One of the best pieces of advice André-Anne has ever received is from her grandma, who told her that it is better to try and regret than to want to try and have resentment. “When I have temptation,” she says, “I go for it, and I live the consequences. That’s my motto."
One of the best pieces of advice André-Anne has ever received is from her grandma, who told her that it is better to try and regret than to want to try and have resentment. “When I have temptation,” she says, “I go for it, and I live the consequences. That’s my motto. [This] has helped me get very far.” Very far indeed. André-Anne boasts a diverse collection of experiences, including a professional ballet program in Montreal, an undergraduate program in anthropology, and language semesters in Berlin, Shanghai, Taipei and Beijing. Born in Nanchang, Jiangxi, André-Anne was adopted at five months by French-Canadian parents. Growing up in Quebec city, André-Anne grew up with her younger brother and sister adopted from Haiti and another younger brother who is an adopted northern Canadian indigenous person. Due to her double identity as Québécoise and Canadian, André-Anne has long been fascinated with territory, nationalism and ethnicity struggles. As she learns more about China, she thinks a lot about how China is so fraught with maodun 矛盾 (paradoxes) in its own political identity and she feels it is more easy to identify with a city or province rather than China as a nation. Today, she feels like it is natural that she ended up at Peking University studying international relations - guoji guanxi 国际关系 - and more specifically, the micro-perspective of inner society tensions.
In her free time, André-Anne loves photography and journalism, especially sharing travel photos through her instagram account, and taking care of animals, of which she has a dog and a cat. With a free afternoon, she would grab her swimsuit and go swimming . “I like the feeling of not feeling gravity,” she says.
Humans of CCI profiled on Facebook in 2018.