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Nira SunHi Joy,
I can relate to the concern you brought up in your post. When women are taking on so many responsibilities, was it real liberty? Especially when most of the middle aged women nowadays were raised in one-child only family. I wonder if the release of second-child policy has made significant difference in child birth rate in China. Based on what I learned from my female friends in China, majority of them chose not to have the second child at all. The main reason behind it was lack of energy and attention to take care of the second child. A wife takes on so many different roles in a family while a husband sometimes just need to be a breadwinner.
Nira SunI was surprised to learn that women in Korea in pre-17th century had nearly equal social status as men. Not only did they have the right of divorce and remarriage, they also were entitled to inheritance even after getting married. That definitely beat the stereotypical image of Korean women. I was even more surprised to learn that Confucianism made women’s social status go backwards from 17th century. With no doubt, it left a huge impact in Korean women’s lifestyle. I wonder how long it took for the change of the status taking into effect.
Nira SunProf. Miyake presented rich information in 3-hour lecture. It was fascinating to learn how societies in different countries were in similar pace even though the communication among the countries were not as developed as nowadays.
One of the topics that was mentioned was androgyny in Asian countries. As described by the professor, this phenomenon wasn’t solely existing in Japan. If you are a fan of Asian dramas or pop culture, you will notice the change in men’s appearance in recent years. The trend is mainly demonstrated as male actors having smooth and clear facial skin and pink-ish thin lips. A lot of these changes were done by minor plastic surgeries. My mom used to say “Why do they look so famine and similar to each other?”. From her traditional perspective, this soft masculinity is definitely not acceptable. China definitely follows the trend as well which leads to our screens filled with young soft looking men who are around 18-20 years old.
In addition to androgynous appearance, the popularity of soft masculinity images also reflected on major traits/characteristics that are promoted in modern China society. One major trait is called “暖男” which is literally translated to “warm man”. To qualify as an ideal warm man, one must be sensitive to women’s material needs as well as willing to accommodate with women’s emotional needs. The best way to present and promote such image was through drama series which always produce the so-called “national husband” or “ideal boyfriend”. Young female audiences tend to admire the lifestyle presented in the drama in hopes of encountering similar lovers or partners in real life. I honestly don’t know how many love-themed dramas were produced each year in China. What I do know is whenever I look for interesting TV series to watch, it’s nearly impossible to avoid seeing them on streaming sites or social media.
As contrary to the growing of strong and sharp images of modern women, the masculinity of men image is decreasing. I am curious of how this trend will develop in 5 or 10 years.
Nira SunHi Diana,
I LOVE your idea of introducing Japanese culture along with the learning of Chinese. A lot of my students, all Hispanics, somehow are super interested in Japanese cartoon/manga. It'd be very fun to have students "guess" the meaning or authors of the poems from limited amount of classical Chinese characters in it. Actually I got a few students asked me about the meaning of the manga they read before. If I can integrate their interests into our classrom, I see that I'm guiding the students to find the connection between different languages and cultures. Thank you
Nira SunHi Jennifer,
I can absolutely relate to your concern of the story. Having off-springs to carry on the family blood is one of the biggest/most important filial piety in Chinese value. I think the story conveyed an encouragement on taking initiative to sacrifice and how such initiative will be rewarded in general. I guess whoever came up with this story couldn't let such cruel action happen either.
In regards to using this cartoon in a classroom, I do see your concern. Other than giving students background knowledge of it being a classical story in ancient China to provide them with the historical and social context, I would also suggest to have them compare such behavior/value with the changes in modern China. It might also be a good time to introduce the concept of "blind filial piety" as in being obedient to/serving parents without one's own judgement on right or wrong. I personally believe it's more important for students to see how values and expectation have developed and changed all along other than having our steps paused in that specific historical moment. Hopefully this will help to minimize the possible negative reaction from students. : )
Nira SunGrowing up in a traditional Chinese family, we were constantly fueled with the values of how to behave like a girl and what it means to be a woman. My parents, at least my mom, still holds the belief that marriage and having children are the only ways for women to reflect their values. As opposed to ancient Chinese society, there is no more arranged marriage in modern China. Nowadays, not only do women hold the right to choose their own partners, they also get to choose between getting married or staying single and having children or not. However, this doesn’t mean that traditional perspectives on women has disappeared. That makes reading the “Foremost Woman Scholar of China” even more interesting as we can compare with modern values to see what has been preserved and what has changed.
