CHAN'S CHINESE

Character Amnesia 提笔忘字

2011-09-06T12:18:00.001-07:00

When I and my two research assistants/camermen set out to Beijing and Xi'an to film our documentary, Brush Up!, we knew very little about our topic. Like the rest of the world, we had been drawn to the issue of character amnesia a year ago (Summer 2010) when a series of articles appeared in major Chinese and English newspapers.

As a non-native speaker and teacher of Mandarin, I am more than well acquainted with dysgraphia: having never been through those grueling years of Chinese elementary school instruction in character writing, my word retension is significantly worse than natives' by comparison--pathological, really (I have to review dozens of characters a day just to stay afloat). That a few journalists and academics were suggesting at the time that technology was to blame for character amnesia made sense to us, even though little hard evidence was available to prove it.

Chinese, unlike so many Indo-European languages, and other doozies, like Arabic, Korean, and Japanese, relies almost exclusively on the memorization of 1000s of whole words in order to attain literacy--no alphabets to sound out on paper what you already know how to say. Japanese and Korean, although both still use quite a few Chinese characters, evolved their own alphabetic systems centuries ago to aid in the more accurate pronunciation and reflection of native vocabulary and grammars. In one sense, an alphabet is essentially a codebreaker for the native speaker and language learner who are already familiar with speech. While Chinese characters do share similar phonetic and semantic elements, they are not systematically applied and can only be detected after literacy is practically achieved, making such codes subjective and arbitrary. In short, Chinese relies so much more on memorization and mnemonic upkeep than most any other language; If you can speak English and know 26 letters you can take on a newspaper or attempt a short essay, in China that'll get you a pack of cigarettes, but only if 烟 happens to be one of the 26 characters you picked up on your ultimate goal to 4000. This means, that the more Chinese rely on their electronic devises to write their characters for them, via simple romanized input (pinyin and other systems), the worse their unassisted character retension and production becomes.

So many of our interviews in China (August 2011) ended in a college student, mother, or artist, consulting his or her cell phone for instruction on how to write a character. All of our interviewees accepted this as a normal fact of life in a technological age, and few lamented it. Some teachers and calligraphers, however, were more sensitive to the implications of character atrophy. For some, dysgraphia threatened more than just hand-writing, it struck at the core of Chinese culture: Hanzi (chinese characters).

The following interview with prominent Xia'n calligrapher Ma Tiankuo is an example of this later strand of thought. (Ma's comments were picked up by the USA Today and featured in MacLeod's front page article on August 31, 2011).

Interview with Calligraphy Master and Shaanxi Calligraphers’ Society Director, Ma Tiankuo

(August 15, 2011, Xi'an, China)

“We walked straight up to my studio where I invited my guests to sit down and enjoy some tea. We dispensed with the formalities fairly quickly as my American guest briefly introduced himself and his project. He told me his name was Kyle David Anderson and that he was a professor at Centre College in Kentucky. He had lived in Beijing and Taipei years ago , as well as Europe, where he first heard about me and Xi’an. He decided then he wanted to interview me as part of a documentary film project on calligraphy and China. He cut right to the chase: ‘There have been a lot of people saying lately that because of the proliferation of computers many Chinese are suffering from character amnesia. Is it true that Chinese characters are in crisis?’; ‘I know some think the problem should be taken seriously. On the other hand, others see character amnesia as rather common and that there’s no need to panic; there’s no way that Chinese characters and calligraphy will fade away in the face of technology. As a well known, middle-aged calligrapher, how do you see this issue?’

“After posing his questions, Kyle solicited my personal opinion and politely asked if his two student assistants and cameramen (Stewart Lowery and John Dickens, seniors at Centre College) could film our conversation. I told him they could. Their comfortable and free approach to the discussion was welcome. I enjoyed their sincerity and openness. We talked about everything.

“My response:‘From what I know, as a result of global industrialization, technological modernization, and the speed of computer popularization, character amnesia is a fairly common phenomenon. It’s certainly very alive and something I have always taken a special interest in. In fact, I seem to remember seeing in the past few years quite a few internet articles discussing the topic. As a calligrapher, I’m particularly sensitive about the whole thing, and have noticed the problem actually worsening.

"I know that folks in their 40s, 50s and older generally attended Dazi (calligraphy) classes in school before the 1980s. Elementary schools always held as a rule at least 2 sessions a week practicing character tracing. In Junior High, there were also a lot of extracurricular clubs, including calligraphy appreciation groups. So, it’s likely that most educated people learned to wield a brush in their younger years. They had a firm understanding and grasp of the basics of writing and calligraphy. At the same time, they developed a sensitivity to the unique structures of characters and their proper stroke order. They also were quite familiar with radicals (roots) and character components. Because of all this exposure to writing nearly everyone had an active memory of the most commonly used Chinese characters and had possessed an aesthetic foundation for the appreciation of calligraphy. Despite the fact they later found other employment that didn’t require writing, they still maintained a healthy ability to recall a large number of characters. And though many never studied enough to produce calligraphy at the artistic level, many still harbored an appreciation for the art of painting beautiful characters. Writing characters was more than a fleeting personal pleasure; it was a life long endeavor for them.

"But now, relatively speaking, young people in their teens, 20s and 30s, suffer from character amnesia to a much higher degree. This is a result of having gone through schools that transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial, scientific, technologically-based system. Practically every student’s residential and scholastic environments have undergone radical changes, adjustments, and reforms. From preschool, through elementary to junior high school, the maintenance, promotion, and strengthening of character writing has continually weakened. In its place, the proliferation and establishment of computer labs has increased. Many students enjoy the daily increase of computer operational skills, but only at the expense of their writing ability. They may know how to take class notes or write down new vocabulary, but not much else. It’s rare anymore to see a class dedicated entirely to practicing characters. Only in a handful of homes do parents sign their children up for afterschool calligraphy classes. Most prefer to choose foreign language or Cantonese. Consequently, very few of the younger generations ever take up a calligraphy course, which only erodes further our inherited cultural base of characters and calligraphy. It's troubling.

"I imagine, though, that one will find the same things written in foreign studies on foreign languages, as well as other similar byproducts of globalization. I only think that the degree of the problem in China is different.

[...]

"As far as the significance of Chinese characters and calligraphy...? That system and artistic tradition have been flowing for thousands of years. They are the spiritual embodiment and textual manifestation of the essence of the Chinese people, and house the culmination of cultural and artistic ideals possessed by mankind. The ancients often said that writing contains the truth. This statement is true in a way; in short, writing characters mold sentiment, completes personality, provides tools for self-reflection, and sustains health. It is the the most significant form of expression and spiritual requirement of the abilities of both the literati and the masses. From the earliest times of human civilization, when hard work and ingenuity first created culture and its circulation and exchange, across the primitive ages of rock painting, tribal totemic worship, and scapulary writing, down through the development and evolution of the seal, li, kai,xing, and grass scripts, writing has formed the glue of collective human wisdom. Even in foreign alphabetical systems this is the case. Therefore, characters and calligraphic art are not only the heritage of China but are also at the core of global culture.

[...]"

提笔忘字

2011-09-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

Keeping Africa Out of Focus

2010-12-16T06:11:00.000-08:00

Recent popular uprisings in Africa have drawn greater attention to China's crucial relationship to the continent. Updates on rebellions in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt, are slow and glaringly fact-starved. Wen Jiabao's 2011 annual work report to the CPC and the State media have expressed concern with the potential contaminations of African and Middle Eastern turmoil and promise that their next five year plan will be aimed at improving the people's lives to ensure development and stability in China. Willy Lams March 2011 article in the China Brief explains:

"Beijing's efforts to uphold socio-political stability and to crush a potential Chinese-style "Jasmine Revolution" have dominated this year's (2011) plenary session of the National People¹s Congress (NPC). The Chinese parliament has approved a budget for wei-wen, an omnibus term that encompasses maintaining law and order, squashing dissent and keeping surveillance on the populace, which surpasses for the first time the expenditures of the People¹s Liberation Army (PLA). Much of the initiatives for this year as well as for the 12th Five-Year Plan (12FYP) period of 2011 to 2015 have to do with pacifying disadvantaged social groupings through boosting their welfare entitlements and restructuring the economy. Remarkably absent are reforms in the political arena."

The following recent editorial in the People's Daily ("in no way representative of the paper's editors") exemplifies a typical international PR diversion strategy to transfer the potential dangers of reporting current events in North Africa into a strategy for vilifying an old rival: the US (something the US, of course, is not innocent of when its own elections come around).

In this article, the news isn't popular uprisings, but the US and Obama's self-serving foreign policy about-face. The story is that the US throws its friends (i.e. Mubarak) under the bus at the slightest sign of trouble. The US is an opportunistic predator, a characterization encapsulated in a central idiomatic expression of the article: "they watch the wind and shift the rudder" (見風使舵):

且看美国在中东“变脸”

　　“变脸”是中国多个地方剧种表演的特技之一，尤以川剧最为著名。

　　最近一个时期，因各种复杂因素的综合作用，中东一些国家相继发生“政治地震”，先是突尼斯国家政权被民众骚乱冲垮，接着18天的埃及动乱为穆巴拉克近30年的强势统治画上句号。眼下，这种剧变的“外溢效应”还在向其他阿拉伯国家扩散，引起世人关切。中东乱局蔓延的速度之快令世界惊讶，而美国出于自身战略利益考量，“翻手为云，覆手为雨”，其面孔变幻频率之高，与川剧中的“变脸”相比有过之而无不及，同样令人愕然。

　　埃及是阿拉伯国家的领头羊，也是平衡中东格局的“稳定器”，穆巴拉克曾是美国的“朋友”，他对美国的大敌——伊斯兰极端势力毫不妥协，予以严厉打击；他对美国稳定中东的基石——阿以和谈坚信不疑，积极斡旋调停。当开罗刮起“街头政治”风暴时，美国开始力挺穆巴拉克，副总统拜登还公开称其为“可靠盟友”；随着事态发展，美国呼吁埃及“稳定过渡”，直到9月份总统选举；眼看游行示威愈演愈烈，穆巴拉克无法控制局面，美国总统奥巴马亲自走上前台表态：穆巴拉克应该下台，而且是立即下台。美国政府见风使舵，甚至落井下石，在紧要关头抛弃穆巴拉克的绝情做法，不仅使美国在中东的其他盟友感到寒心，也使他们进一步认清了美国中东外交的实用主义本性。

