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clay dubeA novelist before she married, Alicia Bewicke married an English merchant who had already lived and worked in China for 25 years. She went to China as Mrs. Archibald Little in 1887. By 1906, she'd become incredibly knowledgeable about domestic lives of Chinese. She was the best known writer in English on China and she'd played an important role in the campaign against footbinding.
This reading is from
Croll, Elisabeth. "An Intimate View of Chinese Women: 'The Chinese Goddess of Mercy' and against Footbinding, Mrs Archibald Little," Wise Daughters from Foreign Lands: European Women Writers in China. London: Pandora, 1989.
clay dubePearl Buck was one of the most influential writers on China for a couple of decades. Her novel, The Good Earth, brought her fame, fortune, and prizes. She went as an infant to China in 1892. She was first published in 1899! The Kentucky Christian Observer published a letter she wrote:
Dr. Mr. Combers,
I am a little girl six years old. I live in China. I have a big brother in college who is coming to China to help our father tell the Chinese about Jesus. I have two little brothers in heaven.... I wrote this all by myself and my hand is tired so good-bye.
The Good Earth was a bestseller and was made into an Academy Award winning film.
Click here to listen to a six minute Fresh Air segment on a biography Hilary Spurling published in 2010 about Pearl Buck.
The trailer for the film can be watched for free on YouTube (it's $2.99 to watch the film). The dvd is available from Netflix. Several clips from the film are available on YouTube.
An essay by Charles Hayford entitled "What's So Bad about The Good Earth?" is attached. It's from Education about Asia, 3.3 (Winter 1998). EAA back issues are now available online for free from the Association of Asian Studies.
Paperback copies of The Good Earth are readily available, but get the edition that includes an introduction by Peter Conn. Conn later published a full biography of Buck, but his introduction to Buck's most famous novel (she published more than 50 books) provides an excellent outline of her life.
edited by Clay Dube on 10/24/2014
clay dubeOne of the first autobiographies from China to make a big splash was Son of the Revolution by Liang Heng and his wife Judith Shapiro. It was published in 1983. In 1990, a television movie, Forbidden Nights, which was based on the book, was broadcast. Melissa Gilbert (of Little House on the Prairie fame) played English teacher Shapiro and Robin Shou, a martial arts film star, played Liang Heng.
I've attached a reading guide from the University of Indiana for the book. The web source is here.
Judith Shapiro and Liang Heng eventually went their separate ways. She's become a prominent scholar on China's environmental problems. Click here for more on Shapiro.
clay dubeMark Salzman was among the first Americans to live in China after the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. He wrote a memoir of the experience, Iron and Silk, and later co-wrote and starred in a film based on the book. The film emphasizes Salzman's study of martial arts. Salzman lives in Southern California.
You can see the entire film on YouTube.
clay dubeHan Han is a wunderkind. Handsome, fantastically successful as a novelist, hugely popular as a blogger, he's now made a feature film. Attached is a 2011 profile of Han Han by The New Yorker's Evan Osnos.
His film The Continent was released in July 2014. Here's a review from The Hollywood Reporter.
clay dubeWe'll distribute hard copies of this short handout. It includes propaganda directives issued by the post-Mao government and a portion of the 1981 party decision on Mao and his era. The are from Barme, Shades of Mao, 1996.
A full English version of the "Resolution on Certain Questions" is also attached. It is available on the web at: https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/cpc/history/01.htm.
clay dubeHer biography/memoir of her grandmother, mother, and herself was a giant success. Wild Swans sold over 10 million copies. So Jung Chang had the money and time to take on a big topic. Together with her Russian historian husband Jon Halliday, they utilized new resources from Soviet archives and interviews to produce another bestseller, Mao: The Unknown Story (Anchor Books, 2005).
Attached is a chapter looking at the famed Long March. It was on this famous retreat that Mao supposedly became the dominant party leader.