Ban Zhao had very specific characteristics listed in her writing to demonstrate how to behave “womanly”. She started her writing with her concerns of her own daughter not being able to be a good wife. Then she promoted four qualifications with detailed examples. Overall speaking, Ban Zhao illustrated a perfect image of a woman who ought to be gentle, be cautious of her words, be hardworking, be modest, and to be obedient. Such expectation of women is still quite popular in modern society. When men are looking for women, one of the most important traits they wish for is “温顺”. “温” as in being gentle in temper and being soft in action. “顺” means to obey or to go along with so that things are going smooth instead of causing conflict. A lot of times, wives are expected to meet such standard more by their mothers-in-law than their own husbands. The difference is that, nowadays, women in China gradually develop the traits of being independent and outspoken. Less and less women choose to live under the same roof with their parents-in-law as a way to seek for space and freedom in their marriage. Basically, not only do they have jobs with stable income, they also make effort to pursuit the happiness they deserve.
In terms of relationship with men, Ban Zhao promoted the concept of maintaining harmony and intimacy in marriage. However, it was purely women’s responsibility to achieve such balance in ancient society. If a woman controls her action and words appropriately, it will bring peace to the family. This might be one of the reasons that divorce was never an option for women back in the days. In modern China, couples see marriage maintenance as the responsibility of both parties. When the so-called harmony cannot be achieved, divorce becomes the only way out.
I personally believe the virtues promoted in this book was effective since majority of the expectations of women are still prevalent in modern society. Although there are some changes due to the influence of western values, the overall expectation on women being soft in general still exists.
Nira SunHi Everyone,
My name is Nira Sun and currently teaching Mandarin 1, 2, 3, 4 and AP Chinese at Mendez High School in downtown LA. This is my 2nd time taking the summer seminar and 4th time taking all other seminars. I'm abosulutely intersted in all the topics offered by USC-China Institute and am glad that there are always different topics to choose from.
I'm looking forward to learn with everyone in this seminar~
Nira SunYeah, internet cafes were quite popular a decade ago in China. I had my first desktop in China in 1998 when the internect access was still the dial-ups. Not only was it expensive, it was also super slow. The computer lab at our college had very limited amount of computers that we all had an hour access only. Such situation somehow pushed the development of the internet cafe where people can stay as long as they wanted to. Depends on the quality of the internet and equipments, they charged variously but usually by hour. At that time, to poor college students like us, that was pretty much the best entertainment place where we could afford to go. What attracted us the most was that we got to connect with people who never met or knew. I actually did make some friends online whom I still had contact with till this day.
Nira SunSpeaking of the second child policy, lots of my female friends in China definitely said NO to it. According to the research, 60% of career women says no to having second child. There are a few reasons to it:
Nira SunHi Katrina,
I believe that there is some sort of connection between the vast economic development and the erosion of the traditional Chinese values. Back in the days, the collectivization of agriculture and products has not motived many people to make effort at work at all. You would receive the same amount of salary regardless of how much you produced. Nowadays, younger generation will have to do much more than they could offer in order to survive in this big environment of fast growing economy and technology. There isn't much time left for them to take care of family members, not along children.
Another possible cause is the change of mentality. Traditional Chinese value systems indicated lots of responsibilities that we, as human, shall burden. Chinese considers getting married and having children as one of the steps that we need to complete in our life journey. A lot of the events in one's life is arranged/planned that way. There is pretty much no indepent thoughts in that matter. However, younger generation prioritizes their feelings and needs over obligation. They do not want to start a journey that they don't get to plan.
