Bridges are common objects in my master’s research fieldwork on education and social development in Southern China and Southeast Asia. In these places, where mountains and rivers shape the local landscape, bridges—whether built with wood, bricks, bamboo, or cement—play a vital role in people’s lives. Crucially, bridges not only allow community members to connect people who come from elsewhere, but also to enter a larger world that they have been dreaming of for a long time. For many of my research subjects from underprivileged areas, like Guangnan in China and Samraong in Cambodia, moving upwards usually means moving away to a nearby cosmopolitan city, leaving behind their familiar lifestyles and adopting a new persona.
A bridge, in this sense, carries both physical and symbolic meanings. On the one hand, it gives people the opportunity to migrate and pursue their dream life. On the other hand, it also represents a rupture in life due to the uneven economic development among different regions and a disproportionate focus on cultures and lifestyles.
Therefore, apart from their visual representations, bridges can also be analysed sociologically in connection with migration and mobility. Sociology, in this regard, also links my personal stories with more macro social forces. As someone born in a small city, my experiences resonated with many of my interlocutors when I researched education and social mobility. Located in central China, Changde is a beautiful and tranquil city with a rich history; however, it does not offer enough opportunities for everyone.
“Since I was a child, I was constantly told by my parents and schoolteachers (and ultimately internalised the idea) that I needed to work hard to reach a larger world. For instance, one needs to excel in the nationwide examination for higher education—an exam which is likened to a stampede of a thousand horses crossing a single log bridge in a Chinese saying (“千军万马过独木桥”).”
Sunset in Changde, China, 2020. Photo credit: the author.
Despite this fixation with achievement, my research found that moving outwards, essentially upwards, is not a smooth transition to one’s expected ideal life. Through my inquiries in higher education, I learned that many students can feel out of place, performing as someone else, and foregoing their previous experiences, which are not acknowledged or largely ignored in another cultural or social context. In Cambridge, people talk about a wide shared feeling of being an “impostor”, that is, not smart enough or capable enough according to a rigidly set standard. Such ruptures in life motivated me to conduct a doctoral study on how people’s identities flow in critical life events, like moving and attaining educational degrees, especially in a transnational setting.
As a sociologist, my academic background compels me to situate this seemingly personal mobile experience in a larger social and historical context. I remember myself standing on an overpass in Beijing, overlooking bustling vehicles. Or watching peddlers navigate the maze-like skyscrapers in Chongqing. Or walking past serene canals in Leiden and Cambridge. In all of those places, I kept wondering, imagining and speculating about different people’s life stories. Many invisible networks and forces bring us together in the same space and time through material bridges like access to higher education; our unique experiences and memories shed light on the macro forces of social division and stratification.
Peddlers, Chongqing, China, 2020. Photo credit: the author.
So often, when I step on the various bridges that link up “the Backs” and the city of Cambridge, my thoughts bring me back to my beautiful Chinese hometown and the sites where I conducted my research. People there strive for a better life, while these bridges in Cambridge allow students like me to bring in new ideas and intellectually stimulating experiences. In this regard, ruptures also mean new insights, both for the distant hometown and for my intellectual home of Cambridge. Students from all sorts of backgrounds, themselves now become the “bridges” to link up different contexts and societies. They embody, communicate and interweave various past experiences and lead to more nuanced understandings about diversity and differences.
The bridges on these photos transcend mere physical structures: they encapsulate the transformative essence of journeys, fostering connections and leaving indelible imprints on both the individual and collective consciousness. As we continue to traverse these bridges, we carry the lessons of both connection and rupture, weaving a narrative that bridges the gaps between diverse cultural worlds and experiences.
The views expressed in this piece are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the Editorial Board, the Scholars’ Council, the Gates Cambridge Trust or the University of Cambridge.
Kun Liang ['23] is a first-year Ph.D. student in Sociology studying the subjectivity-making and status reproduction of international students in higher education.
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