Here's a 13 minute CBS report from 2007 that features Chang/Halliday:
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-real-mao-tse-tung/
Chang's biography is quite controversial, so controversial in fact that another book was published to discuss its claims:
Benton, Gregor and Lin, Chun, eds. (2009) Was Mao really a monster?: the academic response to Chang and Halliday’s "Mao: the unknown story". Routledge, 2009.
I've attached a New York Times review of the Chang/Halliday book and an academic review of the Benton/Lin volume. That review is from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/books/21book.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
A few videos of Jung Chang talking about her book on Mao are available on YouTube. Here's a short one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCC1EtKmPPU
edited by Clay Dube on 10/24/2014
clay dubeLi Zhisui was Mao's doctor from 1954 until the Chairman's death in 1976. His book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, was an immediate sensation. Li appeared on 60 Minutes and his book was widely read. Attached is a short chapter dealing with the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
I've also attached a review of the book by Richard Bernstein, who had been Time magazine's bureau chief in Beijing before he moved to the New York Times. The review is available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/02/world/the-tyrant-mao-as-told-by-his-doctor.html
USC's own John Wills also reviewed the book. His Foreign Affairs assessment is at:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50563/john-e-wills-jr/the-emperor-has-no-clothes-mao-s-doctor-reveals-the-naked-truth
Here's a History Channel documentary that focuses on Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Orville Schell, James Lilley, Annchee Min and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuY-2ZotlSU
clay dubeEdgar Snow was a reporter from Missouri anxious to get to China's "red areas," the communist controlled areas. He knew that publishers and readers would be interested in reports about the communists. He finally managed to do this in 1936. He turned the opportunity into Red Star Over China, one of the most influential books in English on China in the 1930s. The book included stories about the Long March and Mao Zedong talking about his own life. It became a best seller.
I've attached a selection from John Maxwell Hamilton's biography of Snow. It tells of his efforts to get to the red areas and the work he did there. I've also attached a review of the book from Feb. 1938. William Arthur Deacon described it as a "superb piece of reporting" and lauded its biographies and more. A photo of Mao is included along with the caption that he got paid $5, had just two uniforms, and "his life is a thriller."
Some interesting video resources are available. The "China Watching" segment of our Assignment: China series includes Hamilton talking about Snow and Snow interviewing Zhou Enlai: http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=3043 (also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ssHLYRiDI )
In 2012, the Kansas City Public Library staged an interview with Edgar Snow, portrayed by an actor. He gets to China at about the 10 minute mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTGFL2MEqo
Chinese Central Television produced a two part documentary on Snow. At the three minute mark of part 1, the impact of Red Star is stressed.
part 1: http://english.cntv.cn/program/documentary/20140216/104223.shtml
part 2: http://english.cntv.cn/program/documentary/20131221/102266.shtml
Finally - to show the odd status of Snow's work and the difficulty the Chinese state has in dealing with how to talk about Mao, in 1986, when the Party had formally ruled that Mao wasn't perfect, the state press issued Mao Zedong: Biography, Assessment, Reminiscences. There's actually not much assessment here. None of the selections date from after 1949. And who opens the biography section? An edited version of Snow's biography of Mao from Red Star Over China. Why do you think it might have been included? A portion of that selection is attached.
edited by Clay Dube on 10/25/2014
AnonymousIt’s interesting how when you begin reading the Itabashi’s journal you can quickly suspend the knowledge that the is the “enemy” and just go with his narrative. While he doesn’t provide too much detail on the day to day activities, real feelings, or mundane activities, he does give detailed accounts on team members and military activities. In one section he talks about sinking two heavy cruisers and other assorted ships. This was well into his diary, and it was there that I finally remembered that the ships sunk were American and they had their own journals, feelings, and people waiting for them in the States, possibly even here in Los Angeles. I didn’t have anger towards the Japanese, but I found the different perceptive of looking at the war from the other side intriguing. Interesting that what I find interesting about Itabashi’s final letter is not that “Japan definitely will win!,” but to use his left over money to “construct a plane.”
Hisako’s journal is rather philosophical talking about the bombs as “falling wind chimes,” the unimpressed sun shining for thousands of years while mankind fights itself, or even the look of the planes.
