Elliott School Senior Wins Fulbright to Study in China

Robert O'Brien poses with his students in Wangcun, China

During his six-week stay as an English teacher in Wangcun, a small village in southeastern China's Anhui Province, Elliott School senior Robert "Bobby" O'Brien noticed something strange. The town's population of 300 consisted primarily of young children and their grandparents—no one Bobby's age or even his parents' age.

"After inquiring as to where all the parents were, I learned that they had all moved to the city to da gong, or find work," said Bobby, who was then a sophomore studying international affairs at the Elliott School.

The phenomenon—which he later came to know as a "floating population"—so intrigued Bobby that he returned to The George Washington University and begun conducting independent research on the subject. Bobby, a native of Merrimack, NH, was selected as an Enosinian Scholar for the 2008 academic year, his senior year, which awarded him a grant to write his senior honors thesis on floating populations.

All this research has paid off for Bobby, who recently won a Fulbright Scholarship to return to China for 10 months to examine floating populations and the challenges they pose to the state. He intends to conduct an extensive review of English and Chinese literature on the subject, as well as interviews with migrant workers and those familiar with their situation.

One thing is certain. There will be a lot more at stake in Bobby's research than just crunching numbers. "Six weeks spent far from the comforts of modernity in China's rural and impoverished interior provides one with significant perspective on what is truly important in life—family, friends, and interpersonal bonds in general," he said.