　　主导中东事务，是美国延续全球霸业的关键环节之一。中东地处欧、亚、非三大洲交界处，战略地位十分重要，那里还是世界石油和天然气的主产地。2009年，中东地区累计探明的石油储量达1032亿吨，占全球总探明储量的55.6％。正因为如此，“二战”后美国历届政府都信奉“谁控制了中东和它的石油，谁就拥有世界”的说法，投入大量资源苦心经营中东，其惯常策略是在充满敌意、战乱不息的中东地区“两面下注”。如一方面不惜血本全力支持和扶植以色列，以达到威慑中东其他国家的目的；另一方面又以盟友关系拉拢一些伊斯兰国家当权者，使其成为推行中东战略的配合者和代言人。在美国人看来，无论是32年前的伊朗国王巴列维，还是10多天前的埃及总统穆巴拉克，似乎都起过这样的角色作用。可当1979年伊朗伊斯兰革命将巴列维赶下台后，美国也弃之如敝屣，连他想携家人前往美国定居的申请都被驳回。由于美国的“变脸”，在今天穆巴拉克的身上，人们仿佛看到了巴列维的影子。

　“9·11”事件发生后，美国反恐重心直指中东，并不失时机推出“大中东民主计划”。美国认为，唯有“民主化”才能消除中东的“反美恐怖主义”。然而，面对当下中东一些国家接踵而至的“民主化运动”，美国并未一味叫好，而是在“有选择性干预或淡忘”。最鲜活的例子是，美国乐见伊朗、利比亚等国尽快通过“民主”改变颜色，而对驻扎了美军重兵的中东国家，美国则强调“情况不同”，在“看碟下菜”。事实正如瑞士《巴塞尔日报》一篇报道所言，美国对中东的民主并没有真正兴趣，美国推进中东“民主化”只是出于自身利益。

　　明乎此，人们就不难理解，那些“民主、自由”等美国经常挂在嘴边的“崇高理念”和“普世价值”，那些对中东各国各个阶段的态度，为什么变化多端了。只有一条是恒久不变的，那就是美国要掌控中东的战略利益。（刘水明）

The following clips from recent documentaries are helping to unfold the ongoing story of China's economic speculations and impact in sub-Saharan Africa.

BBC's Documentary on China and Africa:

Short documentary featured on the blog Danwei:

Links:

*Nigerian Jimmy Wang BluesHipHopSoul Star in China

* Reaction to poor coverage of Libyan uprising (April 2011) (Chinese / English)

The Return of Confucius

2010-10-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

61 yrs after being officially snubbed, Confucius has returned to China. Charred like a phoenix for decades, he has risen again all over China, from grass-roots Classical Chinese summer camps to to the big screen, to a coveted spot in Tian'an men square. Of course, all this comes as quite a schock to those who remember what Mao once said to his nephew about the old sage: "If the Communist Party has a day when it cannot rule or has met difficulty and needs to invite Confucius back, it means the Party is coming to an end."

More than a hundred years ago, Chinese intellectuals and officials hastily jettisoned and denigrated the old sage in the name of modern progress. But they've been scraping helplessly for alternative moral, ethical, and religious frames ever since to prop up their refurbished Chinese society, all to no avail. Now at a time when capitalism and materialism have rushed to occupy the hearts of many with a vengeance, Confucianism has regained its broad value and appeal. Individuals find it gives greater meaning to their lives, and officials calculate it will fill the vacuum that a slowly retreating surveillance state is leaving.

Could this be one of those legendary times that Confucius succeeds in harmonizing society? Or do only certain sectors of contemporary Chinese society serve to benefit from his return? (Does a Confucian-backed Party mean only mainstream Chinese have claim to the benefits of his teachings? See Times, Jan. 2011).

Texts:

* Mei Hu's Confucius (Film)

* Howard French on Confucius Institutes (NY Times)

* Daniel Gardner's Confucius and China's Rulers (LA Times)

* Daniel Bell's New Confucianism

Questions:

* What are the reasons for Confucianism's return to importance at this time?

* What are the political and cultural significances of his particular portrayals?

* Are there competing portrayals of the sage? Is there any great discourse or narrative that resolves them all?

Links:
* Celebration of Confucius' B-day 2010 (Guardian)

* New Confucius Statue in Tian'anmen 2011

* Sisci on Confucius Statue (Jan 2011)

Gaming Grievances

2010-09-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

It has often been said that the internet is one of China's most dynamic avenues for expression.  This is perhaps why Hu Jintao and the digital SS keep such a tight vigil on its activities.  However, officials have yet to strangle the recent phenomenon that is Nail House Versus Demolition Team.

Gluttonous landowners and developers have been the target of humanity's grievances for millenia.  But in Post-reform China, this crew of moneygrabbers has become especially aggressive and disliked.  The disillusionment of the people of China with their new unchecked capitalism, especially the poor and socially immobile,  has been stoked into a flame that is played out violently on screen and on the ground.  The Gaurdian's (UK) Tania Branigan explains how the goofy fiction of the Nail House game is reflective of real resistance on the ground to violent developers: "In the game, Mrs Ding, still in her curlers, hurls slippers as the men approach, while Grandpa Ding prefers to fire his shotgun.  It might sound improbable, but a real life farmer in Hubei province fought off workers with a homemade cannon" (9/16/10).

Tania is referring to 65-yr old  Yang Youde.  In June 2010, he routed a demolition team a number of times with a home-made arsenal of bamboo artillery canons.

In a land where free-wheeling capitalists buy off people and property with little resistance and impunity, folks like Youde are a surprisingly annoying obstacle to the making of small fortunes. Youde is resisting his forced removal on legal grounds, however, showing the clash between the landed and landless not as blind, sentimental protest, but as an issue of legality that plagues China all the way around. He who has the gold, makes the rules, the perverted English saying goes. Youde is fighting for a more just and enforceable system of law that will help to stabilize social relations in China and render its legal and business practices more equitable.

While the courageous continue to fight to protect their land and legal rights, however, you can help them air their grievances in a pithy protest world.

Try out Nail House Versus Demolition Team for free at http://www.4399.com/flash/36869_2.htm. Go get them ruthless developers.

Links:

*ChinaHush article on Yang Youde

*The Guardian article on the Nail House game

Charter 8: The Latest Cry for Chinese Democracy

2010-03-03T04:04:00.000-08:00

In February 2010, US Ambassador to China, Jon Hunstman, issued the following public statement on the detention and harsh sentencing of dissident and Charter 8 author, Liu Xiaobo:

"We are disappointed by the Chinese Government's decision to uphold Liu Xiaobo's sentence of 11 years in prison on the charge of "inciting subversion of state power.” We believe that he should not have been sentenced in the first place and should be released immediately.

We have raised our concerns about Mr. Liu’s detention repeatedly and at high levels, both in Beijing and in Washington, since he was taken into custody over a year ago. Mr. Liu has peacefully worked for the establishment of political openness and accountability in China. Persecution of individuals for the peaceful expression of political views is inconsistent with internationally-recognized norms of human rights.

We continue to call on the Government of China to release him immediately and to respect the right of all citizens to peacefully express their political views and exercise internationally-recognized freedoms."

Hunstman's is a rare plea and direct criticism of the United States of China's internal affairs. His words convey a genuine interest in the safety and rights of Liu Xiaobo, but more importantly they state in no uncertain terms the kind of freedoms that an international community expects all nations of the world, especially one of its leading partners, to uphold and to encourage. While not explicitly expressing support for Liu Xiaobo's controversial document, Charter 8, Hunstman's appeal to Chinese authorities clearly reinforces some of the document's chief principles: freedom of speech, the recognition and respect of human rights and the deconstruction of a single-party institution.

In this unit, we will examine Charter 8 as the most recent outgrowth of a 150 yr struggle by Chinese progressivists to modernize Chinese culture and politics, freeing it from its own millenial history of despotism and insularity and delivering it into an global community of internationally shared values and rights. The Charter is the late arrived textual progeny of the 1989 Tian'an men movement, and just as that peaceful protest was resisted and punished, so the Communist government has treated Charter 8 and its supporters and authors. Considering the populace's track record for fighting for non-conformists, Liu Xiaobo has little hope of any public support. A March 2010 blogpost by famous novelist Han Han explains the collective psyche that will more than likely numb it to Liu's plight and cause:

"Do Chinese people seek out dangerous universal ideals? Chinese people seek
them, but they seek them at their convenience. To a lot of Chinese people,
the value of seeking such things is not nearly as high as seeking an
apartment building or an online game to play. Because everyone's life is so
high pressure, they don't have any ideals. A mouthful of dirty rice is
enough. There's no big difference between eating it while kneeling or eating
it while standing up... This is a race of people who can eat genetically modified grain and oil distilled from recycled food scraps, drink melamine-infused milk, and take inferior vaccines. Their tolerance is higher than you can imagine. Their needs are lower than you can imagine."

The condemnation of Liu to 11 years in prison for "political subversion" is more than just an exaggerated attempt by the central government to preserve peace and to foster the proverbial harmonious 和谐 society. By comparing the articles and aims of the Charter to some of its referential sources in world history (e.g. US Constitution, Declaration of Human Rights, Czech Charter 77), we will seek to understand just how much Liu Xiaobo's imprisonment is a statement of Communist China's insistence on controlling the terms on which it internationalizes and modernizes. In other words, in a comparative examination of the Charter and its recent treatment by Chinese authorities we will attempt to define the nature of hybridization and intercultural exchange in contemporary Chinese society.

Texts:
*Charter 8 (2008)
*Czechoslovakia's Charter 77 (1977)
*Constitution of the United States (1787)
*French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789)
*Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN) (1948)
*Constitution of the People's Republic of China (1982)

Questions:
(1) Cite influential places in Charter 8's source texts that talk about human rights.
(2) Why is the issue of federalization so important to the Charter? Which source texts make this an important issue?
(3) What do you perceive are the underlying motivations for the document's appeal to an international liberalism? In other words, what is at stake for the Chinese in modernity by accepting or rejecting its conditions?
(4) What kind of unofficial and official motives do you see informing the Communist government's suppression of this document and its supporters?
(5) How do you imagine the future of intercultural exchange in China and the possibility of its liberalization?

Links:
Feng Chongyi's article on Charter 8 (Jan 2010)
Charter 8 Website

Liu Wins Noble Peace Prize (Oct 2010)

Noble Nomination Letter (Jan 2010)

Getting Around the Censors to Mention Liu's Noble (Oct 2010)

Post-80s Pop Novels: The Playground of Dandies and Racecar Drivers

2010-01-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

The highest grossing authors of the moment in China are not the bastions of literary seriousness, the politically committed and highly eloquent Yu Hua, Gao Xingjian or Mo Yan. Instead, the giants in the field of publishing come in much more varied and flamboyant packaging.

The 20-somethings Guo Jingming and Han Han are the two most prominent representatives of their post-80s generation, a demographic targeted for its ultra-consumerism, selfishness and political apathy. Guo is the posterboy/covergirl of his generation's fascination with image and *bling* and Han the stinging mouthpiece of its stubborn individualism. When the two aren't writing they're primping, shopping, racing cars or humoring (or cursing) the camera. Sauntering on the track in his jumpsuit, Han was recently seen at the Shanghai Tianma Circuit giving the bird to a panel of judges. If Guo was absent, it was because he had run out of L'Oreal's Bare Naturale and had to charter some in from Paris.

