International and Area Studies Commons^™

Do I Still Love China?, Xujun Eberlein

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In Sunday’s New York Times, Ha Jin reflected on his decision to remain in the West after graduate school and to write primarily in English:

That was when I started to think about staying in America and writing exclusively in English, even if China was my only subject, even if Chinese was my native tongue. It took me almost a year to decide to follow the road of Conrad and Nabokov and write in a language that was not my own. I knew I might fail. I was also aware that I was forgoing an opportunity: the Chinese language had …

6/4 Reader

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A set of links to readings about 6/4 from various sources:

1. A short and straightforward documentary from Al Jazeera (in English), posted at YouTube in two parts: Part I and Part II. This documentary has notably less emphasis on the influence of Western-style democracy than the average (Western) doc on the subject, and more on the opposition to authoritarianism…

2. Mara Hvistendahl has written a piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education on a well-trod topic—the shifts in China post-89, particularly among those of the 6/4 generation. Yet, Hvistendahl, in addition to getting the basics right (unlike others we …

Genres Populaires Et « Érographiques » En Afrique Francophone : Le Cas Des Romans De La Collection Adoras, Sathya Rao

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article will take the Adoras novels as a case study to address the aesthetics and institutional issues related to the emergence of popular literature in francophone Africa. As the promoter of an “erographic” discourse that strives to accommodate modernity and tradition, francophone romance, which has been largely under-examined if not denigrated, raises a wide range of questions on the status of francophone literature, the socioeconomic constraints on publication in Africa, and the construction of a truly African erotic imaginary.

Quand On Vient Aussi De L’Autre Monde: Appartenance(S), Conflit(S) Et Déchirement(S) Dans L’Enfant Des Deux Mondes De Karima Berger, Carla Calargé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

My essay analyzes Karima Berger’s first novel, L’enfant des deux mondes (1989). The author who has been living in France for more than 25 years tells the story of a Muslim Arab girl (herself ?) educated in the French school system of pre-independent Algeria. In this study, I examine linguistic, cultural and religious issues raised by the novel in an effort to identify the factors that keep the protagonist imprisoned in a permanent state of being in-between-two-worlds without fully belonging to any of them.

Shanghai Girls

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A few months ago, we ran an interview with Lisa See about her new novel,Shanghai Girls. The book was released last week and See is in the middle of a series of talks and readings, including one that China Beat is co-sponsoring on June 6 in Corona del Mar.

For those interested in learning more aboutShanghai Girls or Lisa See, you can check out this link to a few of her favorite books, anearly review of the novel, and an autobiographical piece in this Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.

See talks frequently about the historical research that undergirds her novels. Here …

Le Feu Sous La Soutane, Roman Populaire? Du Génocide À Sa Transposition Fictionnelle, Josias Semyjanga

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

A reflective, first-person account, Benjamin Sehene’s Le feu sous la soutane is the story of memories of a double crime of rape and genocide by a Catholic priest, Father Stanislas. At the beginning of the killings of the Tutsi, some people take refuge in a parish in Kigali. Its priest takes under his protection a few Tutsi women, hiding them in the presbytery. But, the Holy man will rape them. He also participates alongside with the Hutu militia to the extermination of the Tutsi who came to take refuge in the parish. Later the priest took refuge in France where …

Soleil, Sexe Et Vidéo: La Comédie Populaire Aux Antilles, Françoise Naudillon

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The comedy of manners presented in the form of play or in the form of sketches or playlet by the medium of videos and DVDs is a phenomenon that develops in Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana, but also in France. These productions are the link between communities in the Creole area (Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana) and the outside (metropolitan France and diaspora). They will be analyzed for their popular and scholarly features between erudite comedy and farce, between traditional and postcréolitaire cultural affirmation, between Creole and French, between Italian theatre and yardplay, between creole comedy and vaudeville, between negropolitan diaspora and …

Danny Pudi Interview, Shariq Jefferi

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with comedian Danny Pudi by Shariq Jefferi

Geithner In Beijing–What To Read (Or Perhaps Re-Read)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With press reports circulating about Timothy Geithner’s plan to speak at Peking University/Beida tomorrow, this might be the perfect time to dip into China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance and read Geremie Barmé’s “Facing Up to Friendship” (pages 212-214), a smart look at the talk Kevin Rudd gave at the same campus on April 9, 2008. (If you don’t have the book, check out the earlier and slightly shorter version of it that appeared in the April 12, 2009, edition of theSydney Morning Herald, under the title “Rudd Rewrites the Rules of Engagement.”)

