East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Tainted Love

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Forget about any barbequing. Taiwan is just beginning to recover from one of the worst typhoons in recent memory. Super Typhoon Sinlaku spent the entire weekend over the island, meandering up the east coast, doing a loop-de-loop around Yilan, moving northwest and doing a second loop-de-loop around Danshui, before taking another jaunt to the west and finally traipsing off to the northeast. Mountain areas have been inundated with between 3 AND 5 FEET OF RAIN, resulting in numerous casualties (7 dead and 14 missing so far) and catastrophic damage (bridges washed out, riverside hotels toppled or swept away, crops destroyed, …

To Grill Or Not To Grill?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Enough of politics! The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節; also known as the Moon Festival) is this Sunday, so let’s break out a case of Taiwan Beer, and slap some squid and pork patties on the barby. Well, maybe not…

You see, the government, led by the Environmental Protection Agency (環保署), is encouraging people to refrain from a favorite evening activity, namely the family (or community barbeque. According to agency estimates, this could help reduce the island’s carbon footprint, as over 6,000 tons of CO2 would be produced if even one-third of the nation’s residents fired up their grills. Subsequently, numerous city …

In Case You Missed It: Fragile Superpower

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I was in the Chicago O’Hare Airport a few weeks ago and noticed that a re-release of Peter Navarro’s The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won had made it onto that prized bit of airport-bookstore real estate, the shelf directly below the cash register. Anyone who has followed news on China in the past decade is familiar with the narrative Navarro, a professor of business, spins out here in hyperbolic boldface. His view, as one reviewer put it, is that “the Chinese will eat us for lunch” by building a massive military, …

Lin Daiyu--An Unyielding Girl In A Stifling Society, Haiwang Yuan

DLPS Faculty Publications

Lin Daiyu is a famous Chinese young woman created by one of the four classic Chinese novels titled A Dream of the Red Mansions. The loss of her love and life was the result of a society where human choices were suppressed. Her story shows that in a society full of intrigues and corruption, a girl as pure and naive as her could never survive.

The Great Diversion

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Allegations about money-laundering by former President Chen Shui-bian, his relatives, and his acquaintances have been front page news for three weeks, and, on some TV stations, occupy the first 30-40 minutes of the news hour. As might be imagined, this is also a hot topic on the political talk shows, day after day after day. New reports continue to surface about alleged improprieties, ranging from misusing government funds, to opening shady accounts in Swiss banks and tax havens like Liechtenstein and Aruba, to buying mansions and other properties in the U.S. The media hounds are now hot on the chase …

Recommended Readings

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

There was more “strolling” in China this week (see #4), and these are the pieces we enjoyed in our own strolls around the internet this week…

1) Head over to Beijing Sounds for a thoroughly enlightening and entertaining piece by Randy Alexander on spoken Chinglish–and particularly the sort that results from transcribing English using Chinese characters (yep, you read correctly–follow the link for images of the texts that teach using this method and even the amazing audio clips of what English spoken this way sounds like).

2) Victor Cha wonders if the Olympic Games were “too perfect”?

3) China Beat‘s …

Faking Heaven: The Utopian Will To Order In China, Timothy S. Oakes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Now that the 2008 Olympics have come and gone, Beijing can perhaps breathe a sigh of relief that after two weeks of intensive scrutiny, the most embarrassing thing the foreign media could come up with during the Games was that some of the events in the spectacular opening ceremony were faked. First, we learned that 9-year old Lin Miaoke was not in fact singing a revised “Song of the Motherland” at all, but was lip-synching the voice of the less photogenic Yang Peiyi (see Geremie Barmé’s “Painting Over Mao”). Then, we learned that at least some of thefirework footprints leading …

An Olympic Evaluation, Eric Setzekorn

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With the Olympics already more than a week in the past, life in Beijing is slowly returning to normal. The Chinese government appears to have achieved what it wanted, producing an overwhelming show to awe foreign and domestic audiences and a clutch of gold medal winners to gloat over. The results for two of the more hidden goals of the games look mixed: promoting athletics for personal health along with national pride and using the Olympics to educate a new generation of urban Chinese as confident global citizens. And a negative legacy from 2008 looks to be the expansion of …

Olympic Echoes In Denver And St. Paul

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When the media spotlight shifted instantaneously from Beijing to Denver last week, it was easy to focus on things that the Olympics and the Democratic Convention had in common as spectacles, especially since each ended with a big party in a stadium where rock music played and fireworks exploded. But if there’s a real American sequel to the Beijing Games, it’s the Republican Convention underway in St. Paul.