The public images of these new writers, however cuddly or caustic, belongs to a visual generation that has grown up during the explosion of local and foreign medias. Writing is only one facet of their public personae, and sometimes it appears to take a back seat in the shadows of the photo shoot. Nonetheless, Guo and Han are serious writers and seriously good ones, despite the poopoo-ing of critics. Both attained early stardom in their teens and have been prolific ever since. Their deft wielding of the medium and their informed command of the publishing industry as a whole testifies to their precocious abilities. They're both still in their twenties, enthroned atop a tower of publications and a mountain of cash! And they remain untouched by complacency. In addition to cranking out new novels, Guo and Han are also tackling the magazine industry. Guo's I5land and Top Novel and Han's forthcoming Chorus of the Soloists are poised to chime in as contending heavyweights in that ring as well.

Texts:
*Selections from Guo's N. World N. 世界 (2010)
*Selections from Han's His Country 他的国 (2009)

Questions:
(1) How would you characterize Guo's lyrical writing style?
(2) How do Han's meandering narratives pose a different kind of narrative style?
(3) What seems to be important to these writers?
(4) What is it about Guo and Han's works that so completely captures the imagination of under20s in China?

Links:
Time's article on Han Han (November 2009)
New York Times article on Guo Jingming (May 2008)
Han Han's (in)famous blog
Guo Jingming's blog

Being a Kid in Mao's Country

2010-01-11T01:30:00.000-08:00

A quick browse through the virtual pages of the Juvenile and Children's Publishing House 少年儿童出版社 website gives one a vivid sense of the radical changes in literary publications that have transpired since the end of the Mao era. Two of the more popular titles being pushed on the main page for children ages 7-9 include: (1) the Internet Witch 飞翔在网络里的女巫, and (2) The Treasure Seekers 寻宝记. The stories are echoes of popular international juvenile genres dealing with witches and sleuths. They also integrate the importance of modern science and technology into their entertaining plots. The abstract of the Internet Witch asks children to log onto a new kind of magical web. With any luck, when surfing at home alone, a cackling internet witch might pop out to play!

A short temporal shift to view children's literature of the 60s and 70s provides a revealing contrast to the type of lives children were expected to live in a Maoist China. The abstract to the 1978 edition of Er Wazi 二娃子 offsets the tone of modern literature quite nicely (or grotesquely):

"Er Wazi grew up in a rural village. Originally, he enjoyed life with his father, mother, grandma and baby sister. But the Nationalist Reactionaries and a wicked Landlord struck at his home, scattering and killing his family... Er Wazi's father was made to march for the Nationalist Army, his sister was forced to marry the Landlord. His mother, sick with worry drowned herself in a nearby river. Er Wazi was forced to work for the Landlord, fetching water and working the pestle. But he never got a square meal. In fact, he was often beat and cursed. It felt like he'd been tossed into a fire pit. He'd had about all he could take."

The picture painted for children is very clear: non-Communists, conservatives and capitalists
are enemies and out to hurt and kill you and your family. Fear isn't the ultimate message of this popular kind of children's story of the era, though. Ultimately, Er Wazi triumphs and gets his revenge. He rebels and combines forces with upright and empathetic (even teary-eyed) Red soldiers to turn in his oppressors and free the community from repression.

Er Wazi's tale sets the tone for our study of three other popular children's stories of the era: Catching Enemies on Our Island 海岛捉敌, Grandpa Wang Luogu 王洛古爷爷 and The Children's Brigade of the Grasslands 草原儿童团. The beautiful art and captivating tales of these books all emphasize two important characteristics expected of patriotic children: (1) vigilance to spot national enemies (especially those closest to you), and (2) the courage and strength to confront and dispense of them. Being a child in Mao's China was serious business. Finding buried treasure and following witches on the web would never have been deemed appropriate activities for future heroes of the People's Republic. Children were set upon the path of espionage and hard-fought socialist glory from a tender age.

This section will help us to gain insight into the kinds of ideological, psychological and physical pressures laid upon the shoulders of children of the time.

Texts:
*Er Wazi (1977)
*Grandpa Wang Luogu (1966)
*Catching Enemies on Our Island (1975)
*The Children's Brigade of the Grasslands (1964)

Questions:
(1) How is shame displayed in the text and inculcated in its readers?
(2) What kind of dangers are children expected to place themselves into in these tales?
(3) What rewards and incentives await children who perform their duties?
(4) What kind of psychological effects do you perceive these tales having on their young readership?

Rock'n to a New Youth Culture

2009-12-07T02:10:00.000-08:00

The spirit of China's increasingly experimental and independent youth (the so-called "rising power generation") is conveyed in a famous chorus from Indie rock band Carsick-Cars' 2007 release, Maybe Mars. While the song paints a drippy, dreary night of Chinese conformity, an anthem blares out championing a lone hero who defies the darkness to become a "rock 'n' roll" hero:

Harmony (和声)

"it was late at night,
and all the people going to their hole
walking down the street
he talked to me just like crazy, real loud
he said this is all about your dreams
you should fight all the time
and he was the only one who wasn't scared,
to fall apart

hey, johnny, he doesn't want to,
he wants to be a rock and roll hero

hey, johnny, he doesn't want to,
he wants to be a rock and roll hero

hey, johnny, he doesn't want to,
he wants to be a rock and roll hero

hey, johnny, he doesn't want to,
he wants to be a rock and roll hero"

The lyrics lionize the youth as a recalcitrant, harmonizing (和声) element to the stagnant melody of his surroundings. While the population sleeps inside their holes, Johnny is made to see a heroic alternative that provides a new avenue for individual expression and in the process enriches the collective sounds of his society.

While Johnny and his rebel friend are by no means flooding the streets of contemporary China, the historically dormant frequencies of popular youth culture are markedly fluctuating. A recent article in The Telegraph (07 Dec 2009, UK) suggests notable rises in alternative band growth (~20,000 at the moment) and huge gains in concert attendance (up 30%). The nation's new found wealth and the radical contraction of the traditionally sprawling, Chinese nuclear family have given China's new youth immense new freedoms and resources to explore the world and to create themselves. Inspired by the retro80s and protopunk sounds and cultures of the West, Chinese bands and their listeners are blazing new avenues for self-expression. Grassroots jamming and lyrical and instrumental innovation have made Chinese Indie a big hit at home and abroad. The Carsick-Cars are close friends with NYC's own noise band Sonic Youth and their dependable opening act.

While excitement brews in cultural and academic circles over the stirrings of Chinese Indie (we anticipate Andrew Field's documentary on the scene early 2010), not everyone is as persuaded by its transformative powers and cultural significance. In fact, P.K. 14, the godfather of Chinese Indie, is pessimistic about its impact and skeptical about its popularization. Yang Haisong says that the fervor surrounding the scene is a marketing construct and that the youth's interest in new Chinese rock is more an expression of slavish conformatism than release of alternative energies. In other words, Indie rock is threatening to become a new catalyst for a classic case of homogenization.

We will look at and listen to some of the leading bands on the Chinese Indie scene and add our own voices to the sociological and cultural debate of what this all means for China's rising generation.

Readings:
*Han Han's His Own Country (他的国)
*Lonely China
*Carsick-Cars
*P.K. 14
*NY Times Article on Communist Sponsored Rockfests (2010)

Questions to consider:
(1) What are you first impressions about the sounds and the lyrics of the music? Thinking of the passage from His Own Country, how can rock be freeing for the Chinese?
(2) What do you perceive as being attractive to Chinese youth in Indie and punk music?
(3) How can what's new about Indie music threaten to snuff out its creative and liberational prospects?

Links:
*Rock Music and China's Youth Market (Telegraph)

Fashionably Red: Nationalist Fervor and the 60th Anniversary of Communism

2009-10-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

The Martyrs Float (浴血奋斗) glides majestically past Tian'an men square commemorating the sacrifices of thousands along China's path to modernization. It is one of hundreds of caiche 彩车 (parade floats) that filled the streets of Beijing on October 1, 2009, to celebrate 60 years of Communist rule and national progress.

Nationalist fervor has been, unsurprisingly, on the rise since the beginning of the summer. October's celebrations further capitalize (pardon the word choice) on this increasing patriotism to consolidate nationalist sentiment (especially among the youth), to reinterpret Communist history and to bolster a host of profitable industries. Some social programs and businesses benefiting from this anniversary include: Cun guan 村官 (a modern-day perversion of the Cultural Revolution in which university grads head to the countryside to instruct country folk), Red Tourism (i.e. pilgrimmages to Yan'an, idyllic base of fledgling Communist forces), the film industry (e.g. Han Sanping's blockbuster "The Founding of a Republic" 建国大业),

and, strangely enough, Wedding Photography (this couple poses as Red Guard cadets).

These celebrations mark a new stage in the evolution of Chinese nationalism and national culture. For instance, the Grand Finale of the gala (shown below) features a song by Jackie Chan in which the words "囯" and "家," the modern bisyllabic composite for "country," are redefined and offered as a new communal ideal. Through our study of this and other cultural texts bound up in the anniversary, we will strive to define some of the characteristics of this 21st century Chinese socialist sentiment.

Readings:
*The Founding of a Republic (2009)
*Chinadaily interviews (29 September 2009)

Questions to consider:
(1) How would you explain the paradoxical craze for the Communist past of Chinese youth who are more cosmopolitan than ever?
(2) How would you describe the intersection of nationalism and commerce in China today?
(3) How might you anticipate the different generational reactions to this anniversary?

Supplementary references:
*Top 15 unofficial documentaries of the People's Republic (Fanhall)
* The 4 major anthems heard at the celebration (Xinhua News)

* Danwei article on Mao Impersonators

*Modern Society Website (Anti-Western)

*Red Songs Competition at HNU (2011)

Formosa and the Fear of What's to Come

2009-09-16T20:20:00.001-07:00

Formosa Betryaed, written by Will Tiao and directed by Adam Kane, is a 2009 Formosa Film release that explores the anxieties the inhabitants of the small island of Taiwan carry with them into the 21st century. A territory of mixed races passed through the hands of multiple imperial powers (e.g. Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese), the island now nervously contemplates its future just as one of its staunchest political allies, the US, now seems to be quietly observing its cultural, political and economic gravitation back towards mainland China. The official website of the film describes it in the following way: "Taiwan is a nation that struggles to be recognized, sometimes even by its own people, as an independent nation. Perhaps most significant is America's refusal to recognize Taiwan as a nation while protecting its right to democracy from the People's Republic of China government across the Taiwan strait."

