Outsider in search of the real China: Seong-hyon Lee

Sunny Seong-hyon Lee, a 40-year-old South Korean who lives in Beijing, has a profound interest in exploring the complex nature of China. A Harvard University psychology graduate with a doctorate in communications from Tsinghua University, his research spans China's unique traditions and culture to the rising power of its social media and its relations with neighbours such as North Korea.

Lee made media headlines last year when he lashed out at the Global Times, an influential Communist Party mouthpiece, at a seminar, saying it should exit the stage of history because it was more of a hurdle than a help in shaping China's global image in modern times.

Lee heads the China Research Centre at the Korea Times and is a James A. Kelly fellow of the Pacific Forum at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

What made you interested in coming to China after you graduated from Harvard?

There were China-related seminars at Harvard almost every day. I was attracted to many of them, including a series of "underground" films banned by Beijing about topics such as Aids, drugs and homosexuality. Many people in China believed these films had uglified them. But to me, a foreigner, they were beautiful as they revealed the nature of human beings.

I got to learn from the films that not everyone in China had been brainwashed. Not all of them lived their lives like a robot. I told myself: I must go to China. That was in 2001.