Chinese Studies Commons^™

Jokes From Post-Reform China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last week, we ran the first part of a series of popular Chinese jokes, translated by Guo Qitao, a UCI history professor. While the earlier jokes were from the Cultural Revolution period, the two jokes presented today are more recent and address issues at the core of the Chinese people’s concerns about their nation: responsible governance, inequality, and corruption.

江泽民来到天安门城楼上。

江泽民来到天安门城楼上。

往南看，贪官污吏一大片；

往北看，下岗工人八百万；

往东看，走私货轮正靠岸；

往西看，百姓全是穷光蛋；

往下看，法轮功还在转；

往上看，美国导弹到处窜；

往后看，接班人挤向前；

往前看，问毛主席怎么办？

毛主席说：你下来躺着，我起来干。

Jiang Zemin mounted the gate at Tiananmen Square to survey the scene.[1] Looking south, he saw a sea of grubby officials all on the take; Looking north, eight million workers …

Reflecting On Tiananmen, 20 Years Later

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China Beat sent out a note to a few scholars and journalists who have carefully watched and written about the events of 1989, asking them to send in short commentaries detailing what they wish more people knew, associated with, or remembered about that spring. Here is the first of their responses. John Gittings is a research associate with the Centre for Chinese Studies at the School of Oriental & African Studies and a former writer and editor at The Guardian. He is the author of The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Marketand numerous other books and articles, including …

It’S Just History: Patriotic Education In The Prc, Julia Lovell

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

It’s now a year since Chinese nationalism had its last big public outing. On April 19, 2008, twelve days after pro-Tibet protesters in Paris tried to grab the Olympic flame from a wheelchair-bound Chinese paralympian, patriotic civilians began mobilising protests around the French embassy in Beijing, and outside Carrefours in at least four different Chinese cities. “Protect Our Tibet! Bless Our Olympics! Boycott Carrefour!” declared banners at demonstrations on the northeast coast. “Say No to French Imperialists!”

As popular outrage grew about perceived anti-Chinese bias in Western reporting on the riots in Tibet and opposition to the torch relay, more …

Tiananmen Moon: Excerpt, Philip J. Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“Tiananmen,” whispers Chai Ling.

“What?” I ask, comprehending without comprehension.

“I’d like to see Tiananmen, one last time.”

We skip the turn to the train station—she and Wang Li had been talking about catching the first train out of Beijing– and instead continue east on Chang’an. As the car approaches the familiar student-controlled zone around Tiananmen Square, I try to make sense of what we are doing.

I had just delivered to the international media a candid interview with a wanted student leader who said she is going to run away, while speaking forthrightly about imminent bloodshed and the desire …

China Events: Dc And Boston

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We’ve published a few pieces lately on China’s coming water crisis, including Ken Pomeranz’s “China’s Water Woes” (2/12/09). Tomorrow (April 22 from 9-11 a.m. EST), the Wilson Center will host a roundtable on “Asia’s Next Challenge — Securing the Region’s Water,” for those interested in learning more. For those who aren’t in the DC-area, the talks (by Saleem Ali, Geoff Dabelko, Suzanne DiMaggio) will be webcast live (so you can log onto the above link to watch).

Readers in the Boston area might be interested in this upcoming event on Chinese media at the Fairbank Center:

Does the Party Still …

In Case You Missed It: Uncle Ho And Uncle Sam, A. Tom Grunfeld

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

During the wars in Indochina, Americans exhibited little interest in the histories of the nations their country was ravaging. This is not so dissimilar from today, as the United States wages wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without any discernable uptick in the sales of history books which would allow for a greater understanding of current events in a broader historical perspective.