Mihoko’s journal is interesting because of the lack of war. While she does mention singing war songs, and those comings and goings, it it primarily an interesting day to day record of her school life. I find it comforting.
If I were to use these diaries in my 4th grade class, I can see using this piece as a contrast to their own life as a student. This would be my introductory journal for the class since it is one that that they have the most connection to. The war one is fascinating and will be too for the students to hear about attacks, and war. I can see that as we read this second journal, I could project maps, images of locations, and aircraft/ships of that period to make the discussions and readings more dynamic. The philosophical journal of the second author might be a bit too high for elementary, but I would have found it interesting in high school.
clay dubeOn the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the government's crackdown, the journals of Zhao Ziyang, which had been smuggled out on cassette tapes, were published. Zhao had been premier of China from 1980 to 1987. When student demonstrations caused Deng Xiaoping and other party elders to remove Hu Yaobang as the Communist Party's general secretary, Zhao was put in his place. The selection I've attached includes two short chapters where Zhao discusses the way he was removed from office following the hardliners crackdown in Beijing.
Here is a NY Times story about the book: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15zhao.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The Times website includes audio clips from the cassettes that were smuggled out. In the first, Zhao talks about the crackdown. The Times has provided a transcription.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15zhao-transcript.html
Our Assignment: China segment on the media coverage of the demonstrations and crackdown is here:
USCI website: http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=3366
YouTube (high definition):
clay dubeEmily Honig and Gail Hershatter are two of the top contemporary historians of China. Hershatter has also served as president of the Association for Asian Studies and recently published a book on women in the 1950s. Here are two selections, the first noting the state efforts to help young Chinese pair up and how the young started putting up personal ads. The second selection (from p. 122 forward) includes stories from women about their courtship experiences and advice to men and women on selecting a spouse. There are some men in the mix. Xie Xue from Hunan, for example, writes, "Fellow countrymen, when you pick a partner, don't forget -- a woman who has her own goals is preferable."
clay dubeXinran travels around China and listens carefully. Her vignettes are quite illuminating. In addition to the book excerpted here, she's the author of The Good Woman of China, another excellent read.
Here Xinran is in the poor mountainous province of Guizhou. She shares the story of Yao Popo, Granny Yao, a Chinese traditional medicine specialist. Yao is 79 and has had one challenge after another. For her the Cultural Revolution was a good thing - people needed her knowledge. She managed to raise seven children in a tiny room. Read to the last page to find out what two blessings she's thankful for.
clay dubeChiang Kai-shek was a dominant figure in China for two decades, until driven from the mainland in 1949. He died in 1975. For most of the post-1949 period, Chiang has been depicted as the leader of a corrupt, ineffective regime that failed to defend China from the predations of the Japanese. In recent years, however, Chiang's been elevated on the mainland. He's still seen as the leader of the reactionary Nationalists (Kuomintang), but he's now being depicted as a patriot.
Here's an Associated Press article by Louise Watt about Chiang's new image.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/08/18/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/mao-enemy-chiang-kai-shek-gets-new-life-in-chinas-mainstream-culture/#.VEtmYcncZsc
Because Japan is now being reviled, Chiang's efforts against the Japanese during the Pacific War are being celebrated.
Jay Taylor's mammoth biography of Chiang, published in 2011 is well-thought of.
Here's footage of Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, speaking after a 1965 meeting with US President Lyndon Johnson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nhuLrS4F_M
Chiang's wife is the subject of two substantial biographies: Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady and Pakula, The Last Empress Wesleyan College, where the Soong sisters studied, has a webpage about them: http://www.wesleyancollege.edu/about/soongsisters.cfm
AnonymousDuring lunch I remarked to Professor Wathalle how the Japanese language translated so well into English. We discussed how you could get a sense of the people's character, but also how the adjectives and verbs were easily translated into English. She gave credit to Professor Yamashita's ability to translate the diaries so well because the Japanese language is very complex, difficult to learn, and the verbs are at the end. Yoshizawa Hisako's diary could be used to teach figurative language. There are some entries that imagery and similes.