For two typically smart wrap-ups …

5/28/09: Chai Ling’S Last Will And Testament, Philip J. Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This piece is excerpted from the manuscript of Philip J. Cunningham’s forthcoming book, Tiananmen Moon, part of an on-going China Beat feature of excerpts from Cunningham’s book, and describes the set-up for one of the most famous interviews of the final days of the student movement. Interested readers can see more at Cunningham’s website.

A petite sun-bronzed woman wearing a stained white tennis shirt and dusty beige trousers sits next to me in the back of the taxi, grimacing as if in pain, weeping quietly to herself. Named to the police blacklist, she says she fears imminent arrest. Up front …

Chris Naka Interview, Cheryl Franzen

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with new media and video artist Chris Naka by Cheryl Franzen

Cynthia Tom Interview, Lauren Swift

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with painter and president of the Asian American Women Artists Association Cynthia Tom by Lauren Swift

Vincent Chung Interview, Pete Koszulinski

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media's graphic designer Vincent Chung by Pete Koszulinski

In Search Of Old Shanghai (Buildings)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Earlier this week, the Washington Postpublished a fascinating article by Maureen Fan, paired with a very effective video that the same reporter narrates (hat tip to Shanghaiist for bringing both to my attention), that combines architectural and family history. This is because the grandfather of the Post‘s Beijing bureau chief was Robert Fan, a leading local architect who designed, among many other buildings, the one pictured here.

I won’t try to summarize her piece, which is part memoir and part analysis of the fate of buildings her grandfather designed (some of which are shown in the accompanying video), as it …

Larry Lee Interview, Ami Shah

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with installation artist and curator Larry Lee by Ami Shah

Larry Lee website

View Larry's work in the AAOH project gallery

5/26/89: An Audience With An Audience, Philip J. Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On May 26 I got another glimpse of student command central, when Chai Ling was at the height of her power. She was holding court in the broadcast tent, the ideological hothouse of student-occupied Tiananmen Square. It wasn’t easy getting in. I had to pass three rings of student security to secure an “audience.”

The BBC had yet to give me any kind of ID, so I learned to talk my way into things. My only “press” pass was my wit, which worked okay because I liked to talk and could do so in Chinese. There were times when the …

A News Story On School Collapses Tantalizes, Then Disappears, David Bandurski

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Yesterday, China Media Project’s David Bandurski published a post that highlights the best of what CMP does: muckraking in the China media and blogosphere, in this case regarding school construction in Sichuan. If CMP isn’t already on your RSS feed, we encourage you to add them. In the meantime, Bandurski kindly agreed to let us re-post this piece on the suppression of findings regarding shoddy school construction in Sichuan.

China Economic Weekly, a spin-off magazine of the official People’s Daily, ran an important story Monday about the collapse of school buildings in last year’s Sichuan earthquake. But the story, posted …

Reading Roundup

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. A very cool set of reports from 1949 on what happened in Shanghai sixty years ago when the Communist Party took control (Hat tip: Shanghaiist).

2. Alec Ash continues with brief insights on critical issues. Here’s a nugget on the Chinese “brain drain.”

3. A very smart review of Zhao’s memoir by Richard Rigby at East Asia Forum:

What was not generally known at the time to outside observers was Zhao’s determination, mentioned several times in the book, that he not go down in history as the General Secretary who approved unleashing the PLA against the demonstrators.

In so …

The Japanese Revolutionaries: The Architects Of The Meiji Restoration, 1860-1868, Dana Kenneth Teasley

Student Papers (History)

Scholars have offered many conflicting interpretations of the Japanese Meiji Restoration of 1868, but few have put forth a comprehensive analysis as to the nature of the protagonists and the motivation of those who initiated this revolutionary movement. Although historical interpretations of the Restoration and its heroes have ranged from a romantic and generalized theory of economic struggle to focused studies of individuals whose motivations were singular, the true character of the samurai revolutionaries behind the Restoration is the issue here. Of those samurai who, acquired knowledge of Western civilization and technology, took part in the Restoration, and witnessed the …

Vincent Pham Interview, Devin Meyer

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with Vincent Pham a Doctoral Student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and co-author of Asian Americans and the Media (Polity, 2008).

5/22/89: The Hunger Of Provincials, Philip J. Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On the evening of May 22, BBC asked me to take one of the crews to the Square for a closer look at the protest, which was thought to be on the wane now that martial law was coming into force. We did the usual look-see, I conducted a few spot interviews and the talented camera crew captured ironic and iconic visuals. Then we took a break in front of the History Museum, parking the hotel van near the camp of the provincial students.

