East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Book Review: Modern China’S Network Revolution, Brett Sheehan

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The title of Zhongping Chen’s new book has a double meaning. Modern China’s Network Revolution refers both to his claim for new, revolutionary forms of networking among lower-Yangzi Chinese elites at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries and to the revolutionary roles of those networks in elite mobilization, especially in the 1911 revolution which overthrew the Qing. As such, the book makes a meaningful contribution to debates on the nature of Chinese organizational practices, especially merchant organizational practices, and to debates about the nature of late-Qing elite mobilization and the relationship of those mobilized elites …

The First Asian Man: The Story Behind The Jeremy Lin Story, Yong Chen

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

There are good reasons why Jeremy Lin deserves the extensive news coverage he has received recently: a Harvard grad playing in the NBA, he had an indispensible role in the Knicks’ 9-2 run before losing to Miami on February 23, averaging 23.9 points and 9.2 assists in 11 games. Yet the extraordinary “Linsanity” displayed by the mass media seems to suggest that what makes Lin’s story so notable is what it says about perceptions of Asian masculinity. In Lin, the media has finally found an Asian man.

Letter From Little Lhasa, Reshma Patil

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The runaway from a Tibetan village in Naba, China, led the way down the slippery dirt track to the doorstep of a restaurant with a Potala Palace bereft of tourists and soldiers painted on its blue walls. The Tibetan-speaking attendant at Chonor House politely declined to serve my first meal in McLeod Ganj. The kitchens were functioning only for hotel guests until the end of Losar. The three-day Tibetan New Year passed uncelebrated earlier this month in the Indian hill-town teeming with Tibetan exiles who give Dharamshala the moniker of Little Lhasa. The exiled Tibetan government is edged higher in …

Chinese Youth: A Quick Q And A With Mary Bergstrom, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Whenever I take a trip that includes stops in Shanghai and Beijing, two people I make sure to meet up with are Jeremy Friedlein and David Moser, the Academic Directors of the CET study abroad programs in those cities. I do this for several reasons. One is that CET has deep ties to China Beat, since the blog’s founding editor Kate Merkel-Hess and current editor Maura Cunningham are both alums. Another reason is that, for almost two years now, CET has been sponsoring a series of literary events at M on the Bund (in Shanghai) and now also Capital M …

“Unwavering Public Support” Not Quite So Easy To Find These Days, Duncan Hewitt

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

It was just like old times—in many of China’s major newspapers, a prominently displayed half-page story headlined: “Officials and citizens all across the country express unwavering support for central party leadership’s decision.” It followed hot on the heels of the previous day’s People’s Daily headline: “Resolutely support the party’s correct decision,” which appeared on many front pages. In the wake of the stunning news that Bo Xilai, one of China’s most prominent politicians, had been suspended from the ruling Politburo, and his wife arrested on suspicion of being involved in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, the Chinese Communist …

Book Review: The Gender Of Memory, Nicole Elizabeth Barnes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Gail Hershatter and her Shaanxi-native research collaborator Gao Xiaoxian (of the Shaanxi Provincial Women’s Federation) spent ten years interviewing 72 women and a few men in rural Shaanxi province in northwest China. The Gender of Memory, Hershatter’s sole-authored product of this joint effort, fills a crucial gap in historiography of the 1950s, providing the first personal stories of land reform, the 1950 Marriage Law, collectivization, and the Great Leap Forward. Moreover, through incisive gender analysis, Hershatter illustrates how gender determined not only how Chinese women and men lived their lives, but also how they remember them. Whereas male interviewees …

A Q&A; With Janet Chen, Author Of Guilty Of Indigence, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Every society sees and treats its poorest members differently. The distinctive way that Victorian Britain dealt with poverty is a central theme in many novels by Charles Dickens, the prolific author whose books are getting even more attention as the bicentennial of his birth is being marked. For those more interested in India’s present than England’s past, the book of the moment on this theme seems to be Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, which is earning enthusiastic advance reviews and is due out soon (coincidentally or not on February 7, Dickens’ …

Book Review: Phoenix: The Life Of Norman Bethune, David Webster

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Millions of Chinese have memorized Mao Zedong’s 1939 lines “In Memory of Norman Bethune,” written soon after the Canadian surgeon’s death amidst the war against Japan. As a result, Bethune remains the best-known Canadian in China, still outstripping comedian Dashan (Mark Rowswell).

“Comrade Bethune’s spirit, his utter devotion to others without any thought of self, was shown in his great sense of responsibility in his work and his great warm-heartedness towards all comrades and the people,” Mao wrote, extolling Bethune’s “spirit of absolute selflessness.” If Bethune was pure selflessness and internationalist heroism after coming to China, it was only after …

Ai In Mumbai, Reshma Patil

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Chinese artist offered a firm handshake and his business card. The Indian curator hesitated for a split second. They were, after all, standing in a men’s loo in Gwangju, South Korea. The curator returned to Mumbai, a financial powerhouse that several Chinese artists in the study group at Gwangju had never heard of. “What is Mumbai?” they asked him. The artist, who happened to know where Mumbai lies, returned to his studio in Beijing. He and the curator communicated via email for over a year. There were long silent gaps, until one day this year, the curator received a …

A Flourishing Profession: Reflections On A Career In Asian Studies, Charlotte Furth

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

At the March annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, held in Toronto, the association recognized Charlotte Furth with the AAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies. Furth is Professor Emerita of history at the University of Southern California and has written and edited five books, including A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960-1665 (UC Press, 1999). Below is an expanded version of remarks that Furth gave at the AAS award ceremony, in which she reflects on the changes to Asian Studies that have taken place since she entered the field in 1959, particularly regarding the …

The National Imagination (Spring 2012), Robert D. Tobin, Marvin D'Lugo, Alice Valentine

Syllabi

What images make people think of the United States of America? Cowboys? The flag? And are there similar icons in other cultures that help define cultural identity? The National Imagination explores the concept of a national community as constructed and critiqued through literary and cinematic narratives, as well as other cultural texts.

Our underlying premise is that national languages and cultures promote the identity of particular communities. We are interested in examining those subjective expressions of culture—images, symbols, narratives—that lead people to feel that they are members of the communities we call nations. We are also interested in discovering points …

Visionary Media In Edgar Allan Poe And Edogawa Rampo, William O. Gardner

Japanese Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Translation Of "A Love Letter" By H. Kyojiro, H. Kyojiro, William O. Gardner , Translator

Japanese Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Japanese Modernism And "Cine-Text": Fragments And Flows At Empire's Edge In Kitagawa Fuyuhiko And Yokomitsu Riichi, William O. Gardner

Japanese Faculty Works

This article notes that Kitagawa Fuyuhiko's writings from the 1920s and 1930s, together with the contemporaneous works of prose author Yokomitsu Riichi, are strongly marked by the confluence of the literary and the cinematic. Kitagawa and Yokomitsu's engagement with film was not limited to a fascination with the precision, objectivity, or mobility of the “camera eye.” Rather, it extended to the entire ability of the cinematic apparatus to capture the temporality of objects in motion, and of the ability of the filmmaker to organize segments of space into a new synthetic whole. The article explores this confluence through a brief …

Translation Of "Advertising Tower!" By H. Kyojiro, H. Kyojiro, William O. Gardner , Translator

Japanese Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Chinese Superintendency In The Context Of Quality-Oriented Education, Xiu Chen Cravens, Yarong Liu, Margaret Grogan

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The implementation of national educational reform in China calls for newer and stronger school administration. Recognizing the need to establish a knowledge base for leadership development, we employ a set of existing US professional standards for educational leaders as a frame of reference to unpack the complex role of Chinese superintendents. Using data collected from two surveys administered to more than 200 Chinese superintendents in 2007, we find that many indicators of leadership considered essential in the United States are also viewed as necessary for effective superintendency in China. Feedback from the superintendents also points out gaps between what is …

從感生神話推論契、后稷時期由母系社會過渡至父系社會之商榷, Yu Chan, Hoi Pang Wong

2012-2013

有論者謂感生神話反映了先民從母系社會過渡至父系社會，這主要是根據「玄鳥生商」和姜嫄「履大人跡」兩個感生神話，推論契、后稷時期的社會狀況。然而，此說法有商榷之處，故對這論調仍有所保留。

本文會先介紹感生神話的定義及分類，分類方面將會從觸物感生、意念感生，以及不同的感生媒介把感生神話分類，並援引神話作為例證。接著嘗試歸納支持契、后稷時期由母系社會過渡至父系社會此說法的理據，然後提出一己之見，並援引其他感生神話為例，說明此論調的不足之處和可斟酌之點。這部份將從三方面進行論述，包括感生神話中女性的主動性、感生神話所反映之母系社會特徵，以及父權話語體系下的感生神話。

神話的再現 : 論也斯〈養龍人師門〉的文學改編, Ming Yan Lun, Pui Ki Law

2012-2013

也斯的〈養龍人師門〉是一則神話文學，寫於1975年，收錄於《養龍人師門》一書。作者汲取了古代神話元素，配合魔幻寫實的手法，反映現實。以下將會追溯相關的典籍記載，繼而找出也斯所作的增補，最後分析該篇神話文學的幾個主題，探討作者的創作意義。

成神的枷鎖 : 從〈女化蠶〉淺談傳統社會的價值觀念, Wai Yan Chau

2012-2013

蠶桑絲綢之業，中國為最早的起源地，商代甚或更早時期已有蠶絲業，「甲骨文中不但有『桑』、『蠶』、『絲』、『帛』等字，而且從桑、從絲的字多達一百餘個」110；且以絲綢的經貿發展最盛，對外貿易之通道更以「絲綢之路」命名，謂中國為「絲綢之國」也不為過。由養蠶、抽絲、到紡織，養蠶一步是基礎，對蠶便有好奇：到底蠶的本源是怎樣？由是衍生不同有關蠶的神話故事，而《搜神記》（卷十四）中的〈女化蠶〉，據袁珂之說，亦為推尋蠶的本源而成，屬「推原神話」之一。

〈女化蠶〉所載的蠶女並未成蠶神，當中只寫到人間女子與牡馬由許下婚諾到失諾被化成蠶；至唐《原化傳拾遺》〈蠶女〉（《太平廣記》卷四百七十九），蠶女被封為「九宮仙嬪」，才正式成神。112觀其蠶女神化，能看出人們對蠶神的崇拜；歸回文本，由女子失諾受罰化蠶，演變到女子守孝成神，更能反映當時的社會。本文將先淺述蠶神神話的源起及流變，及後從文本中探討神話中所反映當時傳統社會的文化、價值觀。

奔月的變形 :《聊齋誌異．嫦娥》, Wai Yuen Tiu, Wai Ching Yau

2012-2013

No abstract provided.