The vast majority of Americans remained ignorant of the history of Vietnamese-American relations; especially of one of the most fascinating and improbable events – the brief period when the Vietnamese nationalist and communist leader Ho Chi Minh worked for …

Intellectuals And The Nation In China And India: A Public Roundtable

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The China Beat is very slowly beginning to co-sponsor real events. Our first is this coming Friday. Friday April 24, 2009, 2:00—3:30, in HIB [Humanities Instructional Building] 110 on the UC Irvine Campus

Sponsors:

UCI’s International Center for Writing and Translation

“The China Beat,” a UCI-based Group Blog

Co-sponsors:

The UCI History Department, the Center for Asian Studies, and the UCI Bookstore

Advances And Advance Notice

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We were delighted to come across a piece by Friend of the Blog Michael Meyer (called “About That Book Advance…“) in last week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review section. We figured, based on the author’s track record as a writer (and the insightfulness of his comments when talking about his work), that this piece would be lively and offer some illumination on an interesting topic and that it might also have some China tidbits. Well, it was not just illuminating (explaining how tough it can be for an author to live on what sounds at first like a very …

Jokes From The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

(Part One) Understanding jokes in another language is often the highest test of fluency, based as they often are on puns and insider cultural knowledge. When Guo Qitao, professor of Chinese history at University of California, Irvine, mentioned to us that he collects clever Chinese jokes, we asked if he might share a few at China Beat. Even better–he offered to translate and gloss them. The first set we offer here are of jokes from the Cultural Revolution, a period when political rhetoric and in-fighting predominated in the public sphere. Through these jokes, we see the way that Chinese people …

A China Beat Reader: 6/4

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Over the past year-plus, China Beat has run several pieces related to the 1989 protests. For readers who may have missed them originally (or wish for a refresher), here is a short list:

1. Par Cassel, “The Gate of Heavenly Pacification” (6/18/08): “Tian’anmen is by no means a peaceful name, but a name rather fitting to a fledging empire that anxiously protected its claims to legitimacy and busied itself with suppressing rebellion and dissent wherever they showed up.”

2. “Liu Si,” looking backward and forward (6/4/08): Two lists of suggested readings, one on the events of 1989 and another on …

Tiananmen Moon: Preface, Philip J. Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

If getting caught up in a popular uprising in China has taught me anything, it is that the past, present and future flow together as one with ferocious intensity. Looking back now at the eventful uprising at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 makes it all the more clear that what happened there was shaped by things that came before; and today’s China, basking in a post-Olympic glow and new-found national strength, is still profoundly haunted by the seminal events of 1989, though the topic is strictly taboo in the media and still feared by influential people in the leadership. …

Twenty Years: Preparing For The 6/4 Anniversary

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Some China Beat contributors have mentioned to us that they’ve been receiving requests from journalists and teachers for resources to turn to in writing and teaching about the up-coming twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen protests. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be posting lists of resources—some online, others in print.

This first list of readings is based entirely on a single website, “Tiananmen: The Gate of Heavenly Peace,” which presents varied perspectives on China’s 1989, with info about an important Long Bow Group film (The Gate of Heavenly Peace, 1995) and diverse online readings, available full-text. China Beat views the …

Beijing Sixty-Six: Portrait Of A Lost Generation, Jean Loh

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A friend of the blog forwarded to us information about a current exhibition in Shanghai, “Beijing Sixty Six,” which features startling photographs of the Cultural Revolution by Solange Brand. The curator of the show, Jean Loh of Galerie Beaugeste, kindly agreed to write a piece for us about reactions to the exhibit, as well as allowing us to share a few of these recently-uncovered photographs. You can learn more about the exhibit at Facebook, City Weekend, or about Galerie Beaugeste (located on Taikang lu) at its website.

In 2002, the cofounder of the Pingyao International Photography Festival, Alain Jullien, invited …

From Mumbai To Beijing: China For Indian Readers, Angilee Shah

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the land of news-meets-the-Internet, China has been fertile soil for very interesting blogs by journalists. There’s Evan Osnos’ Letters from China at theNew Yorker, the China Journal at the Wall Street Journal, Pomfret’s China (John Pomfret, that is) from the Washington Post, James Fallows‘ often-China blog onThe Atlantic, Peter Foster and Richard Spencer at the Telegraph, The New York Times reporter Howard French’s non-New York Times’ blog, and last but not least, Tim Johnson’s long-standing China Rises for McClatchy Newspapers. Though this list is long, it is not exhaustive.

