[Nira Sun]

I really like the story that you were given here. It associated with what we are learning today with Prof. Dube. The red Guards held responsibility of spreading Mao's theory to all types of civilians: the farmers, the students, the soldiers, and the workers. The spiritual guidance of their speeches were the little red book. I remembered Prof. Dube mentioned in class that it was close to religious which was quite an accurate description of the influence that the littel red books had on people back then.

[Nira Sun]

The title that was printed on the book holding by the girl is read as "yu wen" which was "Chinese language" text book. I think the little girl holding a text book was only a representation of having a child which was part of the family planning. Unfortunately, the promotion of late marriage was pushed to all Chinese civilians including the ones who lived in the cities.

[Nira Sun]

There is a popular slogan in China which is "Never lose at the starting point". The "starting point" here represents young age of children. Such perspective is quite popular and widely worshipped among the Asian community here in the U.S. as well. Even though the classes that the children are taking at young age seem to be too ridiculous to us, it is quite normal if the children or their parents want them to master more skills as early as possible.

Due to the "fatal" nature of exams, a lot of children were unable to go to the schools they want to if their scores don't meet the lowest requriement. Back then, people have an idea of what kind of students you are based on what school you go to. However, nowadays, the lottery system decides what school a student goes to instead of scores. With that said, there is no more "good school" or "low performance school" anymore. What I heard from my friends in China was that some teachers who worked at the used-to-be "good schools" don't even know how to teach anymore due to the huge gaps between performances among enrolled students.

Even though the change of the students selection system, the perspective of being competitive and mastering more skills still deeply rooted in Chinese people's mind. I was "lucky" that neither of my parent were like that back then. The only extra programs that I went to when I was little was to strengthen my English proficiency which I still appreciated till this day.

[Nira Sun]

Now I wonder whether I should share this part of the history with my Mandarin students. They probably would complain why they have to write the traditional Chinese characters when most of Chinese people were given the simplified version so that they could become literated.

I found it easier to teach the traditional charaters. As most of us knew, Chinese character are pictographic which means they were originated from the actual objects. It is indeed a lot easier for my students to associate the characters with the meaning of them. That is what we have been doing in my class. Students are now "trained" with such visual imagination to the point that they would come up the ideas of memorizing the Chinese characters.

(A little background on my students. 100% Hispanic students with no access or knowledge of Chinese language. They only have one hour with me each day to learn and practice the language. The only practice that they actually do outside the class time is that some of them would teach their little siblings Chinese and help them to build the interest in the language and culture.)

[Nira Sun]

Interesting about the name that was given by the Chinese government to this Great Femine was "Three Years of Natural Disaster". Ironically, there was no natural disaster happened during those three years at all. The controversial idea about this Great Femine was that it was caused by human instead of nature.

I agree that it was a great idea to have students to discuss this classical government coverup and relate to the issues that happened here in the U.S. or other countries.

[Nira Sun]

I agree that it is indeed interesting to see how both countries would name the same war with different names.

From Chinese people's perspective, they didn't start the war. They were fighting the Japanese soldiers because they intruded the country and created 8 years of chaos. Anti-Japanese was named from a defending position where Chinese people were fighting against the bully from Japan.

From Japanese people's perspective, they were fighting for expanding "territory" in the Pacific area. The intention of them starting the war was to strengthen their control over Asia.

 

[Nira Sun]

I agree that it is a good movie to show in a classroom, preferably to high schoolers. I have done it several times. A lot of my students are fascinated about Martial arts. The action are usually the most exciting part. Most of the Chinese made movies has certain moral standards that the directors or writers would like to express. The storyline of Master IP happened under a bigger background which was the Sino-Japanese War. Even though Master IP was specialized in martial arts, he never bullied anyone. Instead, he took in lots of apprentices to learn martial arts regardless of how much they were able to pay him. On contrary, the China back then was "bullied" by lots of foreigners / invaders who were stronger in technology and national economy. In my opinion, this is an important perspective for high school students or, maybe, middle school students, to learn which they can actually apply to their daily life.

In addition, it is also a reminder to instructors and masters, which, in reality, could be us teachers, of their social responsibilities and profound influence that they could have on their following students.

At last, the most significant ethnical qualities of martial arts were also portraited well in this movie. I remember Master IP always said “Never go beyond necessity”. The soul of martial arts is not violence. On contrary, it is nonviolence.

[Nira Sun]

When Prof. Dube showed the picture where it says "婚姻自主"- freedom of marriage, it was quite interesting to think about what kind of freedom they had. Compared to the old "arranged marriage", people had the choice to choose who they would like to get married with. However, their marriage was still under the management and control of the country. The country promoted late marriage and they would put a limit on when you should get married. I remembered my parents mentioned that they needed the appoval for having children as well. Although the control and mangement was necessary at that time, it just didn't seem to give too much of freedom either.

I also remembered the "food stamps" that we had back when I was little which put limit on how many eggs, milk, and produces that one family could have. During certain time of each month, people were allowed to take the food stamps to exchange for fixed amount of food. The limit was removed later on. The daily grocery was open for purchase as often as we wanted to. Nowadays, people can purchase whatever at whenever they would like to. The change was due to the open door policy in early 80s which brought in the concept of free trading and acceptance of foreign products.

