Bai Qingyang, son of renowned Chinese journalist Bai Yansong, at 26 joined Minzu University of China to lead research in Mongolian history and digital humanities, attracting widespread attention. Holding offer letters from Cambridge and LSE, he chose the rarely explored field of Mongolian history, moving from London classrooms to the steppes of Inner Mongolia to document ancient inscriptions and preserve fading nomadic historical memory through digital technology.
Bai Yansong’s son, Bai Qingyang, was born in 1998. His nickname is “Bati”—a name Bai Yansong chose after being inspired by Batistuta. His formal name, “Qingyang,” was chosen by his mother, Zhu Hongjun, after reading Jin Yong’s *The Smiling, Proud Wanderer*; it is derived from the character Feng Qingyang.
This child has been different from other kids since he was little. He attended Jingshan School, where his grades were above average, and Bai Yansong never checked his homework. When the 2013 high school entrance exam results were released, Bai Qingyang’s score exceeded the cutoff for key high schools by more than ten points—he didn’t come in first, nor did he aim for the very top schools.Bai Yansong breathed a sigh of relief and told reporters, “He didn’t do too well”—which, to him, was more reassuring than if his son had come in first. He once wrote an email to his son, the gist of which was: Those who strive for first place keep their eyes fixed on their rivals and are prone to resorting to any means necessary. Life isn’t a competition; crossing the finish line first need not be considered the greatest honor.
During his freshman year summer break, Bai Qingyang went on his first archaeological expedition to Inner Mongolia. His name has been associated with places such as Ordos, Abaga, and Erdeni Zha. After handling a pottery shard inscribed with ancient Mongolian script for the first time, he taught himself Mongolian upon returning home and spent his vacation traveling across the grasslands to record folk tales from elderly herders.
Later, he went abroad to study. He pursued his undergraduate degree at King’s College London, majoring in Mongolian history; there were fewer than ten students in his class, and he was the only Chinese student.When his advisor asked him why he had chosen such a niche field, he explained that the Mongol Empire spanned Eurasia, yet very few scholars were studying it, so he wanted to fill that gap. He subsequently attended the London School of Economics (LSE) and the University of Oxford, and ultimately earned his Ph.D. in Mongolian history from the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.
Around 2025, he returned to China. He joined the Frontier Digital Humanities Laboratory at Minzu University of China as deputy director.
His work is different from what most people imagine. Instead of sitting in a library poring over old manuscripts, he leads a team traveling between Xilingol, Kulun Banner, and Ulaanbaatar. The winds are strong on the Gobi Desert, and the inscriptions on those ancient stone steles have been eroded by wind and sand until they’re barely legible; he sets up high-definition equipment to photograph them one by one.Back in the lab, he uses algorithms to reconstruct missing Mongolian characters; the system now contains images of more than 3,000 field-collected stele inscriptions. Last Winter Solstice, he stayed for three days at a herder’s home in Ordos, helping an elderly man digitize a songbook passed down through generations.Only after finishing the recording did he realize that the melody the elderly man hummed matched the recitation rhythm found in the 13th-century *Secret History of the Mongols*. He didn’t post it on social media or write a paper about it; instead, he uploaded the audio to a public platform, setting it to be freely downloadable, available for commercial use, and requiring no attribution.
Someone asked Bai Yansong, “What if your son has trouble finding a job after studying this?” Bai Yansong said he first asked his son three questions: “Do you truly love it? Can you stick with it? Will you regret it if you don’t earn much in the future?” Bai Qingyang replied, “I love it, I can stick with it, and I won’t regret it.”
Rumors have circulated online that he secured his position through his father’s connections, obtained foreign citizenship, and was drawing a salary without actually working. However, the 2025 National Cultural Heritage Census roster, his Chinese employment contract, social security records, and employee ID number—all of these are right there for everyone to see, completely refuting those claims.There was no sign hanging outside his office door—only a handwritten note that read: “Inscriptions are found in the wind, not on trending lists.”
His nickname is “Bati,” reflecting Bai Yansong’s passion for soccer. His formal name is “Qingyang,” after the character Feng Qingyang—whose name means “the wind blows without leaving a trace.” He’ll likely never become a household name or trend on social media.But those stone steles in the Gobi Desert—neglected and forgotten—are being salvaged by him, one by one, and transformed into digital archives that can be searched, listened to, and passed down to future generations.
He chose a path that was bitterly cold and walked along it in silence.