The political thriller resurrects actual events that occured in the 1980s when the Taiwanese Nationalist government tracked down and murdered a number of intellectuals abroad who disagreed with plans to reunite with the mainland. An interesting twist in this cinematic interpretation of historical events is the presence of American officers and detectives seeking to track down the killers and uncovering a national conspiracy. Recently (Sept. 2009) the film was privately screened for US congressmen in hopes of raising consciousness of the contemporary cultural and political plights of Taiwan in a world of global powers gambling again with its fate.

Questions:

*How does the film's plot succeed in invoking a nationalist spirit to rally around?
*How is an overt American presence in the film relevant to the political message of the production?
*How might some Taiwanese reject this understanding of their nation?

Links:

*Caving in to the Chinese Economy (2010)
*Formosa Betrayed (official website)
*Article on private US Congress screening (Taipei Times)

From "I am!" to "What am I?": Bei Dao and Can Xue

2009-08-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

After the death of Mao and the fall of the tyrannical Gang of Four in the mid-seventies, China felt the natural tremors of cultural change rumble to the surface after more than a decade of boundless repression. Maoism had demanded of the people a constant psychosomatic devotion to the communist party and its nationalist projects. After years of mental and physical conditioning in the methods of forfeiting their selves to and for the party, Chinese citizens seemed destined to remain passive to the eternal mandates of an external authority. Despite these strategies and tactics to vaccuum out its people individual essences, certain indominitable spirits survived. When Maoism and its ultra-militant champions were temporarily halted, intellectuals and artists who had sheltered their spark of individuality broke out to express themselves. During the 1980s, this frantic airing-out of individuality occured forcefully and moved briskly. From the simple, impassioned cries of affirmation of Bei Dao to the surreal, confounding explorations of the substance of subjectivity of Can Xue, Chinese writers rushed to articulate what it meant to exist individually in a post-Mao China.

Bei Dao 北島, Misty poet stand-out and co-founder of the controversial literary publication Jintian 今天 (1978-80; 1990-), is recognized as one of the first artists to break out after the collapse of Maoism to assert openly the possibility of assuming individuality in China. His poem "A Reply" 回答 demonstrates the forceful imposition of a singular voice against the colossal forces of history and reality that weigh down upon it: "I tell you, World! / I--Don't--Believe--You!"

From these initial outbursts of affirmation of post-Mao subjects, Chinese writers of prose moved quickly from the assertion of the "I" to explorations of its defintion in a new era of modernization/postmodernization. One of its most provocative and controversial writers, Can Xue 殘雪, originally a tailor, is an extreme example of how narratives have come to confront the meaning of subjectivity in Chinese literature. Her dizzying, Kafka-esque worlds of volatile identities and fluid personalities reveal the hyper-instability of the content of individuality. From a study of a selection of Bei Dao's and her work, we catch a glimpse of the frantic evolution of the search for subjectivity in late twentieth-century Chinese literature.

Readings:
*Selections from Bei Dao's poetry collections
*Selections from Can Xue's Old, Floating Clouds

Questions:
(1) What seems sure in Bei Dao's exclamations of individuality?
(2) How do the expository methods of Bei Dao and Can Xue contribute to their differing conceptions of individuality?
(3) What is stable in Can Xue's narrations?

Links:

*Hong King Bei Dao Archive

Supplementary references:
*Dian Li. The Chinese Poetry of Bei Dao: Resistance and Exile, 1978-2000. Edwin Mellen, 2006.

Love in a Time of Consumption

2009-08-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

Love and sexuality are physiological phenomena that despite their apparent transperancy, are actually highly temporal and cultural specific. It is often taken for granted that human emotions and aesthetic responses are universal and universally translatable across times and cultures. The display of a sub-Saharan African child crying or the image of smiling Burmese elder might seem to be naturally comprehensible. What we intuitively grasp as the reasons for and meanings of these emotions are, in fact, culturally conditioned. The sub-Saharan child may not be crying because he is hungry, as decades of televised, American broadcasts have insisted, nor is the Burmese elder smiling because he lives an idyllic, oriental existence. We interpret emotions and feelings hastily and instinctively, but when confronting those of other cultures, it is important to take a step back to remember that the expressive rising and falling of emotions are themselves languages, culturally-specific codes that function differently in various contexts and are as susceptible to misinterpretation as any foreign gesture or word. Furthermore, those same culturally-specific codes are as subject to the evolutions of time as simple vocabulary. The influences of authority, history, cultural exchange, education, media, and the markets all impinge upon the changing manifestations of how people fall in love and how they express it.

In Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Tian mi mi)(1996), Peter Ho-Sun Chan reveals the susceptability of romantic sentiments to the recurrent pulsations of a global market. Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao embark on financial and sentimental quests in Hong Kong to find money and to nurture love. In these complicated processes of chasing down both goals, Chan demonstrates just how much love is affected and conditioned by capitalist consumption. The power and pervasiveness of the global market succeeds in producing a number of different ways of being Chinese and of being in love as such.

Questions to consider:
(1) What is the relationship of money to romance in the film?
(2) How does the continual presence of Teresa Teng's song "Tian mi mi" function in the film?
(3) How has consumption in Hong Kong affected the love of the main characters in the film?

Links:
*Censoring Dating Shows in the PRC (2010)

Secondary references:
*Chow, Rey. "By Way of Mass Commodities." Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. 105-120.

Ha Jin: “Affected by the Insufficiency”

2009-07-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

Ha Jin (哈金) is the pen-name of Jin Xuefei (金雪飛). He was born February 21, 1956 in Liaoning, China to a family of faithful comrades. His father was an officer and Jin would follow in his footsteps by joining the PLA in 1969 at the height of the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命). After the demise of the Gang of Four and the rise of Deng Xiaoping, Ha pounced on the opportunity to seek higher education. Between 1981-84, he obtained advanced degrees in English and Anglo-American literature at Heilongjiang and Shandong universities. His opportunities for intellectual growth increased in 1985 when he and his wife moved to Waltham, MA to study at Brandeis University. While on scholarship there, he witnessed the attrocities of the Tian’an men incident from afar. The horror of the experience compelled him finally to emigrate permanently to the US to secure a better life for his wife and child.

After receiving his PhD (1992), Ha remained in the US. He is a unique and especially talented writer in that he writes exclusively in English about Chinese culture and history. Living in the US for only 20 some years, Ha has already become one of its most acclaimed authors, composing in a language that originally was not his own. His bibliography includes: Between Silences (1990), Facing Shadows (poetry)(1996), Ocean of Words (short stories)(1996), Under the Red Flag (short stories)(1997), In the Pond (novel)(1998), Waiting (novel)(1999), The Bridegroom (short stories)(2000), Wreckage (poetry) (2001), The Crazed (novel)(2002), War Trash (novel)(2004), A Free Life (novel)(2007), and The Writer as Migrant (essays)(2008). Ha is also the recepient of a number of awards: Hemingway/PEN (1997), National Book Award (1999), PENFaulker (2000). Currently, he writes and teaches as a professor at Boston University.

The following is a selection from a poem Ha is famous for that emphasizes the heightened role of language in the immigrant experience:

"In New York City

In the golden rain
I plod along Madison Avenue,
Loaded with words.
They are from a page
That show the insignificance
of a person to a tribe ,
Just as a hive keeps thriving
While a bee is lost [...]

No wisdom shines
Like the neon and traffic lights,
But there are words as true as
The money eyes, the yellow cabs,
The fact of pigeons on the sills."

Readings:
*Powell Books interview with David Weich
*The Writers as Migrant (2008)

Questions to consider:

(1) According to Ha Jin, what are the specific complications and challenges facing migrant writers?
(2) What are the specific ways in which you see Ha Jin managing his hybrid identity as an immigrant writer?
(3) How do you see him attempting a dual maneuver to preserve and to acquire original and new identities?

Links:
*Radio interview with Commentary.Ca' s Joseph Planta

Yao Ming and Olympic Dreams

2009-06-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

If you've ever walked the streets of any major Chinese city and happened to mention that you were an NBA fan, you've almost certainly heard fired back at you the question: "You like the Houston Rockets?" At which point, you anticipate where the conversation is headed and jump right to the chase: "Yeah, that Yao Ming (姚明) is pretty good!" After rubbing the collective ego with that reply, I've sometimes felt impressed to actually share a personal opinion. I do not recommend doing so. It's a waste of air for the most part. "I'm actually a fan of the Boston Celtics." Blank stares... "You know, Boston's home team." (crickets chirping)... "Boston...it's near New York." At which point some nervous smiles and head-nods are thrown around. Like a lot of American's fleeting affairs with Lance Armstrong and cycling, one gets the sense that the majority of Chinese interest in baskestball is solely because one of their own is in the mix.

Yao Ming is NBA's tallest player and China's best-known athlete. He was born in Shanghai where he began honing his skills as a teenager with a local club, the Sharks. His height and skills later helped win Shanghai's veteran squad a CBA (Chinese Basketball Assocation) championship. In 2002, he entered the NBA draft and was selected by the Houston Rockets as the first overall pick. He has since started seven times in the NBA All-Star Game and has been named to the All-NBA team five times. In so many ways, he is the fortuitous symbol of China's modernizing aspirations, representing the superior athletic prowess and physical dominance that China's populations possess. Known as the "Great Wall of Houston," his successes are an appropriate prelude to Beijing's 2008 dreams of demonstrating on the world stage their athletic superiority.

By many accounts, the Beijing Olympics were a huge success. China provided the world with an army of capable volunteers and translators, showcased some of the world's most daring, new architecture and proved their superior athletic might by seizing the most gold medals of any participating nation (51). Furthermore, doubts about potential terrorist attacks or media altercations fizzled out with the extinguishing of the flame on August 24. China achieved its goal of hosting the world and showing off its progress while graciously treating and safely protecting its guests. With the success of this 29th Olympiad, however, have come a series of criticisms--some old, some new--that point to a number of blemishes on this pretty face of things: the violation of open media access, violation of human rights, boycotss, pro-Tibetan protestors, religious persectuions, surveillance of foreign hotels, manhandling of foreign journalists, protest zones, secret arrests, imprisonment and harassment of protestors, etc.

Questions:

(1) Why do nations pin nationalistic hopes upon their athletes?
(2) How do the different ways in which the Olympics were portrayed demonstrate the persistance of an East-West cultural and political divide that contradicts "One world, one dream"?

Links:
* Great Wall of Houston
* The Year of Yao
* 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies
* Official Olympic Song (You and Me)

Secondary references:

* Xu Guoqi. Olympic Dreams: China and Sports 1895-2008. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2008.

*Susan Brownell. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.

*Rowan Simmons. Bamboo Goalposts. London: Macmillan, 2008.

