About the Author

Xiaochen Su (蘇 曉辰), Ph.D. is the author of this blog, which details his experience of residing and traveling around the world and is ranked among the Top 50 Japan Blogs by the blog ranking website Feedspot. Please find him on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Professional and Personal Interests

Xiaochen is also the author of "Yee Haw!" A Chinese-American Diary in Rural Tanzania as well as an avid writer for multiple publications around the world, with dozens of articles appearing in media outlets including the Diplomat, the Japan Times, the Asia Times, the News Lens, the Asia Sentinel, the African Exponent, Branding in Asia, the Crossing, the Africa Portal, the Africa Liberty, the Questions magazine, Metropolis Japan, the Opinions magazine, among others. 

As part of the academic research he conducted at Academia Sinica and the University of Tokyo, Xiaochen has also published multiple research papers, some of which won prizes from organizations such as the Japan Foreign Trade Council and the Eisaku Sato Memorial Foundation. For the list of publications, please see his Google Scholar profile.

In his free time, Xiaochen likes to backpack around the world. So far, he has been in more than 1,200 cities and towns in close to 100 countries. He would like to continue visiting new destinations that he has yet to visit, with the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, and Western Africa as the current focus. As part of his global focus, he also manages the Study Abroad Research Institute, a non-governmental organization that seeks to help students from around the world, especially in Africa, to study abroad in top-tier universities, especially in Japan. 

Early Life

Xiaochen was born in 1988, in the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi province in northern China. He lived in Taiyuan and the city of Nanjing, Jiangsu province in eastern China before moving with his parents to the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture in Japan in 1993.

After completing most of his preschool and elementary school education in Kanazawa, his family migrated to Boston, MA in 2000. Following his father's job changes, Xiaochen moved again to Lubbock, TX in 2001 and then to San Diego, CA in 2002.

After completing secondary education in a public high school in San Diego, Xiaochen enrolled at Yale University in New Haven, CT, graduating with a double major in Economics and Electrical Engineering in 2010. 

Work History

After graduating from Yale, Xiaochen decided to head back to Japan, where he worked first at the Tokyo headquarters of major internet conglomerate Rakuten Inc. However, finding himself disillusioned by a lack of clarity on his own future role in the company, he resigned from his position in less than one year.

To continue his search for himself, he decided to go back to school, enrolling at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the UK, and receiving a master's degree in international political economy in the fall of 2012. 

To continue traveling after graduating from LSE, Xiaochen decided to try his hands at working in different parts of the world, including stints in Malaysia and the Philippines with e-commerce firm Lazada Group, in Tanzania with non-profit organization One Acre Fund, and academic institutions Hallym University in South Korea and Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

From 2017 to 2023, Xiaochen was back in Japan, living in Tokyo and then Chiba. He completed a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo in 2021, with his dissertation on the social integration of Chinese migrants in Russia. While studying for his Ph.D., Xiaochen worked as an Associate Director at the risk intelligence firm Blackpeak Japan KK. 

Since 2023, he has worked as an Academic Advisor and then an Application Mentor at the global educational technology and consulting firm Crimson Education. He currently resides in Malta on a digital nomad visa. For details of his career history, please see his LinkedIn profile.