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Jane ShenEvelyn, 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 ShenChiristine, thank you for posting this film review. “花样年华” the Chinese name of the movie, is one of my favorite movies. The director Wong Jia Wei is a great story teller. The leading characters found out that the their spouses are having an affair, they gradually fell in love by sharing the same guilty feeling for the attraction, the conflict between persuing love or stop the affair to be distinguished with their spouses.
It stays in my mind that the leading actress gave birth to the leading actor's child and raised her secretly while the man talked to the tree holes and burried his secret.
Qipao is another pleasure to enjoy in this movie, expecially wihen Maggie Chung , the actress walk alongwith the music.
The screan of the movie is a little dark as Wong's other movie which I wish it could be more brighter.
Jane ShenHi Evelyn, I liked how you described the need to simplify the Chinese characters for the sake of their own citizens. Yes, it was true that in old China, only the rich or the nobles were literatured. The mojority people were literaturally blind. When Mao announced the foundation of the New China, there were more than 80% of the Chinese are literatullly blind. They could not even write their own name. So as you said, Chinese characters has been an obstacle for the Chinese government to communicate.
So after 3 years of the new nation was founded, Mao ordered to simplified the Characters, and also made the Pinyin. So with several years of education, one can write a letter with the help of a dictionary.
As a Mandarin teacher, I appreciate the reform of the Chinese literacy since it also made it a lot easier to teach non-Chinese speakers to learn Chinese as a foreign language.
Jane ShenMy parents also experienced the Cultural Revolution in China. My parents both graduated from college and were assigned to a research government company. I was born during the movement of scholars transformation.My mom was pulled out from her research work and sent to a nursey to baby sit the heritage of the revolutionaries. My father was also pulled out from his archetecture designin position and was sent to the most needed part in a factory to stay with the very lowest boiler workers. He had been working in the boilers workshop in the factory for 10 years before recovered back to the professor position.
In my memory, both my parents , expecially my father were having so many meetings after work. They were studying so hard Mao's red book. There were totally 4 series of Mao's work before I went to school when the 5th just published. At first grade, I need to study Mao's 5th Red book with my teachers at school and with my parents at home.
This kind of political study lasted until to the end of my first Grade when Zhou En Lai, the premier of China passed away, then Mao passed away a few months later. The whole county were mourning for the lost. And at school, the teachers were crying every day, we had a memorial hall while all the students need to show respect by bowing to Mao's photos daily. I am not sure how long was it last, but it seemed to be almost 3 months since a national mourn for a loss of King is 100 days.
Jane ShenIn today's lecture, Professor Dube showed some posters in China during 1950s propagate the independence of marriage. Here it is said " independence", not the " freedom" .
My understanding is that the couples to wed are independent from their two related family elders. They could decide who to marry . However, they need to register at the government bureau. Which means, they could release from the parents pressure but still need the government approval.
Jane ShenThe two persons in the cards, one is a postwoman who are delivering the government periodic newspaper“人民日报”，and some flyers in the baskets attaching to her bicycle. Another one has a medical box which has a red cross is a " barefoot medical worker". During the Culture Revolution, they consider doctor to be the western influnced demon, so most of the medical workers are some high school kids who had limited medical training.
These 2 women ( I would like to say 2 girls) are very young in the cards. which tells they might be the students from rural cities moved to the country sides. They spread out the literacy, mainly the government political thoughts, and they also provide some very basic medical help.
Jane ShenAgain, the translation is not accurate here. The Chinese " 伟大的领袖毛主席万岁“ which in English is " Long live ( ten thousand years) of the Great leader, chairman Mao!". In Chinese during the emporer system, the people will greet and charish their emporer, the King " 万岁“。 So in here, you can see that Mao was worshiped during the Culture Revolution as an emperor.
Even though the last emporer-Pu yi and the emperor system was banned in China, but people still did not get rid of the tradition of worshipping their top leaders. After Mao, while Hua Guo Feng was assigned by Mao to take charge, I remembered that in China, they made the same slogoan by just changing the last name from Mao to Hua.
Jane ShenThe card that I have is a Black Club A. On top of the card, there is a poster which has in Chinese " 全世界人民团结起来， 打倒各国反动派！" and printed in English " National people unite tighter to defeat reactionary".
As a highschool mandarin teacher, I know the English print was not accurate, so I searched in google translate, it came out as "The people of the whole world are united and down the reactionaries of all countries" which sounds more accurately.
In the poster, there is a huge portrait of Mao simblize his donimate position in China during the Cultural Revolution. And three main characters holding red books-Mao's Bible represents that the people were guided by Mao's thoughts. From the clothes the three characters wearing: a worker in jumper pants, a soldier in uniform and a gun, a peasant with white towel rounded in her neck and a straw hat in the back. During the culture revolution, the Chinese considered worker, soldier, and peasants as the good citizens.
