Born and raised in China, Sonia first arrived in Berlin at the age of 17 to tackle German high school curriculum, then promptly fell in love with the city and has stayed ever since. She did her BA in Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and spent a year and a half in Japan for an exchange year and internship. With the hope to expand her knowledge of East Asia beyond conventional area studies, Sonia chose to join the Global History MA program to study cultural history of the region in a broader global context.