throughout China. The people they met and the experiences they had during the trip left a lasting impression on them all. 

With his skills as an inventor and entrepreneur, Mr. Avery built the multinational company now known as Avery-Dennison. In 1960 he created the Durfee Foundation, named for his late wife Dorothy Durfee Avery, for the purpose of enabling others to reach toward extraordinary individual achievement. The Avery China Adventure Program was originally created by the Durfee Foundation to recognize the adventurous spirit of the original China expedition. Now administered under a partnership between the R. Stanton Avery Foundation and the California Institute of Technology, it continues this legacy by offering opportunity for China travel to individual aspiring explorers.

Pomona College is one of the premier liberal arts colleges in the country. Founded in 1887, the College offers a comprehensive program in the arts, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Its hallmarks include small classes, close relationships between students and faculty, and a range of opportunities for student research. Pomona College is also home to the prestigious Pacific Basin Institute and one of the oldest and largest Asian American Studies programs among liberal arts programs.