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Amir OsterweilLynn my understanding of genocide means that it is deliberate and targeted against the specific group of people. as far as I know the deaths under Mao happened during the great leap forward which can be attributed to mismanagement. So I think that I might be problematic to lump it in with the term genocide. What do you think?
Amir Osterweil
Amir OsterweilAmir OsterweilLink to short video on Christianity in China. I once heard on NPR that Christian missionaries are outlawed in China, is this true?
Amir OsterweilWhat caused the Sino-Soviet Split?
I remember as a child in the 80's most of my toys being made in Taiwan. When/why did manufacturing switch over to China?
Deng Xiaoping's policies remind me of Lenin's NEP, allowing small scale capitalism among farmers.
Amir OsterweilI do not want to be cynical but the first thing that popps into my head while looking at these statistics is can they be trusted? Isn't the China People's Daily an arm of the communist government? It would have a big motive for helping China look good to attract more investment. What is the significance of the areas with concetrated animal rearing?
Amir OsterweilHi I've been teaching world history for 6 years aim to focus a lot on Asia. I teach at Palisades Charter High School in Southern California. I've traveled all over Asia and am looking forward to learning more about China!
Amir OsterweilI also emailed you a more complete version. I could not upload all the files to this forum due to size restrictions.
Amir OsterweilI found this course useful in furthering my understanding of East Asian history. I especially enjoyed the level of detail given throughout the lectures. Many of the events we studied, I had known about but superficially. The course gave me more insight into events such as the Great Leap Forward. Prior to the course I had only read a simple summary of what had occurred in my textbook. However, I can now better explain how the famine occurred. I found the primary source readings very helpful in illustrating what transpired. For example, I would give my students the excerpt from the Peasants of Hunan to better illustrate Mao’s communist ideology. In addition analyzing readings such as the Ding Ling Land Reform can help students learn about the Chinese interpretation of Marxist values. I always emphasize to my students every year that Adam Smith and Marx are two of the most influential men in modern history. This reading helps me prove that point further. I would combine some of the readings from Korea and China in regards women with other Western Primary sources such as Wollstonecraft. I am planning on using these documents in a DBQ about the changing status of women in modern times.
I also came across films and media that I might have not known about through the course such as YMCA Baseball, a light-hearted look at the Japanese occupation of Korea. I would use clips form this movie to emphasize the Confucian family structure in Korea and how it began to be challenged by outside influence. While I am familiar with Chinese propaganda from the Cultural Revolution I was not aware of terms such as the “Holy Trinity” of worker, soldier, and peasants. The card activity was a great way to teach this to my students. In sum, I found the exposure to readings and primary sources most helpful for my practice as a world history teacher.
Amir OsterweilHi Clay, will the China powerpoint be made available? I esepcially liked the slide on industrial production of China and the rest of the world in 19th Century. I had ideas on how to present it to my class. I would love to show it to exemplify the connection between industrialization and imperialism. I think the graph helps explain why certain countries i.e. England felt the need to colonize other parts of the world to gain raw materials and feed their growing markets.
Amir OsterweilThis is an interesting reading. I used a an excerpt from it last year with my world history class. Here Mao establishes that peasants are a driving force behind the revolution. He compares peasants to the a tornado or tempest which can overthrow the ruliing class. I use this to compare to Marx and Lenin's view of Communism which advocates that the revolution must be generated from the proletariat or working class. Here Mao claims that power can come from the peasants. I point out to students that Mao changed the emphasis from a prolatiatriat to the peasant class to beter suit his needs. I also found in interesting after having read this longer version that Mao tied his movement back to Sun Yatsen, and claims that the latter also wanted to overthrow the fuedal order which would tie back to the people's livlihood principal.
Amir OsterweilI had known about the Great Leap foward in only very basic details. I had not idea that it was this bad as outlined in the article. The article mentions acts of canabalism, last surviving members of a village going insane, and yet people were still beaten for trying to tell the truch about grain output. This was China's attempt at a 5 year plan, and it failed miserably. It is not wonder that Jiheng's book must be smiggled into China through Hong Kong. Much like the Cultural Revolution and Tianeman Square, the party would like to erase this evnet from history.
Amir OsterweilIf you can get a hold of the this film, it opens with a disussion of Western Democracy in China I'm not sure if the character is Sun Yutsen, or one of his followers I saw the film over a year ago. It is a long martial arts movie about a plot to assassinate Sun. The opening clip might be useful to you.
Amir OsterweilI was not surprised at all by this article about China's historical amnesia regarding the cultural revolution. The Party still holds Mao in hi regard and in order to, the disasterous period in Chinese history must be overlooked. The first time I became aware of this selective amnesia was when I was working in Korea. The Chinese teacher, there told me she had never even heard about the Tianamen Massacre until she traveled outside of China. As Mitchell suggests, perhaps the party is so strong in China that people are willing to overlook personal past gievences in favor of the "greater good", putting party interests before thier own. In the case of Xi Jinping, the party's interests are his own, as pointed out in the article by a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies Univeristy “Xi is building a personality cult for himself"
Amir OsterweilThis story is a good example of retribution on behalf of the peasants against the "greedy and evil" landlords. In this excerpt Jiang, a landlord is forced to give up his possessions as retribution for the exploitation of peasants in the village. The story is follows Marxists principals in that the peasants are going to "settle accounts" with what is owed them. It is evident in the story that Jiang's lavish lifestyle is born from the the rent he has charged his tenants. Most of the characters in the story are poor peasants who worked as tenant farmers. They exchange stories of hardships forced upon them by Jiang, who had the authority to confiscate their property if they did not make rent on time. It is not enough that Jiang give up the land titles, he must surrender his property as well.
