Documentary aims to break stereotypes

Members of Walker Production Studio, which produced the documentary US. Provided to China Daily

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A grassroots campaign is underway in the United States to fight the stereotype that all Chinese students who come to the US are spoiled children from rich families wanting to buy fancy degrees. China is now the largest overseas source for the higher education market in the US.

With English subtitles, an hourlong documentary called simply US aims to recast the image of Chinese students in the US and has already attracted more than 6 million views since it was uploaded online on Nov 23.

It's the work of a group of Chinese youths who studied in the US over the past two years.

"Through the documentary, we try to put the pieces of the puzzle together and give people an accurate picture of the life of Chinese students in the US," says Geng Kaitian, a Chinese graduate from Purdue University and onetime vice-president of Purdue's Chinese Student and Scholar Association.

Geng organized a team to kick off the US documentary project on April 12, 2012, just one day after the fatal shooting of two USC graduate students from China.

The victims were criticized by Chinese netizens for coming from rich families and flaunting their wealth by buying a BMW, which they believed caused the tragedy.

A friend of Geng's knew the victims and told him both were from middle-class families and were very hardworking students.

"Misunderstanding and rumors have shaped the reputation of Chinese overseas students, particularly when we return to China to hunt for jobs," Geng says.

The team, called Walker Production Studio, reached out to many distinguished Chinese talents in the US and scheduled 53 interviews across the country. In the end, 14 interviews were chosen and edited into the final version. A total of 148 Chinese people contributed to the project.

With different stories, interviewees share similar memories. "I never expected that during the next four years, I would stay up late to fight for better grades. It has never occurred to me that the locals would frown upon my English and pretend that they do not understand me at all. I have never thought that one day I would fall in love with this very unexpected life," one says.