Nira SunAll the attacks in China was pretty much described as stabbing spree rather than shooting spree. You rarely hear about any shooting in China. It simply because guns are regulated and cannot be acquire by individual citizens. Despite the weapons in the attacks, what's quite common in these stabbings and shootings was the motive behind it. Revenge is the top one. Attackers usually feel angry towards issues in the society or the impact brought to them. When the pressure is too big to hold, they took the rage out on toddlers knowing they had no ability to resist. I don't think the motive of this attack has been released yet. It's just very hard to accept the fact that a woman attacked young toddlers.
https://newrepublic.com/article/151994/china-many-school-stabbings
Nira SunThe gap is quite noticable to the point that rural area residents choose to migrate to the big cities in hopes of earning more money to put food on the tables. This goes back to the topic in our first session. What is the solution to the massive migrant issues arises in China? Simply limiting them from benefiting the resources or pushing them out of the big cities is not going to solve the problem forever. What China needs to find out is what rural residents need in order to grow and develop. Nothing more than education and resources.
Nira SunHi Natali,
I'm very much appreciate your thoughts on this matter. You are absolutely right about the fact that we need to teach our students to see how all countries deviate from the norm in different ways which leads them to think how each one of us deviates from the norm as well. One thing I have noticed from teaching our children is that they tend to set US or the region where they live as the norm to compare with the rest of the world. I remember when we learned measurement, students "complained" how Chinese uses meter and kilometer. I had them do a little research on which countries use mile as the unit. It turned out that majority of the world uses kilometer except UK and US. Same issue happened again when we learned the temperature units of Celsius and Fahrenheit. Unsurprisingly, Fahrenheit is the official temperature scale ONLY in the US.
The foundation to all the ignorance is that we are not willing to accept / not aware of the presence of others outside ourselves. We take things for granted. It is an urgent matter that we need to open out students' eyes and minds to various cultural practices in the rest of the world. Hopefully, one day, they will no longer act all surprised when they learn that it rains in summer outside LA area. : )
Nira SunStarting from decades ago, I believe, a lot of high schools in urban areas started building academic relationship with high schools in rural areas. It was a product of the China Western Development Strategy. This is to help the students from the western side of China, specifically, Xinjiang Province, to receive high school education in big cities mainly located in the eastern China. This educational experiment a strategy to lessen the ethnic conflict and increase the awareness of diversity in China. Positively speaking, Xinjiang Class successfully exposed students to the culture of their counter party. However, it comes along with religon issue that can ben enlarged through the process due the diversity of ethnic groups in Xinjiang. People tend to assume that everyone from Xinjiang practices Muslim and other Uyghur living habits.
https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/2603134/Research-Brief-No-11.pdf
Nira SunThank you Dr. Dube for adding this passage. Speaking of marrying out, it reminded me of explaining "marry to..." in Chinese. It surpsied my students a lot. I'm confident that you've already known this but allow me to explain to others here:
There are two "marry to..." in Chinese. One is 嫁 (jia) which is the word from women's perspective. Another one is "娶" which is from men's perspective. What's more interesting is the directional complement (which is similiar to the "to" in English language) we use after these two verbs. To describe a lady marries to a guy, we say 嫁出去 (jia chu qu). Since the phrase 出去 indicates going out, it clearly says that a woman marries out. On contrary, to describe a guy marries to a woman, we say 娶進來 （qu jin lai). Obviously, the word 進來 means come in which describes how a guy bringing a woman to his house. If we go a little further and break the characters down, it will be even more surprising.
嫁出去= 女(female)+家(house)+ 出去(out) = a girl marry out of her house
娶進來= 取(to obtain)+女(female)+進來(come in) = to get a girl to your house
My students were astonished when they learned about this and said it was sexist. I had to teach them to see it from a different perspective. Language is always tied with culture and value systems. Chinese language is an ancient language that is carried out for 5000 years along with its culture. Value system changes as the society develops. Preference to males over females is not uncommon in any part of the world. Although the social status of women has improved a lot, we wouldn't be able to go back and change the characters or how they are formed anymore. Fortunately, I also introduced the word "結婚" (jie hun) to them which is more neutral. The word "結" means "to tie" which is quite similar to the western saying of "tie the knot" : )