While in the national flags that I am attachin g here, there are 4 little stars surrounded a bigger star meaning the solodiers, the peasants, the workers and the scholars are surrounding the Comunity Party's leadership.
So, scholar was missing from the poster which indicate that during the Culture Revolution, the scholars are treated as bad elements, the mosters and freaks ( 牛鬼蛇神）。They are the parties that needed to be reformed, to be defeated.
The people of the whole world are united and down the reactionaries of all countries
Jane ShenIn my opinion, Puyi could be the one who lived the most dynamic life in the Chinese history.
At age 3, he was made the Empporer of Qing Dynasty, while the decision was made by the lady-Cixi behind the curtain. Later on, the emperor system was banned, he was dictated by the Japanese, then became a prisoner in the Soviet Union, in China during his late years. According to the Chinese government, he was transformed and educated to finally qualied tio be Chinese citizen. He married 5 wives however has no child left behind.
There was a movie made by Ameirican famous director Bernado Burtolucci which was casted by John Chen and John Lone has won 9 oscar awards revealed some of his story in the western viewers.however, the Chinese government who gave the permit to fild the movie in the Forvidden city but do not agree with the movie content.
Jane ShenI knew Mei Lanfang as the the most famous actor in Peking opera was known by most of the Chinese.
I was amazed to learn something new about him which is very interesting: he graduated from Pomona College, and received USC honorary doctorate in 1990. Professor Dube shpwed some photos of him with Charlie Chapline and some other American celebrities which revealed he was also influenced by American education.
Chen Kaige, a famous Chinese director had produced a movie about Mei Langanf in year 2008 which was casted by Liming and Zhang Ziyi, two of Chinese famous actors. However, besides the luxury casting and director, this movie did not succeed in China's box office. The leading actor was criticized by the Chinese reciewsers mostly.
Jane ShenFrom today's section, I learned something new which solved my longtime question about Chinese history.
I had been always puzzled why and how the Communist and the Nationalist once held hands togather and later on went throgh a 10 years Civil Was and ended up as a rival.
From Professor Dube's lecture today, I learned that Stalin, the leader after Lenin in Soviet Union the most powerful nation in the world is the key to my question held for years.
It is such a fancinating experience to look at history in different angles.
Jane ShenFrom today's reading, I found the cartoons in 1941's Central Daily News describes vividly the transitions of the world dominated power among three countries : Russia, British, and Ameica.
The Central Daily News as the personal organ of the Nanjing regime-Wang Ching-Wei were widely circulated in the International Settlement. It could be cosidered as the Chinese official view of the current political issues back then,.
The cartoon reciewed the battle to be the " world domination" between Roosevelt and fatigued Churchill, reflected the rising power of Ameican vs the eshausted British to defend their position. And on the other cartoon, it revealed that Roosevelt ( USA) had Joseph Stalin ( Russia) as his customer in a munitions shop while Churchill was departing in the distance.
In the third cartoon, we can see that Churchill ( British) and Stalin ( Russia) were aruging about which one is to attampt to halt teh Nazi Juggernaut.
These three cartoons reveals that during the early 40s, the world power transformation from British to Americ, the beginning of the corporation betwen US and Russia and the breaking up between Russia and British.
Even though China was not in the carton, but since the newspaper was distributed in China, we can tell that Chinese was sensitive at the power shift.
Jane ShenSun Yat Sen, was considered as the father of modern China. He is the only one who was respected by both the communist mainland China and the capitalist Taiwan.
I personally believe that he is over evaluated by the Chinese history due to complex reasons. His three principles of revolution which is first the priciples of Nationalism, second the Principle of Democracy, third the Principle of livelihood are famous however did not work well in Chinese history, there were few influence made to the Chinese.
He was respected by Jang Je shi, the President in Taiwan since he was the mentor for Jang. He was also respected by Mao since his wife Song Qingling, the 2nd older sister to Jang's wife, choose to stay in Beijing after the Civil war.
Besides his political fames, he is the one who took his friend's daughter out of China to Japan and later on married her who is 27 years younger. And he left her as a widow at age 32 after 10 years of marriage.
Now as a mom and a woman, I think the history had prettified his personal life under the cover of his political glorification.
Jane ShenPrfessor Kurashing's lecture in this section coverered some important historical facts which American repeats itself from the past and nowadays different types of norms of discriimination against immigrants.
In the history, US has been limits the Chinese immigrants consistantly, while with Japanese, there were ups and downs. In this section, professor Kurashing covered the discrimination US to Asians ( mainly Chinese) which even exist in nowadays expecially in some top Ivy League college admission process.
I can share this part of the history with my students who majority of them are immigrants from Lantin American. They considered that the present American presidents-Donald Trump's immigrants policy changes are targeting them, theycan resonate their experience while comparing with the Asian immigrants discrimiinated experiences.
Jane ShenWhen talking about the Korean Civil war, I really like the quote that Dr.Kim quoted from Bruce Cummings:
