“We Are Not Machines:” Teen Spirit On China’S Shopfloor,
2010
University of Michigan
“We Are Not Machines:” Teen Spirit On China’S Shopfloor, Mary E. Gallagher
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
This spring, a series of well-coordinated and successful strikes in foreign-invested enterprises in China made headlines all around the world. Young migrant workers openly and forcefully articulated demands for higher wages, better representation, and more consideration of their “spiritual” and mental well-being. These demands have led to increased speculation that China’s current economic boom is winding down, as its growth strategy founded in part on cheap migrant labor from rural areas faces domestic and international difficulties.
This is not the first time that Chinese workers have openly protested for higher wages, better treatment, and more job security. What makes this …
Reading Round-Up: China Now The World’S Second-Largest Economy,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Reading Round-Up: China Now The World’S Second-Largest Economy
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
This week came the not-unexpected news that China has passed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. Here, we’ve rounded up reactions to and analyses of the story:
• At his New Yorker blog, Evan Osnos asks “Why the Long Face?”, explaining that “While the story has rated front-page treatment in the U.S., it has sent China into a frenzy of self-flagellation, in the hope of reminding people that it is still home to a lot of very poor people.”
• Yoree Koh at the Wall Street Journal reports that Japan is taking the news of its third-place status with …
An Image,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
An Image
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
There were 12 minutes and 28 seconds remaining.
I had never bid on eBay. It takes too much energy, too much attention to follow the vagaries of an online auction. And there never seems to be anything I want that badly. But I wanted that propaganda poster—a reproduction of an oil painting, mid-1970s—depicting, with the imagination and rhetorical power possible only in socialist realism, the May Fourth movement of 1919.
In the painting, the sky is clearing and clouds are dissipating behind the imposing presence of Tiananmen, which dominates the scene. The students, young men and women, are marching at …
Panic Room,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Panic Room
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
On my (continuing) walk across China, I have occasionally come across the kind of construction featured in the attached image — a farmhouse with a door half way up the wall, no stairs attached. I have previously assumed the house was still under construction, or perhaps they ran out of money before doing the stairs. But as I passed his one, in Guang’an county in the middle of Sichuan, last Saturday, it struck me that this is in fact a “panic room”, a way to seal off and protect the family and its assets in the top room, safe from …
Frivolous Friday: The Red Army Learns To “Just Beat It”,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Frivolous Friday: The Red Army Learns To “Just Beat It”
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Have you ever wondered what it would look like if Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” were performed by a Cultural Revolution-era musical troupe? Perhaps not. But thanks to this video on Tudou, the question you never thought to ask has been answered.
The video has been making the rounds on Twitter this week (follow us at@chinabeat!); thanks to Kaiser Kuo for bringing it to our attention.
Sodden Anniversary,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Sodden Anniversary, Paul Katz
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
August 8, 2010 marked the first anniversary of the Siaolin Village 小林村 tragedy, when torrential rains caused by Typhoon Morakot triggered a massive mudslide that swept this idyllic community off the face of the earth, taking 474 lives. Conditions one year later were eerily similar, with rain drenching the disaster site and another threat (Tropical Storm Dianmu 電母) lurking off the east coast (happily it did not make landfall). Southern Taiwan has suffered heavy rains during the past month, but there has been little destruction and loss of life (so far), unlike the terrible flooding that has ravaged so much …
Hong Kong’S Glass Ceiling,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Hong Kong’S Glass Ceiling, Reenita Malhotra
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Hong Kong’s women have the power of their purses, are freer and more educated, and enjoy more legal protection than they did 20 years ago. And since 1996, when Hong Kong signed CEDAW, the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women—which calls for 50 percent representation of women in government leadership, political parties, trade unions, professional and other representative groups—women’s participation in managerial positions has risen from 22 percent in 1998 to 29 percent in 2008. In the civil service, women held 31 percent of directorate officer positions in 2008, compared to 21 percent in …
An Interview With Chinese Underground Rock Musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
An Interview With Chinese Underground Rock Musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou, Tim Hathaway
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
A quick listen to Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s (左小祖咒）music would not be enough to explain his fame. His trademark is singing off key.
In spite of the odd sounding vocals or perhaps because of its contrast to the saccharine sweet sounds of Chinese pop and rock, Zuoxiao has become one of China’s most successful rock musicians.
He started his career in 1993 and has since produced ten albums. He has also published a best selling novel and created sculptures and artistic photography. He was a founding member of the avant garde artists residence called Beijing’s “East Village” in the early 1990s where …
Teaching Vietnam War,
2010
SIT Study Abroad Viet Nam: National Development and Globalization
Teaching Vietnam War, Duong Van Thanh Phd, Academic Director
Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium
The purpose of the segment on Teaching Vietnam War for undergraduate American students who join the SIT-Study Abroad on Vietnam: Culture, Development & Social Change is to understand and analyze some key elements of the origins, development, consequences, and legacies of war and revolution in Vietnam from the early twentieth century to the present. After some readings and introductory session, the main part will be spent discussing the meaning and causes of revolution, the relationship between revolution and war, and the tactics and strategies of both revolutionaries and those who want to stop them from winning power and achieving their …
The Freshest Kids In China,
2010
Fudan University
The Freshest Kids In China, George Zhi Zhao
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
R16 at the Shanghai World Expo
June 19, 2010 I hear the voice of the late James Brown shouting over the booming speakers, and I watch a crowd of dancers move and contort to every minute rhythm and sound that is being controlled and manipulated by the DJ. The energy in the air is tense, as different b-boys (breakdancers) take turns stepping inside a circle of bodies, all asserting themselves in back-to-back solo performances of gravity-defying sequences of dance movements. The competitive performance of breakdancing happens all over the world, in metropolises ranging from New York City to Tokyo, from …
Where’S Haibao? Help Us Find Him!,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Where’S Haibao? Help Us Find Him!
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Shanghai seems to have turned into a massive game of “Where’s Haibao?” as the image of everyone’s favorite Expo mascot pervades the city, in places both expected and not. Gina Bock, an entering student at Pomona College, recently returned from her first trip to China and shared a few photos of her Haibao sightings with us. They’re now in a Picasa album (link below, and also accessible through our “Media” page). If you have Haibao photos of your own to add (the more unusual, the better!), let us know by writing to thechinabeat[at]gmail.com. Though we suspect Haibao will be only …
Anthologize: A New Tool For Bloggers,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Anthologize: A New Tool For Bloggers
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
We wanted to alert readers who are fellow WordPress users to the arrival of a cool new WordPress plugin that has just been unveiled. Anthologize is the product of the “One Week | One Tool” program, a summer institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and held at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. The plugin — conceived, developed, and released in just one week! — enables bloggers to grab online content, edit and organize it, and produce an electronic book. Read more about Anthologize, and some ideas about how it can enhance …
A Q-And-A With Scott Tong Of Marketplace,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
A Q-And-A With Scott Tong Of Marketplace
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
As regular readers of this blog know, I spent late June and much of July in Shanghai, with brief trips to other parts of China. One aspect of this sojourn in the PRC that proved memorable was the opportunity it afforded me to finally meet several people whose reporting or commentaries I’ve admired, but whose paths had never crossed mine before, including Kaiser Kuo (whose Sinica podcasts we’ve talked up here before), David Barboza of the New York Times (whose day-in-the-life of a South China worker I singled out for praise in a recent commentary), freelancer Adam Minter (who has …
Reading Round-Up, 8/2/2010,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Reading Round-Up, 8/2/2010
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Before we fully embrace the arrival of August, a bit of housekeeping from July . . . some stories that we noticed during the past month and wanted to share with our readers:
• Xujun Eberlein has been busy lately, and two of her recent pieces of writing have overlaps with topics we’ve discussed here at China Beat in the past few weeks. On the matter of Wang Hui and plagiarism, see her post at Inside-Out China; for her review of the “social science fiction” novel Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013, head over to Foreign Policy.
• If you’re in Beijing and …
Peace In His Time,
2010
University of Massachusetts Boston
Peace In His Time, Ananya Vajpeyi
History Faculty Publication Series
A history of India under British rule highlights the significance of Mahatma Gandhi's radical new politics, which transformed the struggle against empire.
(Re)Imagining Taiwan: Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism In Film And Literature, 1970-1990s,
2010
California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo
(Re)Imagining Taiwan: Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism In Film And Literature, 1970-1990s, Keith Goodwin
History
The study of Taiwan's history is permeated by questions of identity. Since 1600, the island has been, among other things, a Dutch colonial outpost, a refuge for Ming loyalists, a provincial frontier of the Qing Dynasty, a Japanese colony, and, since the end of World War II, the home of the Republic of China (ROC). However, sixty years after Taiwan's "retrocession" to the government of Chiang Kai-shek, questions of Taiwan's cultural and national identity persist.
This paper takes the 1970s to be an important turning point in Taiwan's identity discourse. Beginning with a discussion of the various political and diplomatic …
Conflict And Accommodation--Matteo Ricci's Approach To Catholic Evangelization In China,
2010
Whitworth University
Conflict And Accommodation--Matteo Ricci's Approach To Catholic Evangelization In China, Anthony E. Clark
History Faculty Scholarship
Saint Anthony of Padua Institute Lecture
Spinning And Scratching,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Spinning And Scratching
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
“Qingmu, a Japanese DJ who moved to Beijing shortly before the Olympics, spins an evening away in his Nanluoguxiang home – which also doubles as the headquarters for a Tibet tour company. The Chinese hip-hop scene, Qingmu says, is ‘just beginning’.”
— Alec Ash, Six
Sneak Peek: The Urbanatomy Shanghai World Expo Guide 2010,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Sneak Peek: The Urbanatomy Shanghai World Expo Guide 2010
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
When the Shanghai World Expo officially opens on Saturday, visitors will have to negotiate the largest fairground ever constructed, spanning 1305 acres on both sides of the Huangpu River. Such an expedition requires not just a map, but a guide – and the Urbanatomy team has stepped in to provide one. Hitting shelves at Carrefour and City Shop stores in Shanghai this week, the Urbanatomy Shanghai World Expo Guide 2010 includes maps of the Expo site, in addition to discussions of World’s Fair history and background on Shanghai. Below, two excerpts from the guide’s introduction, written by Nick Land.
Expo …
Reflections On The Qinghai Earthquake,
2010
University of California, Irvine
Reflections On The Qinghai Earthquake, Nicole Barnes
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
As the Qinghai earthquake turns into yesterday’s news overseas and begins to sink into the sea of usual economic stories here in China, I would like to reflect upon the position of 10-year-old volunteer Tsering Dan Zhou in earthquake media.
News coverage of the earthquake here in China is impressive in many ways. The programs convey the information that everyone desires, but are also clearly designed to incite sympathy and get people to dig into their wallets for donations to the Chinese Red Cross and other relief agencies. They also pointedly emphasize “social harmony” (shehui hexie 社会和谐, Hu Jintao’s favorite …