Perhaps what is most interesting about these blogs is the …

Of Books, Bloggers, And The Buddha

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With the anniversaries of the 1959 (and 2008) Tibetan Uprisings just past, Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism has been much in the news in the past few months. But Buddhism more generally has been popping up in world news. A few readings on the topic…

1) “Six episodes” are distilled from Donald Lopez’s new book Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed at University of Chicago Press’s website. Here’s one:

Although hailed in Victorian Europe for its rejection of the Indian caste system and its championing of the spiritual potential of all social classes, Buddhism also played a role in …

Interview With Bo Caldwell—Author Of "The Distant Land Of My Father," A Shanghai Novel, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Preface to the Interview (by Jeff Wasserstrom): When I was working on Global Shanghai, 1850-2010, I thought I was keeping up with the fiction as well as non-fiction that was being published about the city—at least things coming out in English and Chinese. Somehow, though, Bo Caldwell’s excellent 2001 Shanghai novel, The Distant Land of My Father, passed me by initially. I didn’t learn of it until the Pasadena Public Library invited me to give a public lecture on Shanghai’s past to provide background for an upcoming author’s visit. This would be part of their “One City, One Story” program, …

China In 2008 Price Drop

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last Wednesday, Amazon dropped the price of China in 2008 to its lowest yet–just over $20 (the price has been fluctuating over the past couple weeks). And the site has also bundled China in 2008 with Peter Hessler’s Oracle Bones for about $30, so if any River Town fans never got around to ordering the second book by one of our contributors, now would be a great time to do so.

Amazon’s book bundling can be a little hit or miss, so we were wondering who Amazon would pair China in 2008 with, and were hoping it wasn’t a book …

Commemoration In 2009

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Readers may be interested to know that the new issue of China Heritage Quarterlyis out, and it examines the issue of commemoration (a relevant issue at the moment as, having just passed one sensitive set of dates, we are now into the spring–months strewn with anniversaries). As Editor Geremie Barmé writes in theMarch issue’s editorial:

The year 2009 also marks other significant anniversaries. Some of these will be commemorated with due pomp and circumstance in the official media and dissected at length by learned gatherings. Others—those events best thought of as ‘dark anniversaries’—will pass by in an atmosphere of heightened …

A Reader On Tibet

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Tibet has been much in the news the past few weeks, as China attempted to divert attention from the anniversary of last year’s riots and protests and reports leaked out of arrests and crackdowns in Tibet. Here are a few of the pieces from this week that we recommend.

In the current issue of The New York Review of Books, Pico Iyer writes about the Dalai Lama’s sinking faith in the Chinese leadership’s desire to resolve the situation in Tibet. Iyer points to the current situation in Tibet as the reason why—the title of his piece is “A Hell on …

China’S Way Forward?, Mark Selden

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

2008—Annus Horribilis for the world economy—produced successive food, energy and financial crises, initially devastating particularly the global poor, but quickly extending to the commanding heights of the US and core economies and ushering in the sharpest downturn since the 1930s depression.

As all nations strive to respond to the financial gridlock that began in the United States and quickly sent world industrial production and trade plummeting, there has been much discussion of the ability of the high-flying Chinese economy to weather the storm, of the prospects for the intertwined US and Chinese economies, even of the potential for China to …

The Dalai Lama And The Nobel Prize: Correcting A Misunderstanding, A. Tom Grunfeld

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As many readers of this blog doubtless realize, everything having to do with Tibet is subject to mythologizing. That the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of Tibetan independence is one of these myths. This notion gets mentioned in the Western press routinely, and it sometimes even shows up in comments by academic specialists. In fact, the prize was awarded to him more because of the events in Tiananmen Square that had happened just a few months before the award than for anything related to the Tibet struggle per se.

Indeed, it appears …

Obama To Visit China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

After meeting today with Hu Jintao in advance of the G20 in London, Obama accepted an invitation to visit China later this year:

The leaders agreed to “strengthen ties at all levels” ranging from the economy to fighting terrorism, and would expand consultations on “non-proliferation and other international security topics,” the White House said.

“The two sides agreed to resume the human rights dialogue as soon as possible,” the statement said.

