session #11 10/23 (dube) china after the cultural revolution

[Lin ZhaoDavison]

I'm impressed by the early American entrepreuneurs venturing their pioneering businesses in China.  Kodak and Quaker Oats were two of them, entering the Chinese market in 1920's.  They not only made money but enriched Chinese people's lives and promoted cultural exchange.  They set good examples for the other Western entrepreurs to follow their footsteps.  Today businesses from the  Western countries are everywhere in China. Both Chinese people and Western people benefit from the globalized businesses.

[Nira Sun]

I agree that it is indeed interesting to see how both countries would name the same war with different names.

From Chinese people's perspective, they didn't start the war. They were fighting the Japanese soldiers because they intruded the country and created 8 years of chaos. Anti-Japanese was named from a defending position where Chinese people were fighting against the bully from Japan.

From Japanese people's perspective, they were fighting for expanding "territory" in the Pacific area. The intention of them starting the war was to strengthen their control over Asia.

 

[Nira Sun]

Interesting about the name that was given by the Chinese government to this Great Femine was "Three Years of Natural Disaster". Ironically, there was no natural disaster happened during those three years at all. The controversial idea about this Great Femine was that it was caused by human instead of nature.

I agree that it was a great idea to have students to discuss this classical government coverup and relate to the issues that happened here in the U.S. or other countries.

[Nira Sun]

Now I wonder whether I should share this part of the history with my Mandarin students. They probably would complain why they have to write the traditional Chinese characters when most of Chinese people were given the simplified version so that they could become literated.

I found it easier to teach the traditional charaters. As most of us knew, Chinese character are pictographic which means they were originated from the actual objects. It is indeed a lot easier for my students to associate the characters with the meaning of them. That is what we have been doing in my class. Students are now "trained" with such visual imagination to the point that they would come up the ideas of memorizing the Chinese characters.

(A little background on my students. 100% Hispanic students with no access or knowledge of Chinese language. They only have one hour with me each day to learn and practice the language. The only practice that they actually do outside the class time is that some of them would teach their little siblings Chinese and help them to build the interest in the language and culture.)

[Nira Sun]

There is a popular slogan in China which is "Never lose at the starting point". The "starting point" here represents young age of children. Such perspective is quite popular and widely worshipped among the Asian community here in the U.S. as well. Even though the classes that the children are taking at young age seem to be too ridiculous to us, it is quite normal if the children or their parents want them to master more skills as early as possible.

Due to the "fatal" nature of exams, a lot of children were unable to go to the schools they want to if their scores don't meet the lowest requriement. Back then, people have an idea of what kind of students you are based on what school you go to. However, nowadays, the lottery system decides what school a student goes to instead of scores. With that said, there is no more "good school" or "low performance school" anymore. What I heard from my friends in China was that some teachers who worked at the used-to-be "good schools" don't even know how to teach anymore due to the huge gaps between performances among enrolled students.

Even though the change of the students selection system, the perspective of being competitive and mastering more skills still deeply rooted in Chinese people's mind. I was "lucky" that neither of my parent were like that back then. The only extra programs that I went to when I was little was to strengthen my English proficiency which I still appreciated till this day.

[Chris Hertzog]

I have always been fascinated with the Great Leap.  That article is powerful.  How all this plays out with the Red Guard and this extreme attempt to get into the 20th century has always seemed to impress my classes as well.  Very rich amount of materials to get into with this topic that grabs interests of high schoolers.  It is a terrible time and shocking as to what happens, it is amazing that while the 'Leap' is a disaster, they still do leap forward, or at least do industrialize and do gain technology and within 30 years they do bring about radical change.  They do end up modernizing, but could they have done all of this without so much suffering and so much pain, including cannabalism, canabalism of the whole countryside and people?  The crazy part of history is that they do make it happen, with massive human suffering, was this part of it?   Did that suffering make the success of China, at least in part, possible?  Perhaps not, maybe they would be even more successful than they are now.  It always impresses me though that that much progress could happen with that much destruction.

 

[Jane Shen]

Evelyn, I don't know what grade are you teaching, but since you were taliking about doing the research of the behind the design of the national flag, I want to share one of the lesson that I gave to elementary students. Compare and contrast the national flag between Chinese and American's.

The students were actively engaged, they figured both flags used red color, Chinese represents that the country was build on sacrifice blood, while Americans signifies  hardiness & valour.

Both flags has stars. then I had the students compare the sizes and scaffold for what it signifies.

We ended up making the 2 national flags with construction paper and later on I used the American flas as the point charts to put the star sticker on top of each star. Students were eager to collect 50 star stickers.

[Jane Shen]

I was amazed to find out that most of my students know Bruce lee, and even watched more than one movie casted by Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee died almost 30 years before the birth of my students, however, his martial art movie can still attract them.