It’s true that in Denver one big story involved long-term rivals working together to achieve a new goal. This is definitely an Olympian theme in the era of “Dream Teams” made up …

Beijing À La Jasper Becker, Pierre Fuller

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A Financial Times news brief lay buried in an inside page: At the very moment a few weeks ago when Olympic medals were awarded in front of adoring crowds, “two elderly women” were jailed for seeking permission to demonstrate against “being forcibly evicted from their Beijing homes” back in 2001. And who knows what now stands in the place of these pensioners’ loss – faux Italianate villas? an IKEA? pavement?

Stories like this make a timely book of journalist Jasper Becker’s history of the Chinese capital, City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China from Oxford University Press …

Chinese Ethnicities And Their Culture: An Overview, Haiwang Yuan

DLPS Faculty Publications

China, the most populous country in the world, is also a nation of great diversity. In addition to the majority population of Han Chinese, there are some 55 officially recognized national minorities--including Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu, Zhuang, Dai, and Gaoshan. The folklore of these minorities is often obscure and difficult to find in the English-speaking world, as is information about the people, their cultural histories, and their traditional customs. This book fills a gap by offering more than 50 representative folktales from China's minorities, as well as background information on each of the ethnic groups.

A Little Post-Games Analysis

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last week, we handed out five medals for media handling of the Games, and now we’re following with a different sort of list, which flags both shortcomings as well as accomplishments.

1) Yellow Card for over-generalization and reinforcing stereotypes: to Thomas Friedman for “Melting Pot Meets Great Wall.” Though the Olympics could be seen as a “teachable moment,” with both the U.S. and China having things to learn from the other, Friedman essentializes both countries here, arguing that the US is diverse while China is focused and goal-driven. Moreover, the jumping off point for Friedman’s piece is his observation that …

“同一个世界，同一个梦想”还是 “同会异梦”?, James Farrer

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Mo Bangfu, a Chinese columnist writing for the liberal Asahi Shimbun, used his weekly column the day before the closing ceremonies to award the Beijing Olympics a symbolic “silver medal” for its overall organization (Aug. 23, 2008, p. B3). Despite accusations of fakery, the opening ceremonies and the Olympic volunteers both deserve “gold medals,” as do the ordinary Beijing residents and migrant workers who had to put up with massive everyday inconveniences.

The government, however, deserves a “disqualification” for not allowing any demonstrations in the designated demonstration areas, for restricting the access of normal citizens to the Olympic venues, and …

Olympic Echoes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The echoes of the Beijing Olympics have been soundly drowned out, at least in US medialand, by the Democratic Convention. Even so, there’s still a lot of good and interesting coverage and reflections on the Beijing spectacle. Here are a few of our favorites.

1. For a variety of takes on the closing ceremony, see Danwei’s wrap-up.

2. In case you missed them, here are Xinhua’s pictures of a sweaty President Bushchatting with the eventual gold medalists in women’s beach volleyball.

3. Mary Beard at TLS wrote two recent pieces on the Olympics that may be of interest–both written from …

The Kmt Backstroke

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Now that the Beijing Olympiad has reached its glorious conclusion, people in Taiwan are starting to turn their attentions back to the home front. The Olympics did not go very well for Taiwan, which ended up winning only 4 bronze medals, its worst result in 20 years. Even the baseball team could only mange a fifth-place finish, including a shocking 8-7 loss to China in extra innings. One of the few bright spots was the competitive spirit of athletes like Su Li-wen 蘇麗文, who fought to the bitter end while losing her bronze medal match by a single point in …