In January and February, China Beat ran a series of reading (and sometimes viewing) recommendations for the new president. [See installments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.] Now …

New Quiz Winner

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Several weeks ago, we announced a brand new quiz for readers to name “The Prettiest” (photo of China), “The Wittiest” (title of a China-related piece of writing), and “The Grittiest” (best muckraking journalist to work the China beat). The award: A copy of China in 2008, signed by as many authors as we could get hold of (which, as one of us went to AAS, turned out to be a lot).

Our winner is Charles Hayford who, in typically fine style, gave us not just answers but a lot of good solid prose to back it up (and added three …

A Man Bites Dog Story: Picky Academic Praises Journalist

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Well, I don’t think I’m actually quite as bad when it comes to giving reporters their due as the title I’ve selected for this post suggests, as I have recently gone on record praising a variety of journalists based in China. Still, the ones I typically say the best things about are people who have a long-term commitment to the country (though I’ve been critical of some of these, of course), while the ones I most often pick on for things like missing important aspects of a story or failing to go to the best possible specialists for quotes are …

Five Quirky Blogs To Check Out

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A few blogs we’ve stumbled across in recent weeks that, depending on your interests, may merit your further attention:

1. “China Book Reviews” runs (as you might expect) reviews of an unusual selection of China books, including a few we’ve mentioned or reviewed ourselves, like Jeff Wasserstrom’s Brave New World and Mobo Gao’s The Battle for China’s Past (which Kate Merkel-Hess reviewed for TLS last spring).

2. Anna Greenspan wrote a piece for China in 2008 about the tainted milk scandal in China last fall. Now she is keeping her own blog about her experiment with placing her three-year old …

Living The Game: Wow-China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last fall, we ran an interview with UCI Professor of Informatics Bonnie Nardi, who was conducting research on the different ways World of Warcraft (an MMO-RPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) was used in China and the US.

Recently, a reader drew our attention to interesting images where Chinese players envisioned themselves in the game (often quite playfully). In honor of Chinese New Year (a game players celebrate in-game as “Lunar Festival”), WoW-China invited players to submit photos of themselves “blending their Lunar New Year celebration with their enthusiasm for World of Warcraft.” The contest received more than eight thousand …

Aas Blogging

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Jeff Wasserstrom (3/28/09, 7:41 a.m.):

This is, of course, the first AAS meeting at which a book associated with the China Beat has been displayed. And nicely displayed it definitely is, as the accompanying photo illustrates (and note that it is shown in the company of books like Voices Carry, China Ink and The Subject of Gender, which have been discussed on our site before). More than that, though, this is also a conference that, overall, has some features that run in tandem with some of the goals of China Beat. For example, just as we’ve tried to encourage more …

Conference Report: Asia And The Environment, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I began reading Pallavi Aiyar’s Smoke and Mirrors on my flight to Philadelphia last week to get me into a China-India frame of mind before I attended the “Asia and the Environment” conference held at Saint Joseph’s University on March 20-21. Although Friday’s sessions (which I unfortunately missed) were devoted to India, and Saturday’s topic was China, the goal of the conference organizers was to encourage some comparative discussion of the environmental problems—and possible solutions—shared by the two countries. Readers interested in specific presentations should watch the above SJU website, where podcasts of the talks will be available in the …

Blogging Aas

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

From Paul Katz (3/28/09, 2:27 p.m.):

Saturday morning was a disaster, or at least full of fascinating panels about disaster and resulting relief efforts. Panel #139, alluded to by Kate Edgerton-Tarpley in her earlier post, explored the sociocultural impacts of the Great Leap Famine. Relevant research has also been done by Steve A. Smith in his “Talking Toads and Chinless Ghosts” article, published in The American Historical Review in 2006, and he has also written on this topic for the China Beat. There was also Panel #167, organized largely by a group of German scholars, which builds on the pioneering …

Blogging The Aas

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Association for Asian Studies annual meeting is taking place this weekend in Chicago. We’ll be posting occasional updates from China Beatniks who are attending the meeting and will be checking in about the sessions and meetings they’ve participated in. Below, our first two postings from the meeting.

From Jeff Wasserstrom (3/26/09, 11:53 a.m.):

As Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, I needed to be on site a couple of days before the Association for Asian Studies panels and other main events begin, and I have been struck since arriving by how many things I’ve seen inside or near …