Even though after Bruce Lee, there are some other Chinese martial arts big names such as Jackie Chan, Jet Lee, but personnaly I think the ladders befefits from what Bruce Lee had been working so hard to gain.

[Chris Hertzog]

Good point Rick.  I wonder how long it will be that google or some research or search source will be questioned, seriously questioned by current leadership, more than just slammed or called 'fake'.  There is no google China, but how do we have much of the same going on now.  I have been discussing this with students in class, especially when you have examples like Deng's speech or other historical figures who say and do things that we in the States say we would never do.  That is what we say and yet here we have an elected leader who may not be blocking or purposely preventing information being presented, but you do have a leader that like you state, says whatever however ridiculous or not credible, blames who ever, sets up straw man arguments, furthers conspiracy concepts and because it is a free country with freedom of expression this is appearently acceptable.  Are we that far off?  Propaganda is reinvented again it seems.

 

[Sonia Arrayales]

The article by Tania Branigan, "China's Great Famine: The True Story", she highlights the author Yang Jisheng's book Tombstone. In the article she discusses how the author did extensive research to bring to light the great tragedy that happened in the Henan province when the redistribution of land was enacted. To read the accounts that he documented are very gruesome and hard to believe that such things could happen. The author himself could not believe that such things occurred and talks about how it effected him emotionally. Upon reading the article, I believe that the author of Tombstone felt the need to bring to light what really happened and not have this incident in the shadows.

[Rick Steil]

I watched the movie Flowers of War and was suprised how it stayed true to all of the Hollywood stereo types. It had the American hero, his love interest, good, evil and all of the special effects we have come to expect out of a mainstream movie. I believe I have a great lesson plan for my photography class using my website I wrote about. Students will research an Asian photographer, compare him to a western photographer from the same time period and then attempt to create images using their photographic techniques. this is my last post and good luck everyone with your school year.

[Jacqueline Mercado]

 As I read Gilded Age and viewed Lenora Chu's presentation of the educational system in China, I was impressed by the difference in values between the Chinese educational system and that in the US.  That is, while in the US we acknowledge talent, the Chinese educational system stresses effort and the development of resiliency and toughness.  Student are asked to work harder and harder and so are encouraged to develop grit as they are pushed to master more and more skills.  It was interesting for me as an educator to see this cultural difference between the Chinese and US.  It appears that while reforms are on the horizon, the educational system in China fosters competitiveness and the stakes for students is high because it is an exam based system and where you go to school and if you get to go school, determines your future prospects and status.   To your point, the Chinese emphasis on competiveness and mastering of skills is still deeply rooted in its educational system.

[Michelle Levy]

Today in class, although it was Halloween, I also asked my students if they knew who Bruce Lee was. Only one student did, and he called him, “that Karate guy.” I know my students are young, but I was also surprised that they didn’t know who he was. It’s funny that you had the opposite result, but the same reaction. Looks like I’m going to show a movie clip of Bruce Lee soon!

[Michelle Levy]

Now that you mentioned it has all the typical “Hollywood” elements, I could even integrate this into a writing, or speaking and listening standard. The lesson would be similar to your photography class, but it pull break apart the elements of Flowers of War, and then have students interpret the story in their own way using the same characters, and similar plot. Thank you for the idea, and good luck to you as well!

[Jacqueline Mercado]

During the lecture, Professor Dube discussed the hukou system and how this household registration system shapes the lives of the Chinese people and how it is tied to the education system.  I did not realize the actual ramifications of this system until I watched a report on PBS telling of the plight of many ethnic minorities in rural areas in China.   Since China ended the one child policy in 2015, a lot of these families have been having more than one child and now find themselves in a difficult situation because of the hukou system, which  ties these children to the place of their birth, where they are allowed to get free education and health care, but offers very little opportunities by way of jobs.  Because of China's economic boom, many manufacturing jobs are opening in cities and so the parents have no choice but to migrate to these cities for these jobs, which pay very little, but is their only option.  Their plight is in the fact that while they have to move, the children are bound to the rural areas where they were born because of the household registration system, which grants them a free education and healthcare in the place of their birth.   It is sad that the family unit is broken as the parents move to the cities and their children are left behind in their poor condition in the countryside.  It was touching to hear the parents' and children's perspectives as their family is separated and the children left home alone with grandparents who cannot really care for them properly.  This surely will have dire consequences on the children's adult lives.   It was equally  touching to see how the parents, though illiterate and poor, and despite many obstacles, still hold high aspirations for their children's future. This brought to mind how the plight of these families is similar to many migrant families, who despite hardship, displacement and fragmentation of the family unit, hold hope for a brighter future for their children.   So it seems that despite Xi Jinping's rethoric of a China focused on common prosperity, where no one is left behind, the plight of these families speaks to a different reality.

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