Shakespeare, the Sonnet and China

2009-06-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

One of PSU's own, Dr. Alexander Huang, recently published (June 2009) a benchmark study on the interpretations and performances of Shakespeare in Chinese over the past two centuries: Chinese Shakespeares (Columbia University Press). Whether you are interested or not in him (and you should be), Shakespeare's reception, influence and transformation as he has traveled through Chinese language, media and performance is something that sheds a great deal of light upon the main topic of this course: What does it means to be Chinese? As a locus classicus of the western world, Shakespeare carries more with him than bawdry witticisms, enduring plots and neologisms. His name embodies the sundry powers the West has exerted upon the world in its cultural and colonial imperialisms. How the Chinese have appropriated him in the modern era fashions its own virtual stage upon which we as critical observers may observe how the Chinese interact with an enduring paradigm of western culture.

In addition to examining the use of Shakespeare in Chinese in the recent past, we will also look briefly at how the western sonnet form was adopted by the Chinese during their New Poetry movement in the 1920's and 1930's. During this period of cultural renewal in China, following the May 4th (1919) watershed moment, the Chinese were looking to borrow and create their own, novel poetic forms that would depart from the traditional shi that had endured and stiffled creativity for millenia. The sonnet's reception and transformation in Chinese during this period is a testament to New Poetry's dedication to forming its own unique, Chinese creation.

Materials:
*The Banquet (2006)

Questions:
(1) Is this Shakespeare or Feng Xiaogang? Why should this question matter?
(2) What does the inclusion of a pseudo-Shakespearean plot add to the re-imagination of Chinese history?
(3) What are the reasons New Poetry intellectuals gave for adopting the sonnet?

Links:
* Shenzhen Daily, Banquet review
* Movie Review Query Engine, Banquet reviews
* Imdb, Banquet reviews

Secondary references:
(1) Huang, Alexander. Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange. New York: Columbia UP, 2009.
(2) Zhang Xiaoyang. "Shaju yanchu yu shidai shenmei yishi." Waiguo wenxue yanjiu 3 (1988): 68-74.

Zhang Yimou and His Girls

2009-06-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

Zhang Yimou is internationally the most well known of a renowned group of modern Chinese directors called the Fifth Generation. The group gets its name from the order in which it graduated from the Beijing Film Academy (Class of 1982). Zhang's is a history laden with the greatest of hardships and the highest of successes. A citation from a recent interview with Bright Lights touches briefly upon the lingering angst of his past:

"I think my experience represents a wealth of assets for my life and my work. During the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, I went from age sixteen to age twenty-six. I experienced a lot of chaotic situations, and I saw a lot of terrible, tragic things happening around me. From all that I got a deep understanding of human life, of the human heart or spirit — of human society, really — and I think that it benefits me today: in my work, in my thinking, and even in how I deal with personal problems.

The Cultural Revolution was a very special period of Chinese history, unique in the world. For many years, I wanted to make movies about that period — to discuss the suffering and to talk about fate and human relationships in a world that people couldn't control and which was very hostile. In today's political climate, such a project is impossible — as To Live (1994) has proved, at least in my native country — so I'll just have to wait."

The film we prepared for today, Raise the Red Lantern (1991), is a modern International classic based on Ni Zhen's 1990 novel, Wives and Concubines. It represents nicely two of the most salient characteristics of Zhang's cinematic art: (1) stunning visual beauty, and (2) the centrality of female protagonists. The film tells the story of a young woman, Songlian, who becomes the fourth concubine in a powerful family during the Warlord Era (1916-28CE). She is warmly received only to become slowly entangled in the poisonous machinations of the household. Her position is ultimately compromised and the trauma she is forced to endure changes her forever. The screenplay was approved initially by Chinese censors but later banned for rumors that it doubled as a veiled allegory of an oppressive communist China.

Materials:
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)

Questions:
(1) How is the feudal institution of polygamy portrayed in the film?
(2) How do women exercise power in a system where they are often made politically powerless?
(3) How does color contribute to the interpretive force of the film?

Secondary references
*Cardullo, Bert. "Beyond the Fifth Generation: An Interview with Zhang Yimou" Bright Lights Film Journal 58 (2007 Nov).
Chow, Rey. "Not One Less: The Fable of a Migration" Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes. Ed. Chris Berry. London: British Film Institute, 2003. 144-51.
*Levitin, Jacqueline. "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, and House of the Flying Daggers: Interpreting Gender Thematics in the Contemporary Swordplay Film-A View from the West" Asian Cinema 17.1 (2006 Spring-Summer): 166-82.
*Huang, Yiju. "Weaving a Dark Parody: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower" Film International 6.2 (2008): 41-51.
*Lan, Feng:. "Zhang Yimou's Hero: Reclaiming the Martial Arts Film for 'All under Heaven'" Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 20.1 (2008 Spring): 1-43.
*Beus, Yifen: "The Road to Modernity: Urban and Rural Scenes in Zhang Yimou's The Story of Qiu Ju, Not One Less, and The Road Home" Representing the Rural: Space, Place, and Identity in Films about the Land. Ed. Catherine Fowler. MI: Wayne State UP, 2006. 276-91.
*Li, David Leiwei: "Capturing China in Globalization: The Dialectic of Autonomy and Dependency in Zhang Yimou's Cinema" Texas Studies in Literature and Language 49.3 (2007 Fall): 293-317.

Selling Punches and Puns: From Huo Yuanjia to Bruce and Jet Li

2009-06-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

From heroes of the people to superstars of the world, Chinese Kung-fu artists have come light years away from the simple, incognito guardians of temples, officials and small villages of the past to dominate the world cinematic stage. They are a continuing, palpitating presence of the Chinese past in the global imaginary. The present lecture treating Hou Yuanjia, Bruce Lee and Jet Li, offers a historical way of viewing the nationalization and commodification of the Kung-fu master in twentieth century, diasporic China. Tracing the lives, films and fames of these artists suggests a compelling narrative by which we may witness a traditional Chinese cultural practice evolve into a nationalistic and world-wide, financial force of entertainment.

Huo Yuanjia (霍元甲)(1868-1910)

Huo’s story is the stuff made of legend. He was raised in a family of boxers, where his father made a living as a bodyguard. Fighting prowess, however, was not the only skill passed down through the Huo generations. Legend has it that Huo’s father turned down on principle the offers of all the Fat Cats and officials who petitioned his services. Instead, his father was satisfied to lend his services only to those who truly needed it: the poor and misfortunate. He was morally opposed to backing corrupt officials and merchants no matter how enticing the offer (a genuine superhero). Huo, would absorb this sincerity for the masses that would come to characterize his history. At first, though, his future as a martial artist was dim. His father refused to teach a son so obviously physically disadvantaged. The potential damage to the family reputation was too great. But constant, secret training done at night turned him into an adept Labyrinthine boxer (密宗拳).

After his childhood years, Huo moved to Shanghai, a major international port city during the late Qing, where he ardently promoted the martial arts and established an institution called the Jingwu Gym (1910). He was a frequent contestant in international martial arts bouts and was widely known as the defeater of the Japanese and the Occidental strongmen. One of his most famous matches was with a Russian who had moved into Tianjin selling his arts and claiming to be the world’s greatest fighter (1901). Rumors flew that he disparaged the Chinese and their meager martial arts; China and its people were sickly (病夫之国). Huo was enticed by the Westerner’s claims and challenged to take him on in the ring. The crowd mocked him as he approached the mat, but he paid no attention. When he met his Russian contender, he said proudly, “I’m sickly, Asian Huo Yuanjia come to measure up with you on the mat” (“我是‘东亚病夫’霍元甲，愿在这台上与你较量”). Huo proposed two conditions and one consequence to the Russian: (1) retract his claim to be the world’s best fighter, (2) publically apologize for insulting the Chinese empire, or (3) fight to the death. The Russian having heard of Huo’s fame accepted the conditions and snuck out of town. (There are other accounts of similar things happening with foreign challengers). Huo’s fame spread so widely that Qing rebel and Father of the Chinese Republic, Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) indicated Huo as the example of the health and vibrant spirit of the Chinese people: “If you want to make China strong, you must study the martial arts.” In his own hand, Sun wrote calligraphy that hung in Huo’s gym.

Huo's death occurred mysteriously, some believe at the hands of Japanese visitors to Shanghai. In 1910, a team of Judo masters came to Shanghai to test Huo and his students’ metal. They were soundly defeated. It was at a general banquet after the competition that Huo supposedly ingested poison. He died shortly thereafter. As a result of his exploits and fame, however, the martial arts experienced an explosion in interest. A decade after his passing, over 40 branches of his gym had been established with over 40,000 ascribed disciples.

Bruce Lee (李小龙)(1940-1973)

In posthumous evaluations of Bruce Lee’s life, all contributions find their ultimate significance in Lee’s success in publicizing the Chinese martial arts. Of all the things he was and the titles he was given (e.g. “One of the World’s Seven Best Fighters,” “Kung-fu King,” “The Emperor of Martial Arts,” etc.), the one that tied together all his other successes was the attribution that he was the most effective at promoting world-wide Kung-fu. Without that intense marketing and exposure, all other contributions might have remained personal gains, but they would have never ruptured the East/West divide on such a grand scale as he did in accelerating Hollywood’s affair with China and by spurring philosophical, intellectual and athletic interest in traditional, Chinese martial arts the world over. Thus, Bruce Lee’s expansive influence, largely taken for granted in its current pervasiveness, is a consequence of his relationship to the media, principally the videocamera. In many ways, Lee’s role as oriental object, and later director, of the international media blazed the trail for future Chinese actors, actresses and directors to assume prestigious heights in international cinema.

Lee’s first appearances on stage began long before his martial arts exploits. At the time of his birth in San Francisco in 1940, Lee’s father was counted among the most renowned actors of Hong Kong opera. Rumor has it that as an infant Lee was coddled around on stage. As a child growing up in Hong Kong, he would appear in numerous local films. In fact, before he left for the United States in 1959, he had already appeared in 20 productions. He was on course to becoming a famous actor like his father, but because of a scuffle with local gangs Bruce was forced to emigrate for his safety. While in the States, Bruce abandoned his dreams of becoming an actor and gave himself over to his childhood love for the martial arts. What had really began as a suggestion by his father to toughen up, became in his twenties a consuming passion while studying (or not studying) at the University of Washington in Seattle. The rest, as they say, is history. We look at Bruce Lee today for his interpretation of icon Huo Yuanjian in the film, Chinese Connection.

Materials:

Chinese Connection (1972)
Fearless (2006)

Questions:

(1) How is Kung-fu used as a tool for Chinese nationalism?
(2) Is the way Kung-fu used in these histories a means to modernization or the resistance of it?
(3) What is ironic about the use of cinema to lionize the power of a traditional Chinese art?

