Session 6 - Clay Dube, 10/13 afternoon

[Lin Kuang]

Hi Ingrid, I love your reading about Chinese cuisine. I'd like to inroduce four major Chinese cuisines here, Sichuan food, Beijing Cuisine, Yue Dishes ( Cantonese Food), and Lu Dishes ( Shangdong) represented four different local flavors in China. Sichuan Food is famous for its rich color, spicy flavor, and its fantastic tastes. ( Chongqing Hotpot, double-cooked pork, Sichuan Doufu. You can taste these kind of food in Meizhou DongPo Restuarant in Central City, Universal City Walk, and Arcadia). Berjig Dishes are fmouse its art deccor used to serve in the anciant chinese courts, famous dishes include Bejing Crispy Duck, variety of soupd, etc. Cantanese food is the very popular in USA becasue the first Chinese who arrived here during Gold Rush were from Fujian, and Guangdong, so they brought in cantonese food. Majority of the Seafood restuarant here in USA are cantanese food. By the way, if you have free time to taste of China, please let me know, I'd like to guide you to the authentic Chinese food.

[Mario Galindo]

One topic I feel I left out from my overall posts (as I review what I have written) was the visual image. This entry and the image you uploaded from the Joker card Mao forced me to remember that within the Cultural Revolution and many of the other historical eras and events of this course, the visual image has been a big part.

As you mention in your post, the saturation of red in this particular image adds meaning, context, and persuasion subtly. Many times the constant, constant visual "subtltie" is just as persuasive as dogmatic speeches. When your mind stops listening your eye keeps adding meaning. The stark red on pristine white in your case. Without the visual image of history something is lost.

This lost history has a memory, though. In our contemporary Los Angeles, at a public school defined by another historical image, this is playing out as I write this. The image is a black and white journalistic view of Robert Kennedy bleeding on the floor of the, then, Ambassador Hotel on Wlishire Boulevard, now, the RFK Learning Complex.

On that school campus a mural with sun rays in the background has flared the Korean community because, they say, the visual image is too much like the Rising Sun flag of imperialist Japan, an image that most history buffs can bring-up from our subtle subconscious instantly (much like the Maoist propaganda). The Korean community wants the mural white washed.

Another visual image comes into play. A second mural on the same campus, this one of Robert Kennedy and by a much more famous artist, Shepard Fairy, again shows the power of history and the visual image. As leverage, Mr. Fairy (no stranger to propaganda and the visual image's impact on humanity) has threatened to white wash his Robert Kennedy mural in support of the expression of the other mural. Sun rays are not exclusive to the Rising Sun flag, he argues. Sun rays as an artistic motif has existed long before. More so, the mural's rays are not even in the same color scheme.

So, subtle or not, history and the memory of history, along with the visual memory of those images continues. Is it still propaganda long after the world has moved on?

[Sophia Kang]

This topic of aging population and housing reminded me of the housing problem in Japan. The decreasing population is leading to an increased number of vacant houses. Since the younger generation is flocking to Tokyo, there are even less people occupying the rural areas, which could have an effect on their agricultural produce as well. As a result, many houses are being given away for free! See the article below: 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/05/asia/japan-vacant-akiya-ghost-homes/index.html

[Lindsay Reiss]

China's aging population interests me. In the U.S. we also have a lot of aging people. Because of this, there are jobs in gerontological fields. Many people are still not interested in these jobs and it makes me wonder what will happen in the future.

[Kim Leng]

In “Chinese Badges before the Cultural Revolution,” I found the “Terminology of Chinese badges” section fascinating.  “The Chinese term 像章 xiangzhang is used consistently to refer to badges. The first character, xiang, means ‘likeness’ or ‘portrait’. The original meaning of zhang is ‘pattern’, and in classical literature, zhang is also used as a verb meaning ‘to mark’ or ‘to signify.” I did not know that there were so many specific terms for badges or that there were so many functions associated with badges.  There are badges to signify an award.  There are badges to signify membership to a party. There are badges to show one’s identification. 

As I’m reading this section, I am reminded that the communist party keeps data on people.  These badges remind me of a quick visual data scan.  I can imagine that some badges are not easily earned and those in possession of a specific type of badge shows a sign of status. I think knowing the symbolism of a badge can help people quickly identify a person's status.

[Reynaldo Mangabat]

I like your comparative analysis of the Chinese and American propaganda and I'd like for my students to understand the value of propaganda in the in advancing the agenda of the governement. To me more than the pictures and ads, the most effective propaganda machinery is the ducational system. Even our concept of competetion and rewards is propagated by our educational principles of rewarding the achievers and making the mediocre ad below to relearn and learn more in order to succeed in life even after education. We also succeeded in exporting this educational system around the world especially the former colonies of the United States. This allowed those countries to effectively assimilate the same principles in the propaganda.

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