The protesters around us didn’t seem to mind our presence, until we decided to crack out …

Better City, Better Life, Part Ii, Gina Anne Russo

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In my first post on the “Better City, Better Life” Expo promotion campaign, I focused on the centrality within it of visions of Shanghai as a special sort of distinctively modern and distinctively international Chinese metropolis, but here I’ll emphasize the second half of the slogan, which draws attention to the quality of urban existence. Expo public advertisements don’t just glorify Shanghai’s place in the modern world, they also strive to present Shanghai as a place where good behavior is on display. For example, on the subway one day I ran across a person dressed up as Haibao, and he …

Should China Copy The West On Academic Integrity?, Susan D. Blum

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In recent years, articles have appeared from time to time in the Western press that deal with cases of plagiarism in China and speculated on what these incidents may reveal about how academic life and the educational system in the PRC work. When we learned that anthropologist Susan Blum, one of the contributors toChina Beyond the Headlines, a book that was co-edited by a contributor to China Beat (Timothy Weston) and in a sense was trying to do in print form some of the things that this blog now tries to do online, has been combining writing about various aspects …

Better City, Better Life, Gina Anne Russo

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This month began with the countdown clocks ticking away the time until the start of the 2010 Shanghai Expo hitting the one-year-to-go point, and the weeks that have followed have seen the international press pay a good deal of attention to this upcoming event, which had gotten relatively little media coverage in the Western media. There have been a flurry of op-eds (including this one by China Beat‘s Jeff Wasserstrom), reports on the question of whether the U.S. will have a national pavilion (such as this one by Shanghai Scrap‘s Adam Minter), and feature stories on the city of Shanghai …

A Few Readings Around The Web

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. China Digital Times is on our RSS feed, and, hopefully, on yours too—it is one of the essential places where English-language readers can find easily accessible updates of what is happening in China and in the Chinese media and blogosphere.CNReviews has posted an interview with CDT’s Sophie Beach that gives further details about the site’s management and goals.

2. In the interview, Beach also mentions her own website (好妈妈) on raising bilingual children, chockfull of information and references for those who are interested. At Hao Mama, Beach references Anna Greenspan’s website, Waking Giants, on Greenspan’s experiences sending her son …

Gordon Cc Liao Interview, Elise Osenbaugh

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2009 interview with poet Gordon CC Liao

5/18/89: Working Class Heroes, Philip J. Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

New, creative links were being made, reflected in the flags and slogans draped on industrial strength trucks with factory logos packed to the brim with red-sashed workers.

WORKERS SUPPORT BRIGADE!

WORKERS UNITED WITH STUDENTS IN SUPPORT!

But the really eye-catching, breath-stopping slogans took aim at the most powerful man in China.

XIAOPING GAODE RENREN FENFEN BU PING

“Wow! You see that Lotus?

It says Xiaoping is ruining it for all of us!” Quite a few posters and political cartoons were openly critical of Deng, representing a logical but politically dangerous turn of heart. But the most novel element today was …

Marx And The Taipings, Daniel Little

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With all the May anniversary dates to mark, we missed the May 5th birthday of Karl Marx (a man to whose thought the Chinese Communist Party still pays homage, even if you wouldn’t know it from their economic policies). Had we been on our toes, we might have found a China-specific way to mark that date, like looking back to how Marx, in his journalist mode, wrote about the Taiping Uprising, an event that the CCP would later treat as a precedent for their own revolutionary struggle. Well, in the spirit of better late than never, here’s what one of …

Rss Feeds

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Several regular readers have mentioned in conversations recently that they don’t know what an “RSS feed” is. Many of our readers are already using the service—at this writing, more than 1200 of them access the site’s content this way.

What is an RSS feed? “RSS” stands for “really simple syndication” or maybe “rich site summary” (depending on who you ask). An RSS reader is a service that will automatically download content from websites of your choosing. Rather than spending time each day checking in at each of the websites you regularly read, your reader will download all the new content …

5/16/89: To Serve The People, Philip J. Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The term “democracy” was gaining a certain purchase on the popular imagination, though it was not without its slippery side. Given the predictable confusion about what the students were really up to, given the abstraction and ambiguity inherent in political term minzhu, particularly within the confines of a communist society which fancied itself to be democratic in a roundabout sort of way, “democracy” meant very different things to different people. It had such a bafflingly wide range of meaning, it was so easily co-opted and distorted, that one could better appreciate the efficacy of a banal but concrete cry.

Thus …