Links:

*Jet Li, Fearless (O'Brien Scene)

"Iron Women and Foxy Ladies"

2009-06-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Promoting women's liberation began many years before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Three decades earlier (circa 1919), May Fourth intellectuals and writers had sought earnestly to reform the status of women and to disabuse the public mind with regards to their proper place in traditional society. Having suffered generations of emotional and sexual repression, female liberals took direct aim at relationships and passions as a root of their ills. Yang Zhihua, an author with multiple romantic partners, wrote the following in 1922 about disassembling the taboo of heterosexual relationships:

"First, when a man and a woman start to socialize by speaking and writing to each other, going to the parks together, or studying together, people jump to the conclusion that this young man and this young woman are in love, even though they are actually just friends. Consequently, some young men and women succumb to these outside pressures and speculations, go ahead and push themselves in to the 'business of love,' and then have sex. After that, they break up, agonize, and part ways. The whole process usually lasts a very short time because their relationship has the wrong foundation to begin with. This kind of love is caused by outside pressure, so it is not true love. It is not a personal choice, so it usually does not last long."

Another important voice in this movement, Ding Ling, raised quite a few eyebrows with her explicit depiction of female desire in her 1928, fictional memoires, Miss Sophie's Diary:

"I looked up and saw the corners of his soft, read, and deeply inset mouth. Could I tell anyone how I looked at those two delightful lips like a child longing for sweets? But I know that in this society I’ll never be allowed to take what I want to satisfy my impulses and my desires, even though it would do nobody else any harm."

These criticisms leveled at traditional Confucian propriety and the containment and control of female desire opened high society up to the possibility of alternatives to the traditional Chinese, female stereotype. Nonetheless, the majority of Chinese women (particularly the illiterate) would gain little from Yang and Ding's kind of liberation.

With the victory of the Communists over the Nationalists in 1949, Mao and his party sought a more pragmatic and far-reaching type of women's liberation that would produce more tangible results. A shift in focus from individual sexuality to passion for one's work and country became the avenue of emancipation for women seeking to break out of traditional modes. They were given the material means to be socially and financially independent.

A feminist and Chinese scholar, Tonglin Lu, has doubts that that kind of liberation has actually freed women from their ancient restraints:

Up to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the situation of Chinese women after the May Fourth movement in 1919 and since the socialist revolution in 1949 can be summarized by two pictures: Nora leaving her husband’s house and the white-haired girl at the exit of her grotto. The former symbolized individual freedom in the bourgeois revolution; the latter, the liberation of the labor class in the socialist revolution. The two images raise the same question: "What can a woman do after abandoning, or being saved from, her previous slavery?" (4)

In Lu’s analysis, she can only be reabsorbed into ever newer incarnations of patriarchal notions of salvation that engender inequality (3). Communism is the new face of patriarchal repression, in her opinion.

A new generation of young Chinese women rushing to maturity in a contemporary age of economic prosperity might see things quite differently from Lu, however (see reactions to the White Haired Girl in the 21st century)

Readings:
Mao's Red Book (Ch. 31, Women)
Historic Liberation of Chinese Women (1994)

Questions:
(1) Why were women being liberated?
(2) From what were they being liberated?
(3) What do you perceive as ulterior motives for the liberation of women in modernity?

Links:
*Stefan Landsberger's Iron Women and Foxy Ladies
*White Haired Girl (1950, film version)
*Jing Haozhou's 2003 evaluation of the Communisty Party and Women's Liberation
* The Status of Women (Beijing White Papers, June 1994)

Secondary references:
*Tonglin Lu. “Introduction.” Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Society. Ed. Tonglin Lu. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1-22.

Insanity: A Diagnosis of China

2009-06-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

Starting with the Opium Wars (1839-1860) and continuing through the Boxer Rebellion (1891-1901) and the aftermath of World War I (1918-1919), China's Qing rulers and numerous warlords were made again and again to suffer the injustices of foreign incursions and reperations. As an ancient civilization firmly rooted in its traditional forms of science and government, China was unfit and unable to match the diplomatic, militaristic and economical forces of the West and the nearby, modern upstart Japan. As a result, under this cloud of foreign repression a fleet of leaders and intellectuals rushed to modernize China materially and culturally in the opening decades of the twentieth century.

Lu Xun, a leader in this cultural force to modernize, led a life that would serve as a template for a generation of young authors seeking to make their mark on a new Chinese literature. Lu Xun was born in 1881 at the end of the decaying Qing dynasty (1644-1912) into an important family, the Zhous. As a young man, he, along with his siblings, aspired to positions of high repute in government and society. Because conditions in China did not offer good prospects for education, Lu Xun studied abroad. In 1904, Lu Xun enrolled in Japan's Sendai Medical Academy where he hoped to learn the science of medicine and bring much needed reform to the backwards practice of traditional Chinese medicine. While in Japan, though, he became disillusioned with the power of the sciences to heal his peoples' ills. He tells the story of how he converted to pursuing the arts as a young man witnessing the humiliation of his people:

"I do not know what advanced methods are now used to reach microbiology, but at that time lantern slides were used to show the microbes; and if the lecture ended early, the instructor might show slides of natural scenery or news to fill up the time. This was during the Russo-Japanese War, so there were many war films, and I had to join in the clapping and cheering in the lecture hall along with the other students. It was a long time since I had seen any compatriots, but one day I saw a film showing some Chinese, one of whom was bound, while many others stood around him. They were all strong fellows but appeared completely apathetic. According to the commentary, the one with his hands bound was a spy working for the Russians, who was to have his head cut off by the Japanese military as a warning to others, while the Chinese beside him had come to enjoy the spectacle. Before the term was over I had left for Tokyo, because after this film I felt that medical science was not so important after all. The people of a weak and backward country, however strong and healthy they may be, can only serve to be made examples of, or to witness such futile spectacles; and it doesn't really matter how many of them die of illness. The most important thing, therefore, was to change their spirit, and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I determined to promote a literary movement" ("Preface," Call to Arms)

Because all matter of cures and technologies could not reform the spirit of the Chinese, Lu Xun decided to effect change via the arts. The rest of his life would be spent teaching at a number of universities, heading up and editing fledgling literary journals and institutions and writing a mass of influential short stories and essays. Two of his most famous short stories appearing in the collection a Call to Arms (1922) exaggerate and satirize the plight of a modern China in tension with its traditional past.

Readings:
Diary of a Madman
The True Story of Ah Q

Questions:

(1) In what ways is the figure of Ah Q a pun on the unreformed, pre-modern Chinese spirit?
(2) How are the men who escape their cultural pasts depicted in both stories?
(3) What effect do frames/introductions by secondary narrators add to the tales?

Links:
* Ah Q
* 阿Q 外传
* Insanity and Criminality in Contemporary China

Secondary references:
* Michel Foucault. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage Press, 1988.
*Zhang Jingyuan. Psychoanalysis in China: Literary Transformations, 1919-1949. Ithaca: Cornel UP, 1992.

Monkeys Rule

2009-06-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Journey to the West, or The Monkey King, is a late Ming, fictitious creation based on the journey of the historical figure Xuanzang (602-664CE) to India during the Tang dynasty (618-907CE). At the time, Xuanzang was a monk at Jingtu Temple in the capital of Chang'an. Disheartened by social corruption and the poor quality of translations of Buddhist scriptures, Xuanzang took it upon himself to travel to India to learn the doctrine directly and eventually provide superior replacements for the flawed Chinese canon. With the Emperor's blessing and the help of other Buddhists, Xuanzang made the treacherous journey across the barren deserts and steppes of central and western China. His journey lasted 17 years, from 629-647CE, during which he faced numerous hardships, visited important religious sites in India and studied at the ancient Indian university at Nalanda.

Popular stories of Xuanzang's travels cropped up during the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368CE). Finally, at the end of the Ming (1368-1644CE), novelist and poet Wu Cheng'en (~1500-58CE) combined all these legends, adding to them his own allegorical, literary and political sensibilities to form a summa of the legends about Xuanzang's journey. Like the other great novels of the late Ming and high Qing, Wu's work was a daring linguistic project, taking up the vernacular instead of the classical language to tell his story. For centuries, in fact, the authorship of the text was in doubt because its author elected to remain anonymous in order to avoid censure for having written in dialect. Journey to the West, like Dream of the Red Chamber, is a work not only read for its surface narratives but for the political and religious meanings that subtend it.

Wu's story contains 100 chapters that recount the perilous journeyings of Tripitaka (Xuanzang) and his four spectacular companions/gaurdians (Monkey, Piggie, Sandy and Dragon) in the episodic manner of Arthurian legend. Assaulted by ghosts, goblins, beasts, often trials programmatically arranged by the gods, the pilgrims are in constant danger but always miraculously pull through. In the end, Tripitaka makes it to India and receives the Buddhist scriptures from the living Buddha atop Vulture Peak.

Readings:
Journey to the West (see ANGEL)

Questions:

(1) How do you see the Monkey King functioning in the story?
(2) Where are there passages where soci0-religious criticisms may be being made?
(3) How is the tale an allegory for the human soul?

Secondary references:
*
*

Palace Politics

2009-06-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

The Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone, written by Cao Xueqing in the 18th century, is one of the "Four Great Qing Novels." In fact, it is considered the most important of the four and the culmination of classical Chinese novels. Princeton sinologist Andrew H. Plaks encapsulates the importance and universal scope of the work:

"Nearly all readers of the Dream of the Red Chamber--both native and foreign--come away with the impression that what they have experienced in the lengthy span from cover to cover is a comprehensive view of the entire civilization of the Imperial China. This sense of cultural completeness may be largely attributed to the simple fact that the novel presents at exceedingly close range the day-to-day life of a bygone age of glory--and there is little doubt that this aspect is responsible for the degree of emotional attachment with which the work has been treasured by two centuries of readers." (11)

Cao's work is unique in its sheer bredth, taking in the whole sweep of Chinese history, mythology, religion and arts. Having written the novel in the vernacular Beijing dialect, Cao also used the work to legitimize linguistic forms of literary expression other than Classical Chinese, used almost exclusively in the practice of the high literary arts.

The novel records the daily lives of important members of the Rongguo and Ningguo Houses of the Jia Clan, one of the most illustrious clans at court at the time. The history of the fall of these houses follows the narrower narrations of the lives of over thirty main characters and four hundred minor ones. Jia Baoyu, a precious Genji like boy, is the heir of his family and the main character of the novel. His emotional entanglement in love affairs and the mythic nature of his birth and end provide some of the novel's most poignant and engaging episodes.