In Case You Missed It: Stephen Mackinnon’S Latest Book On China’S War With Japan

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Everyone’s attention this month has been on the Olympics, and rightly so, but August can also be a time to reflect on China’s War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45). Throughout the entire month of August 1938, Japanese planes bombarded Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party headquarters in the first provisional capital of Wuhan, a tri-city region in the central Yangzi river region in Hubei province. The fall of Wuhan after a protracted ten-month battle, on October 25th 1938, forced the government to move further inland to its second provisional capital, the city of Chongqing in Sichuan province. This gives us some perspective …

Reading Recommendations

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Olympics have ended, but the news continues. Here are a few of our favorite end-of-the-Olylmpics stories:

1. Danwei notes that last Friday, Google news searches for “China” (done via the Chinese language version of the search engine) returned no results.

2. In case you missed any Olympic highlights, check out Shanghaiist’s nod to the ultra-brief Mime Olympics. They also ran a “report card” on the Beijing Olympics,loaded with links for recommended reading.

3. August 18-22, the comic strip Candorville skewered the holier than thou aspects of some human rights protests against China. Though while doing this, some panels do …

Where Have You Gone, Hua Guofeng?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Let’s face it: Hua Guofeng just never could get any respect. He’s the former leader of China, but was sidelined by Deng Xiaoping and relegated to the ashbin of history: the triumph of mediocrity…the Gerry Ford of Chinese politics. His death last week was greeted with a chorus of “Who? He was still alive? No kidding. How’s Liu Xiang’s ankle?”

The great Han historian Sima Qian once wrote that a man’s death could be as weighty as Mt. Tai or as light as a feather. Hua’s death was eclipsed by the achilles tendon of a 20-something hurdler/professional product endorser.

Anyway, …

The Great Convergence?*

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China and America, according to much U.S. Olympic commentary, currently offer a study in contrasts. Not surprisingly, we’ve been hearing repeated references of late to the stark differences between our young land and their old one when it comes to religious freedom and press censorship. And we’ve seen some novel variations on the familiar U.S.-China contrasts theme, like an August 18 Los Angeles Times piece by Mary McNamar that focused on style. Our every-day-can-be-casual-Friday approach, she claimed, clearly differentiated the look of “laid-back,” gum-chewing U.S. competitors, a sockless Matt Lauer, and a shirt-sleeved George W. in sports fan mode from …

Olympic Hurdles, Trials, Losses And Wins

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As we go into the final laps of the long race to the Closing Ceremonies, here are five things worth reading (actually, four to read and one to watch) to put issues related to the Olympics (albeit sometimes vaguely) into novel perspectives.

1) Warren Cohen, a leading scholar of U.S.-China relations has a smart essay on the truthdig site that compares and contrasts the frameworks and details of books on the PRC by journalists, Philip Pan’s Out of Mao’s Shadow and Joshua Kurlantzick’s China’s Charm Offensive.

2) Speaking of Kurlantzick, whose book came out some time ago, he’s got an …

Beijing Architecture: Part 2, Eric Setzekorn

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the midst of the forest of new skyscrapers, a subtle change is occurring in Beijing architecture which may have more lasting importance than the soaring towers of the Central Business District. Outside the fourth ring road massive new apartment blocks are greatly increasing the average living space and comfort level of the growing middle class.

Built in record time by massive crews of migrant laborers the new complexes promise residents a more controlled and relaxed life , but the centralized, homogenous designs hinder the development of neighborhood feeling and community. The new developments allow the beneficiaries of China’s thirty …

Handing Out Five Media Medals

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Here is an admittedly quirky list of some pieces I’ve come across recently that seem medal-worthy. Not all deal with “big” topics. Isn’t that fitting where the Games are concerned, though, since Olympic athletes don’t just compete in globally popular sports (like soccer) but also in ones that have few practitioners and, shall we say, niche followings (like synchronized diving)?* This list focuses almost exclusively on Western and English language publications, so I hope readers will bring Chinese and other publications into the mix via their comments. And while I’d like to award medals to some China Beat pieces (they …

Web-Based Resources For Learning Chinese

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Back in May, we posted a list of recommended language and literature sites for students of Chinese. We pointed out that these five sites were only the tip of the iceberg; there are literally hundreds of other sites offering live Chinese lessons, interactive exercises, flashcards, and other learning tools and tips. Here are five more of our top picks among sites with significant free offerings for language learners:

1. The rich collection of goodies on Eric Peterson’s Online Chinese Tools site includes Chinese dictionaries, file converters, a text annotator, a romanization converter, and a popular Chinese text reader program called …

Hand Grenades And Olympics, Lijia Zhang

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

At my school, sports lessons included an exercise where we threw hand grenades (made from wood topped with metal to resemble the real thing) against a wall that stretched a red slogan with the reason for our militaristic “sport” – “exercise our bodies and protect our motherland.” We feared that China might be invaded one day by the American imperialists or Soviet revisionists. Indeed, the whole West seemed holding evil intent towards us. Living in a closed country, we had little idea about the outside world.

I went to school in Nanjing in the early 70s, when the revolutionary fever …

China: The Pessoptimist Nation, William A. Callahan

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China is the most optimistic nation in the world. 86 percent think that their country is headed in the right direction, up from 48 percent in 2002 according to the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey.

There are good reasons to be hopeful. 2008 is important not only because Beijing is hosting the Olympics. This year Chinese people are also celebrating thirty years of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform policy, whose double digit economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, and created a new middle class that is larger than most European countries.

But China’s nationalistic pride takes pessimistic …

Rob Riggle Goes To China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

All week, Rob Riggle of The Daily Show has been acting out his exuberant American routine in China. Last night’s interview with BizChina’s anchor Rui Chenggang was a particular gem for China media watchers. Rui, who has interviewed a whole host of prominent American business leaders (not to mention Chinese ones), gives no ground to Riggle, parrying all Riggle’s Daily-Show style ambushes. Unfortunately, the only available online clip is the entire episode of last night’s show at Comedy Central (head here–the clip starts at 6:42, and you’ll have to watch a short ad).

Learning English, Learning Chinese, David Porter

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“We are very proud to be Chinese!”

“We welcome everyone to come to China!”

Judging from recent interviews on Beijing streets that have been broadcast in recent days by American TV and radio journalists, these two phrases and others like them have topped the list of essential greetings in the city-wide cram courses in Olympics English that have proven so popular over the past year or so. A bit hackneyed, perhaps, but telling in the striking combination of hospitality and nationalism that has characterized Chinese self-presentation from the opening ceremonies to the China-US men’s basketball match-up.

The current craze for …

The Right To Party, En Masse, Haiyan Lee

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The most clichéd way of referring to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in English-language media has been “China’s coming-out party.” The slightly condescending undertone is nonetheless mingled with well-wishing that the debutante will give the world a heck of a party, the glitches and disappointments in the run-up notwithstanding. For this precious moment, China chose Zhang Yimou, arguably its most talented film director, to chaperone itself onto the world stage.

By all indications, it was a good choice. The 50-minute multi-million-dollar extravaganza was so spectacular that the only appropriate response, it would seem, was a WOW! Or to wonder, like …

How To Talk To Strangers: Beijing’S Advice, Mary S. Erbaugh

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

US parents warn their children, “Don’t talk to strangers!” But Chinese adults traditionally avoid even superficial greetings to strangers. This preserves a distinction between insiders and outsiders (nei wai you bie) which honors insiders but deflects con artists and unwelcome requests. People remain wary until they know someone’s title, surname, and background through networks of connections (guanxi) with kin, classmates, and colleagues. People do not say “hello” even to neighbors on the street. In stores, restaurants, train stations, taxis, post offices or clinics, customers request service without pleasantries: “Pork chop noodles!,” “To the east bus station!” Good service focuses on …

Painting Over Mao: Notes On The Inauguration Of The Beijing Olympic Games, Geremie R. Barme

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The ancient city of Beijing was literally turned on its head to help achieve the effects of the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday August 8, 2008. Six hundred years ago the city was designed around a north-south axis that runs from the south of the old city through the Forbidden City and on north. Along this axis the spectacles of imperial times would unfold (including the imperial “Tours of the South” or nanxun that were a major feature of the reigns of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors in the Qing dynasty). Since the 1910s, however, Chang’an Avenue, now a multi-laned …