[Nira Sun]

That exact same slogan was also printed all over the walls within residential areas as well. It was a pretty heavy exposure to the citizens. At the same time, the little red book was read and held by everyone throughout the country. The worship that Mao wanted from the citizens back then was no less than what the emperor wanted in ancient China. Other forms of worship included popular songs written to complement how much Mao has changed the country. It was quite interesting to look back at that period of history to learn that how deeply this emperor system has affected major Chinese citizens.

[Nira Sun]

Both my parents experienced the movement around the age of 16-27. I have heard lots of stories from them about that period of time. They were pulled away from the school system and sent to the rural areas when they were around 8th grade. They had the chance to come back to the city which was quite lucky.

During the time of there, they were assigned with tasks everyday which were mainly farm work. They clocked in / clocked out at certain time. By completing the tasks, they would earn certain "work credits" in order to meet the requirement. The living condition was obviously poor. They didn't have a room of their own. The most common "bedroom" was a huge flat bed with probably 5-10 people slept on there all together.

Lots of people didn't get to come back to the city at all because they eventually got married and had families with the locals since they had no idea of when they would get the chance to go back. If your family had some sort of "connection", it would help to transfer your "Hu Kou" - household registry- back to the city as early as possible.

In the year of 1978, the college-entrance exam was opened again to the public. However, my mom has excceeded the age limit to enroll for the exam which caused her losing the only opportunity going back to school. This has always been her biggest regret she ever had.

One of the controversial part of this movement was that it created a huge education gap in that generation which caused the quality of China civilization moved back a decade.

[Nira Sun]

In the year of 1978, a young man and a woman got to this so-called "perfect age" to have a family together. However, they were visited from a local government agency who came to persuade them to postponed their marriage.

Man: Look, we are promoting late marriage and family planning for younger generation. The entire country is now going through the most important and toughest time ever. Imagine that you guys get married and have kids now? You will lose your focus and energy to work. Remember how difficult we are now? We need everyone’s efforts and dedication to build the country and make it stronger. The more kids we have, the more burden we are adding on to our country. We have the responsibilities to improve the quality of our life together by improving the economy of this country. The more collaborative benefits we can produce, the better personal life we will have. The country will appreciate your sacrifice!

The couple: We agree. Let’s put our personal feelings aside first and devote to the development of the country.

 

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[Nira Sun]

There was an image showed in class by Prof. Dube of Sun, Yat-sen gathered with people in front of a portrait and two flags. The background of that photo was when Sun founded the Republic of China in Jan 1st, 1912, he went and visited the Mingxiao Tomb of Ming Dynasty. With that said, I'm going to take a guess that the portrait behind Sun and his government officials is the founder of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang.

Mostly believed theory behind this visit was that it represented the end of Manchu era and the revival of Han people since Ming Dyansty was the last empire dominated by Han people before it was taken over by the Manchu (Qing Dynasty). The new government of Republic of China was also inaugumented in Nanjing later on in the year of 1928. Sun meant to rebuild the Han power with western ideals but was unable to fullfill it due to no support / control over Beiyang Military and, later, his death in 1925. Further reaffirmation of this theory was the location of the Sun's Mausoleum which is right next to the Ming Tombs.

[Nira Sun]

I know this is not related to the film topic but topic of the gap between original Chinese title and translated English one reminded me of Chinese dishes on the menu in Chinese restaurant. Lots of time, I don't even understand what the dish is about by just looking at the Chinese names. By reading the English ones, it helps me to know what the ingredients are. 

For example, there is a famous Sichuan dish called "Ants climbing up the Tree" (literal translation of its Chinese name). The ingredients of the dish are marianted ground meat, rice noodle, and other seasoning. The rice noodle represents the tree branches or twigs and the little ground meat poured over the "tree branches" forms a view of "ants" all over the tree twigs. Hence the name.

The titles or names in the orginal language are mostly presented in a metaphor figure. However, once it gets translated, it would be really confusing to people if it is translated words by words. Imagine you see "ants climbing up the tree" on a menu, would you even try it? : )   The translated version of a title tend to be more closer to the actual and literal meaning so that it is clear to the audiences who are reading them. Hence the gap.

[Nira Sun]

Since I understand the language, I first had a thought on the title. In my opinion, there is quite a big discrepency between the original Chinese title and the translated English one. What I understand about the "凶年" is it means "dangerous / harmful / bad years". I was wondering the orginal intention of the last two characters in the title. I guess the literal meaning is that "the side of...". Too sad that I didn't get to ask the question.

The challenges that were shown in this documentary mainly focused on: How to make the workers willing to participate and fight for their rights. Due to financial pressure and other issues, it was difficult to find workers who were persistent in this journey. The funders, lawyers, and supporters spent so much time on persuading people, supporting them financially so that workers were able to stay with the fight. Most of the concerns from the workers were about whether their strikes and voices will be heard and actually be considered. They also suffered from other suppress from local government and law enforcement.

The documentary recorded a long journey of 6-year fighting. However, their fight is still going on. The main purpose of this documentary, in my opinion, was to bring this issue into awareness to as many people as possible so that more will be joining their fighting journey, and ultimately, earn more benefits for the workers.

[Nira Sun]

I considered the following two challenges as the keys:

1. What ideas or concepts shall we implement so that we are able to convince people to see the changes that we need?

• Learning popular ideas of managing a country and organizing a government
• Finding out the issues that we currently have in China
• Analyzing the steps and actions that fit our special situation
• Spreading the ideas so that more people will see the issues and changes that we need to make

2. How do we gather people to take the ideas into action

• We need people to agree with our ideas and willing to fight along with us
• How do we protect the people who are fighting with us?

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