Like the great works of the Western literary tradition (e.g. the Commedia, The Canterbury Tales, the Quixote, etc.), The Dream of the Red Chamber has accumulated centuries of commentaries and criticisms. The study of the novel in fact has its own designation called "Redology." Four schools of criticism have grown up around it and have debated insoluble historical and literary cruxes for centuries. Important themes that have occupied and intrigued researchers and readers have been the novel's autobiographical, social, archetypal and politically allegorical elements. In reading some passages from the novel, we will focus on some of the social and archetypal aspects of the text.

Readings:
Dream of the Red Chamber (see ANGEL)

Questions:
(1) What are some of the mythic and religious elements informing the story?
(2) How do these elements seem to function in the convoluted realities of this prestigious clan?
(3) What do we learn about social relations between classes and genders during the Qing from in this text?
(4) What some to be some of the inherent tensions between fiction and history in the tale?

Secondary references:
*Plaks, Andrew H. Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976.
* Xiao Chi. The Chinese Garden as Lyric Enclave: A Generic Study of The Story of the Stone. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2001.
*Alexander des Forges, "From Source Texts to 'Reality Observed:' The Creation of the Author in 19th Century Chinese Vernacular Fiction," CLEAR 22 (Dec. 2000): 67-84.

So I Married an Axe Murderer

2009-05-31T19:03:00.000-07:00

So I Married an Axe Murderer

This unit introduces what is commonly thought of as lightweight literature: Chinese ghost stories. Not until the twenteith century has ficiton of this nature even been considered a remotely respectable form of literature. That means that for centuries in China the writing of ghost stories and their enjoyment were almost entirely an unrespected, diversional activity, the indulgence of innocent children, bored youth and weery scholars. This however does not imply that they were not well crafted or culturally significant. Quite to the contrary. Ghost stories were an imaginative realm of the Chinese mind that gave vent to fears, desires, angsts and fantasies too often smothered in reality by taboos and propriety. They were often elegantly penned by the hand of learned literati. Furthermore, they contain much in the way of contemporary, social criticism and satire. Their role in the development of modern Chinese literature is significant (v.s. David Der-wei Wang, "Second Haunting").

Ghost stories in China are not strictly speaking horror stories, as understood in the Western sense. As a genre that grew out of taoist hagiographies (tales of magical sages), ancestor worship, folk religions and old stories, the tales involve the occult and fantastical but not necessarily the gory or terrifying. Their most acclaimed narrators in China come out of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912): Pu Songling and Zhi Yun.

Readings:
Pu Songling's Strange Tales (see ANGEL)
Zhi Yun's Sketches from a Cottage (see ANGEL)

Questions:
(1) What are unique about these ghost stories?
(2) What social issues do these tales seem to tackle?
(3) Locate some of the stories' stock characters. What is significant about their function?

Links:
*Tang Menglai's Preface

Secondary references:
* Chang, Chun-shu and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang. Redefining History: Ghosts, Spritis, and Human Society in P'u Sung-ling's World, 1640-1715. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998.
* Zeitlin, Judith T. Historian of the Strange: Pu Songlin and the Chinese Classical Tale. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1993.
*David Der-wei Wang and Shang Wei. Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005.

My Zen Teacher is Nuts!

2009-05-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

My Zen Teacher is Nuts!

During the Tang dynasty, the foreign, import religion, Buddhism, became officially recognized and patronized by the imperial courts. Shen Xiu, the face of Buddhism for a time and founder of what is know historically as the Northern School of Zen, was strongly supported by aristocrats and nobility. In the shadow of of this public respendlence, however, another breed of Buddhism began to grow, and, very appropriately, from the unlikeliest of sources. Hui Neng, an illiterate fuel-wood peddler, and his energetic pupil Shen Hui began challenging the meaning and doctrines of prevailing Buddhist beliefs and practices by their emphasis on the religious significane of mundane, human experiences. According to this radical strand of thought, formal practices such as meditaiton and absolute quietude were unnescessary, even troublesome , auxiliaries to the perfectly adequate activities of everyday life in realizing one's Buddha-nature. The renowned sinologist Wing-tsit Chan summarizes the nature of Hui Neng and Shen Hui's poistion, named the Southern School (what would prevail as the as the orthodox Chan or Zen school), in the following way:

"Everything other than the cultivation of the mind, such as reading scriptures, making offerings to the Buddha, reciting His name, joining the monastic order, are regarded as unnescessary. The total effect is to minimize, if not to wipe out, the whole Buddhist organziation, creed, and literature and to reduce Buddhism to a concern with one's mind alone" (A Source Book 428)

Just how was this minimization brought about? The history is complex and the methods are sundry, but the prinicple is singular: to attach oneself to a master who will disabuse you of all attempts to attain Buddhahood. This seems perfectly counter-intuitive and counter-productive. It is. But because the Southern School believed that what was necessary for enlightenement was a stripping down of Buddhist practices, the methods tended to seem wildely irreligious and irreverent. This was meant to free the mind from the bonds of desire and logic in pursuing Buddhist ideals. A whole library of literary works cropped up documenting the surreal teachings and strange encounters between Zen masters and their pupils. Here is a typically beffudling example from the classic the Blue Cliff Record (碧巖錄)(1125CE). These short, pithy accounts are known as gong an (koan). They were purported to have lead many a lucky pupil to enlightenment:

"Nansen told Joshu what had happened, and asked him for his view. Joshu thereupon took his sandals, put them upon his head and went away. Nansen said, 'If you had been there, I could have spared the cat.'"

Where is the doctrine? Where is the logic?... Exactly.

Readings:
(1) Platform Sutra (see ANGEL)
(2) Records of the Teachings of Master Yi Xuan (see ANGEL)

Questions:
(1) What purpose do you see obsurdity having in religious experience?
(2) What is the logic of irrationality?
(3) How would this kind of teaching change the image of a sacred, religious figure like the Buddha?

Links:
*Blue Cliff Record , The Gateless Gate , Book of Equanimity
*A Finger Pointing to the Moon (Bruce Lee)
*Steve Carrell babbling

Secondary sources:
* Wing-Tsit Chan. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1963.

* Bill Porter. A Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits. Mercury House, 2009.

* Edward Burger's documentaries on Buddhist hermits

* Zhou Yu. Bai yun shen chu 白云深处 (Deep Dwelling in the Clouds). Jilin Publishers, 2010.

How to be a Hermit

2009-05-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

Underneath the surface current of an engaged Confucian life deeply flowed a channel of hermetic aesthetics. Chinese scholars preparing for life at court or already employed there developed a lasting and complex tradition of imagining an idyllic, rural life outside the capital. Much like the Western creation of the pastoral ideal in the hands of the urbane, the romanticization of the hermit or country life became the respository of Confucian scholars' desires for respite and repose. The fantasy of dwelling alone in nature and among one's numberless scrolls became a prime form of escape from the demands of an active, political life, or, at the very least, the poetic justificaiton for not being able to become a part of it.

Readings:
Tao Yuanming
Xie Lingyun (p.524-32)
Meng Haoran
Wang Wei

Questions:
(1) Identify the recurring, poetic images that make up this aesthetic.
(2) How, if at all, do these poets handle differently the imagination of an idyllic existence?
(3) Are there any images that seek to disrupt the harmony of these perfect imaginations?
(4) Is there any poet who appears more manneristic (imitative) in his treatment than others?

Links:
*Video (Youtube) of China's landscapes
*Definition of the "wild"?
*A modern Chinese definition of "nature"?
*OED definitions of "nature"?
*Modern state of Chinese environment?

Secondary references:
*Frodsham, J.D. The Murmuring Stream: The Life and Works of the Chinese Nature Poet Hsieh Ling-yun (385-433), Duke of K'ang-Lo. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1967.
*Charles Yim-tze Kwong. Tao Qian and the Chinese Poetic Tradition. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994.
*Swartz, Wendy. Reading Tao Yuanming. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2008.
*Tian Xiaofei. Tao Yuanming & Manuscript Culture. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2005.
*Hightower, James Robert. The Poetry of T'ao Ch'ien. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1970.
*Kroll, Paul W. Meng Hao-Jan. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981.
*Yu, Pauline. The Poetry of Wang Wei: New Translations and Commentary. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980.

Heroic Portraits

2009-05-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

Under the ambitious direction of Emperor Wu, the Han dynasty (202BC-220AD) successfully moved forward in the kind of empire making the tyrant Qin Shi Huang had begun decades before. Emperor Wu pushed the borders of his kingdom into the vast frontiers of other foreign lands. His troops reached the lands of central Asia, northern Korea and northern Vietnam, beating back barbarians (Xiongnu) and forging new trade and diplomatic routes. Back in the heart of his kingdom, Emperor Wu established the parameters of a new cultural order as well. Confucianism, only one of many philosophies and orders introduced and developed during the Eastern Zhou, now became the ruling doctrine of the court and the ethical paradigm for Han society.

In the midst of these monumental imperial achievements, Emperor Wu made sure that his court historians and recorders were on hand to document the events and weave them into the grand historical narratives of Chinese civilization. The Sima family (司馬) was intimately involved in the production of a new comprehensive history of China. Sima Tan held the position of Grand Historian at court for thirty years (140-110BC) before his health failed him and he was forced to cede the position to his prodigious son, Sima Qian. Sima Qian picked up where his father left off, gathering sources and completing the Records of the Grand Historian (史記). Because of his unique and turbulent history and numerous literary gifts, Sima Qian's historical record would refashion the face of Chinese historiography and set a standard for prose compositions for millenia to come. Unlike the strictly dynastic histories of the past, Sima Qian's volumes span thousands of years of history and highlight the lives of important figures in a string of exempla. His project is ambitious as a sort of universal history that transcends its own particular moment in time. However, at the same time it demonstrates a sensitivity to details and character that attests to its author's consciousness of specific conditions and human natures.

Readings:
Emperor Wu of the Han (see ANGEL)
Qu Yuan (see ANGEL)

Jingke, Assassin

Questions:
(1) How does Sima Qian characterize the Zhou?
(2) How does Emperor of Wu, Sima Qian's contemporary, come off in this biography?
(3) How does the biography of Jingke from the exemplary persons section of the records differ from the previous accounts?
(4) What is your opinion of what Sima Qian understands to be the universal history of the Chinese?

Links:
(1) Han Map

Secondary references:

Confucian Cortegiani and Fluttering Sages

2009-05-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

After the fall of the Ji family at the end of the Western Zhou, the Zhou clan began its steady descent from the heights of real power into the trappings of nominal rule. The centuries following, called the Eastern Zhou, were marked by a steady growth in the increasing power of smaller principates and kingdoms once held under the centralized power of the early Zhou. 12 powerful rulers (十二諸侯) directed the most important affairs of the continent. As the years wore on, the Zhou clan receded from the forefront of power as military mights such Qin, Jin, Qi, Chu and Wu rose to prominence. These states thrived off of the consumption of smaller neighboring states and the volatile dealings of foreign diplomacy between one another. With the Zhou remaining merely as a puppet suzerain, the infighting between the these powerful states threw society into centuries of unrest. The chaotic conditions of life, however, created the conditions under which innovation was possible. It was toward the end of the Spring and Autumn period (722-481BC) and the beginning of the Warring States period (476-221BC) that Kongzi or Confucius was born and would initiate a cultural revolution that would shape China for millenia to come.

