Reading Round-Up: Richard Mcgregor’S The Party,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Reading Round-Up: Richard Mcgregor’S The Party
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Financial Times journalist Richard McGregor is this year’s recipient of the Asia Society’s Bernard Schwartz Book Award for his 2010 investigation into Chinese leadership, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers. If you haven’t caught up with McGregor’s book yet, here are a few links about it to whet your appetite:
Harbin’S Past, Modern Style,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Harbin’S Past, Modern Style, James Carter
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Historical preservation in China’s ever-growing cities is a challenge. Transformations to Beijing and Shanghai are best documented (for example, as evocatively narrated by Michael Meyer in his Last Days of Old Beijing), but dozens of cities, up and down the coast especially, are witnessing historically rapid change, and a rapid change to their histories.
Factories Without Smoke: Wang Jia Yi And Gao Tian Ci,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Factories Without Smoke: Wang Jia Yi And Gao Tian Ci, Chris Cherry
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Wang Jia Yi and Gao Tian Ci, Dalian to San Li Village, Anhui Province
“How Can We Hope To Make A Living If Our Roots Are
Cut?”: Track-Laying, Modernization, And People’S
Livelihood In Republican Beijing,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
“How Can We Hope To Make A Living If Our Roots Are Cut?”: Track-Laying, Modernization, And People’S Livelihood In Republican Beijing, Jared Hall
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
In a post yesterday at this site, I discussed recent cleavages between the rapidly expanding Beijing Subway and segments of the public the system is meant to serve. In that post, I pointed to residents who voiced concerns about property seizures, safety lapses, and excessive noise from nearby tracks. When the subway corporation attempted to shut out community objections related to each of these issues, residents then utilized a common repertoire of protest that included petitions, visits to government offices, and public demonstrations.
Chinese Tour Groups In Europe, Chinese Tour Groups In
Yunnan: Narrating A Nation In The World,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Chinese Tour Groups In Europe, Chinese Tour Groups In Yunnan: Narrating A Nation In The World, Tami Blumenfield
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
The first winter I stayed with a Moso (sometimes spelled Mosuo) family in southwest China, my weeks of Naru language tutoring did not help me get very far in understanding their conversations. I had trouble sorting out the names and relationships of the ten to eighteen family members who ate meals together and lived in that household. The apu (grandfather) joked to me that I, an American citizen who had been living in China, was now in the foreign country’s foreign country; no wonder I was disoriented. Their corner of Yunnan was culturally and linguistically distinct from other parts of …
China’S Water Challenges: A Quick Q & A With
Environmental Historian Kenneth Pomeranz,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
China’S Water Challenges: A Quick Q & A With Environmental Historian Kenneth Pomeranz, Jeffrey Wasserstrom
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Ken Pomeranz, Kate Merkel-Hess and I had various reasons for launching this blog at the start of 2008. One thing that led us to start the venture, at a time when Kate was the only one of us with any blogging experience, was simply a sense that some of the things that we were saying to one another over lunch and in the hallways at UC Irvine might be of interest to people in other places who were working on, living in, or just curious about China. As much as the venture has developed since then (adding new contributors continually, …
Excerpt: Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global
Powerhouse,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Excerpt: Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse, Shelley Rigger
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Taipei 101, the blue-green glass tower that reigned for six years as the world’s tallest building, is everywhere in Taiwan. Its image appears on advertisements, magazine covers, brochures, guidebooks, and billboards; the soaring structure itself is visible from nearly everywhere in Taipei City. As ubiquitous as Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl TV tower—and considerably more graceful—Taipei 101 has become the iconic image of contemporary Taiwan.
Soft Power With Chinese Characteristics: Promoting Creative Industries While Maintaining Political Control,
2011
Hong Kong
Soft Power With Chinese Characteristics: Promoting Creative Industries While Maintaining Political Control, Thomas Glucksmann-Smith
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
On October 15-18th 2011 during the latest Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee, China’s leaders discussed ways to make China a ‘culturally strong nation’ (文化强国) and defined strategies to enhance China’s international soft power. This meeting coincided with tax evasion charges laid against China’s world renowned artist Ai Weiwei—charges he now plans to challenge.
Ai Weiwei, recently described by Art Review as the ‘world’s most powerful artist’ would, in any other nation, be regarded as a perfect diplomat for his country’s cultural industries. But, for China’s CCP leaders Mr Ai’s political activism and provocative behaviour has gone too …
Transmitting The Ideal Of Enlightenment: Chinese Universities Since The Late Nineteenth Century (Book Review),
2011
Sacred Heart University
Transmitting The Ideal Of Enlightenment: Chinese Universities Since The Late Nineteenth Century (Book Review), Thomas D. Curran
History Faculty Publications
Book review by Thomas D. Curran.
Mak, Ricarado K. S., ed. Transmitting the Ideal of Enlightenment: Chinese Universities Since the Late Nineteenth Century. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009.
ISBN 9780761847267
Reader Responses: Celebrating Jianbing,
2011
National Committee on U.S.-China Relations
Reader Responses: Celebrating Jianbing, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
[Editor’s note: It seems that quite a few of our readers are as fond of jianbing as we are here at China Beat HQ. This morning’s post on the tasty breakfast dish garnered a number of responses on Twitter (revealing that not everyone is a fan, though all have strong feelings on the jianbing issue), which I’ve collected below, followed by one story sent in by a reader via email. And fellow UC Irvine graduate student Aubrey Adams directed my attention to this basic recipe for jianbing, in case I (or anyone else) wants to attempt making them at home.]
Soft Power Struggle: Ai Weiwei And The Limits Of Sino-German Cultural Cooperation,
2011
Pacific Lutheran University
Soft Power Struggle: Ai Weiwei And The Limits Of Sino-German Cultural Cooperation, Adam Cathcart
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
As an attempt to drain the seemingly endless reserves of paranoia fed by China’s rise, the extension of Chinese “soft power” [ruan shi li 软实力] into Western Europe is one of the more interesting stories of our day. How the Chinese Communist Party uses culture and cultural exchange to shape its image in Europe varies, like any good guerrilla strategy, depending on conditions. In the performing arts, PRC-sponsored groups tour European stages, acting out a meta-drama that pits twirling autonomous-region Uighurs against the ubiquitous Falun Gong-affiliated Shen Yun ballerinas (and their army of granny pamphleteers). Embassy-sponsored photographic exhibits celebrating modernization …
蜚語 (第四期),
2011
Lingnan University
蜚語 (第五期),
2011
Lingnan University
The Olympics In East Asia: Nationalism, Regionalism, And Globalism On The Center Stage Of World Sports,
2011
Yale University
The Olympics In East Asia: Nationalism, Regionalism, And Globalism On The Center Stage Of World Sports, William W. Kelly, Susan Brownell
CEAS Occasional Publication Series
Yale CEAS Occasional Publication Series - Volume 3
From Larva To Butterfly: Sophia In Ding Ling’S Miss Sophia’S Diary And Coco In Wei Hui’S Shanghai Baby,
2011
Butler University
From Larva To Butterfly: Sophia In Ding Ling’S Miss Sophia’S Diary And Coco In Wei Hui’S Shanghai Baby, Xiaoqing Liu
Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS
Sophia and Coco are two characters in Ding Ling's Miss Sophia's Diary (1928/1995) and Wei Hui's Shanghai Baby (1999), respectively. Like a larva, Sophia, who enters society in the early twentieth century, is weak and immobile. Coco, who lives at the end of the twentieth century, is like a butterfly leading an outlandish lifestyle. The differences between Sophia and Coco reflect the achievement of official feminism, which liberated Chinese women from traditional patriarchal control in the social sense. However, gender issues for women remain unresolved. To fight against traditional patriarchy and especially challenge gender oppression in official feminism, both Sophia …
Late Qing Dreams Of Modernity,
2011
Institute of Modern History, Academia Sincia
Late Qing Dreams Of Modernity, Peter Zarrow
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
I would like to alert China Beat readers to a new film, Datong: The Great Society [Chinese title: 大同：康有為在瑞典]. This docu-drama tells the story of Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and to a great extent that of his second daughter Kang Tongbi (aka Kang Tung Pih, 1887-1969).
I found the film a powerful and affecting evocation of a philosopher’s life, and found myself challenged to consider what we make of the past and what it makes of us. The film-maker, Evans Chan, calls Datong: The Great Society a “docu-drama,” since it is based on verifiable records, period photos, and vintage footage—as well …
Straight Out Of Wukan: A Quick Q & A With Journalist Rachel Beitare,
2011
The China Beat
Straight Out Of Wukan: A Quick Q & A With Journalist Rachel Beitare, Jeffrey Wasserstrom
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Earlier this year, a Beijing-based Israeli journalist named Rachel Beitare contacted me out of the blue to set up an interview about the impact the Arab Spring events might have in China. I ended up impressed by the caliber of the questions put to me, so I started keeping an eye out for her byline, in case she published things in English (much of her work comes out in Hebrew, which I don’t read). I wasn’t disappointed, as before long Foreign Policy ran a smart commentary, ”Guilty By Association,” in which Ms. Beitare looked at the way the Party had …
Bow Before The Portrait: Sino-North Korean Relations Enter The Kim Jong Un Era,
2011
Pacific Lutheran University
Bow Before The Portrait: Sino-North Korean Relations Enter The Kim Jong Un Era, Adam Cathcart
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
The pigs were being slaughtered in the streets when the news of Kim Jong Il’s death arrived in Dachuan, a small logging village in the mountains of western Sichuan province. Over the immense and extended cacophony of the blood-letting, the retired head of the local bank explained, with a bit of apologetic joy, that the villagers were getting ready for Spring Festival, then turned back to the news from Pyongyang, shaking his head at the retrograde tendencies of China’s Korean socialist brothers.
Book Review: Behind The Gate: Inventing Students In Beijing,
2011
Southern Methodist University
Book Review: Behind The Gate: Inventing Students In Beijing, Ling Shiao
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
By drawing our attention to the previously unexamined question of space for student activism, Fabio Lanza has successfully remapped the May Fourth Movement, despite the fact that it is perhaps the most well-travelled terrain in historical research of modern China. This is not a revisionist study that seeks to de-center May Fourth in China’s passage from tradition to modernity by looking for pre-May Fourth modern experimentations and the continuity between the late Qing and May Fourth periods. In fact, Lanza travels back to the historical site of Beijing University (hereafter Beida) and the canonical moment of the May Fourth years …
When Things Go Wrong: Village Elections As A Process
Creating Contention,
2011
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
When Things Go Wrong: Village Elections As A Process Creating Contention, Kerry Brown
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
At the heart of the big story of Chinese rural democracy is the many millions of smaller stories of those who have been touched by this immense process. Before looking at village elections, therefore, here is one single story, of one man, who tried to stand in a village election, and of what happened to him. It is concrete experiences of engaging in the whole process of rural democracy like this that give village democracy its tremendous significance and interest. This section is based on papers obtained in Beijing in August 2009.
