General Discussion Forum for the Class

[Anonymous]

This book does sound very intereting. I am sure he also encountered all kinds of people including non-Han Chinese or what the Chinese government calls ethnic minorities. Did he highlite any of these groups. I definetly would like to know more about other non-Han groups in China and their history and culture, I don't think we discussed them them to much.

[Anonymous]

An interestring site that can be useul when teaching about asia and art is Asia-Art.net. This website is well organized and provides easy access to art from various parts of Asia. It is very detailed concerning the different types of art from each country and provides lots of art galleries for each countries art. It laso has detailed histories of art in those particular countries. This site is:

http://www.asia-art.net/

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the link to the Asia Art web site. The collection of images there really is quite impressive. These images would are a great resouce to any unit on east Asia. I particullaryly liked the link page to different museums. I know my students would be amazed by the images they'd see there.

I think it would also be good to compare some of the asthetics present from the examples on the page with examples of Asian influenced work of the Craftsman movement. If one has ever entered the green & greene's Gamble house, they would know what I am taliking about. Throughout the home there is an abundance of asian influecd wood work, prints, and patterns. Even to the casual observer, there is no doubt the Greene brothers' taste was developed through the study of asian visual culture.

Having students do an internet quest and to identfy and discuss some of the motifs present in clasical Asian art and the neo-Asian /Orientalist influence in the Greene and Greene's Gamble house or other of thier projects.

[Anonymous]

No we didn't discuss those "marginalized people" and no he did not mention if he ran into non Han people. But I would imagine he would have had to going along such a diverse road. He said the road could be compared to our own route 66 and that road has a very complex and diverse history so I could imagine it would be the same in China.

I found the Islam talk I went to helped with learning about those ethnic minorities, maybe look into that diverse group in China if you are interested in extra studying.

[clay dube]

Lisa mentioned Rob Gifford's China Road. If you are interested in seeing the interview, you can at:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=90433&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_comedian=none&ml_context=show

The NPR correspondent will be speaking at the USC U.S.-China Institute in October. Please sign up for our newsletter at http://china.usc.edu to make sure that you get advance word. Gifford did stellar work in China and has written a great book.

[Anonymous]

$8 dollars an hour to pet cats? Wow. Come to think of it, if I were to associate any animal with Japan, it would have been a cat--not macaws, or beetles, but cats. I have one of those ceramic cats on my desk at school. There's also a Studio Ghibili movie, The Cats Return, that's based on a cat kingdom. It's pretty cool.

[Anonymous]

I heard an interesting talk tonight from Professor Jean Oi about thel transitions from state operating enterprises to private enterprises. Oi seemed hopeful about the transitions and seemed amazed how the Chinese Communist Party could preside over such change to a market driven system. She explained that workers continue to gain favor with the political factions since they hold sway over the precariousness of holding power. Perhaps this is true but there has much been written about these less than smooth transitions and the loss of lifetime employment. It is unfortunate the workers do not have viable labor unions and other intermediary institutions to mediate these transitions. As the market system gains more and more momentum I fear the workers will become less of a subject of her existence and more an object to be packaged and commodified. This has already happened with the state enterprises, and will only be replicated among the private arena.

[Author]

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