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China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

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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

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”

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, 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 …

Hands-On Or On-Hands: An Approach To Fine Arts Learning In The Senegalese Context, Souleye Diallo Ma, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Everything in Arts is communal and participatory as the stage in the African context is different. There is always an exchange between performers and the audience. Our students during their hands-on workshop on Batik, Visual arts and music and dance share those wonderful moment s with their families the community of artists working with them. As stated by one British artist John Ruskin “Fine Art is that in which the hand, the head and the heart of man goes together”. Most of our students during these workshops find Fine arts as integrating and a liberating tool to culture learning. During …

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, 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 …

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!

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

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

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

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 …

Using An Ancient Saint For Contemporary Political Purposes: The Case Of Irenaeus Of Sirmium In Sremska Mitrovica Today, Marijana Vukoviæ

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Croatian Catholic Church And Its Role In Politics And Society, Thomas Bremer

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam - Davorin Peterlin (1959-2010), Paul Mojzes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Good Neighbor Inculturation Of Religious Communities In West Pomerania, Joachim V. Wedel

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Conservative Neo-Protestants: Romanian Nazarenes In Serbia, Aleksandra Ðuriæ Milovanoviæ

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

In contemporary society, religious pluralism presents a range of complex challenges to religious groups and communities. The collapse of Communism and the emergence of renewed forms of nationalism in a number of post-Communist countries resulted in religious revival. The policy of atheism led by Communists led to the rejection of any authority of institutionalized religion. Between 1989 and 1991, after the Communist period, in Romania and in Serbia the number of those declaring themselves as “believers” increased considerably. This growth meant also moving away from traditional religious expressions towards new forms of religion. NeoProtestants such as Baptists, Pentecostals and Seventh …

Vibe Et Al Eds' "Istoriia I Etnografiia Nemtsev V Sibiri. [History And Ethnography Of Germans In Siberia.]" - Book Review, Walter Sawatsky

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Radovan's "State-Church Relations In Slovakia. The Current Structure And Trends In The Development Of State-Church Relations" - Book Review, Lucia Grešková

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Javanese Kingship, Ganda Upaya

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

No abstract provided.

Ketahanan Toleransi Orang Jawa: Studi Tentang Yogyakarta Kontemporer, Zaenal Abidin Eko Putro

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

This paper aims to elaborate the tolerance discourse in Yogyakarta through restricted research pertaining that issue within the society of Yogyakarta. Since the beginning, the society of Yogyakarta has been practiced brotherhood, fraternity and tolerance in many ways. In early 1990s, however, some Islamist group has been growing at the city in which a number of Islamic schools and hospitals were built in some area in Yogyakarta. Religious mass organizations that have existed previously, for instance Muhammadiyah, in some cases, distressed by Islamist group movements. The organizations seem to be victimized by the militants and they were vulnerable from recent …

Tradisi, Ekonomi-Politik, Dan Toleransi Yogyakarta, Diatyka Widya

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

This article aims to illustrate that cultural reproduction is always in the interplay with politic and economic system within societal structure. Therefore, the effort to understand the meaning of cultural symbol has to be accompanied by the attempt to explore the political and economic interests that shape the cultural practices. The Yogyakarta people undoubtedly perceive religion practices as more than cultural practices. The article will demonstrate that dispute in religious matters have never become the main trigger of conflict between religious groups. In most cases, the tension is driven by the clash of political and economic interests between the dominant …

Embedding Latin American Archives Into Library Instruction And Practice, Marisol Ramos

UConn Library Presentations

Being both a librarian and an archivist/curator, it is one of my jobs to find ways to embed primary sources into my library instruction. This paper discuss the ways that I have found to integrate the Latin American and Caribbean archival holdings that I manage in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center into my library services. I will discuss briefly some of the strategies, such as digitization projects, LibGuides and Show and Tells events, that I have used to bridge my archival work with my library work to provide better services to my constituents.

Tan Ah Choon: The Singapore ‘King Of Spirit Mediums’ (1928-2010), Margaret Chan, Victor Yue

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

On 27 January 2010 Tan Ah CHOON died at the age of 82. Born in the year of the dragon (1928), Tan was the most respected spirit-medium among his peers. He became a tangki (童乩 tongji ‘child diviner’ or Chinese spirit-medium) just before the 1950s, and by the 1960s was regarded as the wisest, most powerful spirit-medium in the Singapore tangki community so that he was nicknamed “Tangki Ong” (童乩王), the “Tangki King”.Mr Tan was “caught” by deities to become a spirit medium when he was aged about 21 years. This was just after the Second World War, but Tan’s …

Rethinking Imperialism And Resistance In West Africa: Historiographic Connections For The Classroom, Michael Christopher Low

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Even in the postcolonial era, West African history remains plagued by Eurocentric myths and media-driven stereotypes. Though specialists have been struggling with this problem for decades, a rift remains between the elite world of academia and the African history being taught in American schools. In an attempt to bridge this gap, this essay provides a case study and a list of suggested resources designed to help nonspecialist world history teachers rethink European colonial power and its impact on our conception of African history. Through its examination of how West African responses to imperialism interacted with, adapted to, and were ultimately …

Representation In Kenya, Its Diaspora, And Academia: Colonial Legacies In Constructions Of Knowledge About Kenya's Coast, Jesse Benjamin

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This paper explores the construction of knowledge in Kenya in the context and aftermath of colonialism and underdevelopment. Those communities that were politically and economically marginalized in Coast Province over the past century were also displaced in terms of academic opportunities, resulting in fewer social science scholars from Mijikenda and other non-Swahili communities in both Kenyan and diaspora universities. Underdevelopment studies in Africa and Kenya are briefly reviewed, and the colonial history of asymmetric social relations at coastal Kenya is traced. Finally, key debates over identity and history are examined within this context and shown to be exacerbated by diasporic …

Islam, Globalization, And Freedom Of Expression, Muhammad Daiyabu Hassan

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

The exercise of freedom of expression by a segment of the secular establishment, mainly among members of the literary and intellectual elite in the West, in relation to Islam, constitutes a major obstacle in the search for common grounds between the Islamic world and the West. Due to historical factors, the church seems to have assented to the continuous secular attacks on Christianity. Some examples in this regard are Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Martins Scorsese's film adaptation of Nikos Kazanstzaki's The Last Temptation of Christ. To this segment of Western secular cultural thinkers, nothing is sacred. The …

What Is Globalization To Post-Colonialism? An Apologia For African Literature, Ameh Dennis Akoh

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Globalization is easily understood as part of the continuing history of imperialism, indeed, of capitalist development and expansion. Have the imperial structures really been dismantled, even though the empire, free as they politically seem after independence, still writes back to the (imperial) center? This paper probes into the angelic posture that globalization seems to assume in its tackling of these complexities of identities. In this age of the clamor for national literatures and criticism, which is a fundamental principle of postcolonial literatures, will globalization automatically erode the idea of a postcolonial world and literatures? Is post-colonialism in its present phase …

Gender, Empowerment And Coffee In Mexico And Central America: A Policy Analysis, Lisa M. Fry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coffee is an important commodity for Central American countries. Like other agricultural production, coffee production in the region is undergoing a “feminization” in which women become the primary producers. However, female agricultural producers face constraints that their male counterparts do not. This study analyzes policies to determine if they promote or continue the inhibition of empowerment of female coffee producers. The results of the study indicate that policies relating to Central American coffee production are promoting women’s empowerment, but implementation remains weak. Policy recommendations are included.

(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 …