Session 6 - August 7, Brian Bernards, USC

[Nelson Ta]

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I never really thought or considered that Chinese science fiction was out there. I grew up watching many Chinese shows and most of them dealt with a mixture of the fantastic and the ancient. This may be due to the preferences of my parents. Most films were cheaper versions of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Every once in a while, I would see movies such as Infernal Affairs which focused on reality and drama, but I never saw science fiction.  I think introducing texts like Folding Beijing would help demystify Asia to students and sho the commonality in imagination and art.  Folding Beijing is such an interesting story and is similar to science fiction we would read here. 

[Nelson Ta]

I was very fascinated with the themes presented by Folding Beijing because the explanation provided by Professor Bernards seem to insinuate the differences in class.  It somewhat seemed critical of the system to me and I wonder if the Chinese government cares about themes that challenge their principles. Considering that the country cracks down on Google and social media sites, it would be interesting to see if they would censor a science fiction piece that was an allegory or analogy of the tyranny of the government. What if an author wrote about the protests in Hong Kong but instead of Hong Kong, it was placed on Mars. 

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