Confucius was part of a new emerging class of minor, poor nobility (士) who were involved in the active formulation of new cultural paradigms for China and who peddled their intellect and virtue as a means for their own physical and existential sustenance. Amidst the turmoil of these times, men of superior intellect wandered from court to court seeking audience and offering their services to (mostly corrupt) officials. Though he would become the most well known, Confucius was hardly the only important figure of this intellectually vibrant period. In fact, the period is also known today as that of the 100 schools of philosophy (諸子百傢). Alongside Confucius, equally important figures in their times were Mozi, Laozi, Han Feizi, Zhuangzi and Mencius. Each of these figures would present their own versions of what constituted a harmonious society and an ideal rulership. Each philosophized their own way (道) of personal and communal cultivation to the establishment of harmony and order, that eagerly sought after point of natural repose. In our readings we look behind the philosophy to the role of the philosopher in the pitching of the way to the achievement of repose. We will read excerpts from the Analects (Confucius), the Mencius, Mozi, the Laozi and the Zhuangzi as we seek to formulate how the role of the philosopher evolves and effects and is effected by his philosophies of social and inner harmony.

Readings:
Analects (Book 1 and 2)
Mencius (Book 1.1)
Mozi (Book 4.1 and 5.1,2)
Laozi (Ch. 29-39)
Zhuangzi (Ch. 7)

Questions:
(1) How would you characterize the character or tones of these different philosophers?
(2) What are some of the details of their way or dao (道)?
(3) How are these philosophers implicated in their own philosophies or in the societies they hope to establish?

Links:
(1) Slides for 100 Schools

Secondary readings:

Brazen Kings and Bronze Vessels

2009-05-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

China, like any venerable, classical civilization, has woven its own web of mythological foundations. As anthropologists and psychoanalysts of the 19th and 20th centuries have insisted, understanding the mysterious and fantastical foundations of civilization is essential to more fully grasping the evolutionary nature of human history. In the case of China, familiarizing ourselves with the legends of great emperors long past and some central, creation myths and aetiologies, allows us to tap into the rich deposits of Chinese historical and imaginary thinking. While avoiding psychoanalyzing these myths (in the way Greek myth is often allegorized) we may miss posing any universal, human substratum to legend that make them transculturally intelligible. However, this avoidance is also an interpretive strategy with its own benefits, by which we hope to attain to a more precise historical nature of the legends and their repeated use throughout a millenial Chinese history. By learning these legends, we immediately become sensitive to the myriad ways in which they are inovked in subsequent texts to specific political ends. Today, we familiarize ourselves with a portion of the quasi-historical or mythological foundations of China that will assist us in understanding later historical moments and discussions in which they arise:

*Yu
*Yi the archer

Important archealogical discoveries of ritualized bronze vessels beginning in the early Han dynasty (206BC-220AD) posed a material site on which to ground Chinese historical and mythological fantasies. These bronze vessels, once used as ritualized containers of foods and wines, from the Han to the modern era became receptacles for a Chinese imagination of its own origins. They were both the proof of cultural intuitions of greatness and uniqueness and the material, fetishized oracle of re-imaginations of the same. Thus, they were the tangible sign of illustrious civilization and the material mandate for future, cultural consolidation and diffusion. A grotesque, but nonetheless telling, example of how the bronze vessel was used to benefit later generations comes at the end of the Southern Song dynasty (960-1127AD). Faced with the invasion of Jurchen tribes and imminent evacuation to the South, the Song court issued a number of imperial edicts requiring the melting down of bronze vessels into coinage--a literal monetization of what had to that point been only commercable, cultural capital. While this act appears to betray the hallowed significance that the bronze vessel seemed to promise to most eras, it actually reveals the true nature of the power relationship between history and the present, by which the past is ultimately at the mercy of current exigensies and interpretations.

Questions:
(1) What initial, social function do you see these mythologies serving? What might they explain?
(2) What are some scenarios in which you imagine these mythologies being invoked?
(3) Why are material discoveries (i.e. bronze vessels) so important to the formation of identity in the present?
(4) Why were bronze vessels important in the first place? (Shaughnessy 175-83)

Maps and links:
(1) The Met's introduction to Shang and Zhou bronzes
(2) The Piece-mold Method
(3) Chinese Discovery Channel Intro. to Bronze Vessels
(4) The Dynasties
(5) Map of Shang
(6) Map of Zhou

Secondary References:
*Treasures from the Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition from the People's Republic of China. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980.
*Edward L. Shaughnessy. Sources of Western Zhou History: Inscribed Bronze Vessels. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992.

What does it mean to study "Chineseness'?

2009-05-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

In the postscript to her chapter “Against the Lures of Diaspora,” Brown University Professor and leading Chinese scholar Rey Chow summarizes the complexities and pitfalls of speaking of and for China from the space of the First World. She explains:

"What are we doing talking about modern Chinese literature and Chinese women in the North American academy in the 1990s? As such activities of speaking and writing are tied less to the oppressed women in Chinese communities in China than to our own intellectual careers in the West, we need to unmask ourselves through a scrupulous declaration of self-interest. Such declaration does not clean our hands, but it prevents the continuance of a tendency, rather strong among Third World intellectual in diaspora as well as researchers of non-Western cultures in First World nations, to sentimentalize precisely those day-to-day realities from which they are distanced." (41)

Chow’s question and its implications are primarily directed at the diaspora of Chinese intellectuals who now find themselves abroad enjoying particularly advantageous positions (conceptually and professionally) from which to give voice to their homelands which have been treated historically as global afterthoughts, minor literatures and cultures. The situation in which we find ourselves is slightly different. Nonetheless, the need to “unmask ourselves” and scrupulously confess our “self-interests” and monitor our sentimentalization of the Chinese Other is no less crucial to the tasks we pose for ourselves in this course.

The social, cultural and linguistic distances that separate us from the Chinese objects of our study is an immense expanse of creative space created by our privilege as so-called First World investigators. However, it is important to realize that this position while it carries with it in name and truth real power, is ultimately delusional as an imagined, exalted height. In other words, the privileged space we occupy is largely an outgrowth of our own ignorance and lack of experience with Chinese languages and cultures. Thus, it behooves us as we study throughout the semester to remind ourselves constantly that our desires, interests, opinions and readings of the history and arts of China are not only underwritten by our own American self-interests but more importantly our fundamental ignorance of our subject. The embrace of this realization will help us to avoid trivializing, essentializing and sentimentalizing Chinese culture as we diligently study and formulate our own critical positions.

Questions:
(1) What are some of your assumptions about what it means to be Chinese?
(2) What are your motives in seeking to define the image of Chineseness?
(3) What are some of our assumptions in feeling empowered, entitled to study this subject?

Introductory Video Clips:
(1) SpongeBob in China
(2) Tom Carter's Portrait of a People

Secondary texts:
*Gayatri Spivak. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988. 271-313. (esp. 275)
*Xiaomei Chen, "Introduction," Occidentalism (New York: Oxford UP, 1995), 17.

Words to Live By

2009-05-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Four Books of Confucianism was a collection designated by Song dynasty intellectual Zhu Xi as the foundation of Confucianism and the basis for the civil service examinations. It contained the words of Confucius and his closest disciples (and later commentators), including his famed successor Mencius. The Four Books include: The Great Learning, The Golden Mean, The Analects and The Mencius.

The first two are actually chapters from the classical text, The Book of Rites, purportedly written by Confucius himself. The Great Learning and The Golden Mean place learning, virtue, and self-cultivation well within the scope of the interests of society and the pursuit of ideas of dialectical and social harmony. In a sense, unlike a radical Grecian or Christian truth that promises to destabilize society, a Confucian truth tends to harmonize all facets of personal and collective existence. The last two books, The Analects and The Mencius, are the Chinese equivalents of Platonic dialogues in which the master Confucius and his disciples (principally Mencius) are shown conversing with important political leaders and their own followers in which they convey proper behavioral and ethical codes. These books were the cornerstones of learning, ethics and courtesy in China for millenia. Their wisdom and stories are part of the Chinese collective memory and still on the tip of many tongues.

Readings:
The Great Learning
The Golden Mean
The Analects
The Mencius

Questions:
(1) Find evidences where personal cultivation and social harmony meet.
(2) How do you negotiate the dynamic between the wisdom of tradition and the virtue brought to bear by the individual?
(3) What does a web of learning look like? And what is meant by man's resting place within it?
(4) What are the attributes of a learned, virtuous man as defined by these texts?

Links:
(1) The Classic of Poetry as the anchor of Confucianism (LiJi 29)

Secondary readings:
*Wing-Tsit Chan. "Neo-Confucianism: New Ideas on Old Terminology" Philosophy East and West vol.17, no. 1/4 (1967): 15-35.

Hooking-Up in Antiquity

2009-05-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

A dominant trend in Shijing scholarship over the past century has taken a markedly anthropological approach to the interpretation of these some 300 classical, Chinese poems. The collection's poems deal most directly with concerns, activities, rituals and histories intimately connected to the lives of the common folk. Their origins in a pre-literate, oral reality, combined with their later, overtly Confucian overlay, have lead many sinologists to emphasize the social, ritualized significance of the verses. One of the dominant topics of the Shijing, love and courtship, continues to fascinate anthropologists seeking to piece together the habits of the ancient enamored.

Our readings of the Shijing poems (mainly from the opening Guofeng section) will address the potential social functions indicated by the above anthropological method as well as the later Confucian interpretations and allegorizations that solemnized the poems as guides for ethical, proper behavior in civilized, courtly society (v.s. Large and Small prefaces).

Readings:
Odes Of Zhou (1-11)
Odes of Shao (12-25)

Questions:
(1) What is the tone of the various poetic voices in these poems?
(2) What do the poems convey to you about romantic or marital relationships in (pre-) classical China?
(3) How does the fact that the poems were written by men about women's relationships affect our understanding of what is conveyed in the poems?

Links:
(1) Great Preface
(2) Guan-guan
(3) Virginia's dual-language Shijing etext

Secondary references:
* Kern, Martin. "Shijing Songs as Performance Texts: A Case Study of 'Chu ci'." Early China 25 (2000): 49-111.
*Shaugnessy, Edward L. "From Liturgy to Literature: The Ritual Contexts of the Earliest Poems in the Book of Poetry." Before Confucius: Studies in the Creation of the Chinese Classics. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997. 165-197.
* Granet, Marcel. Festivals and Songs of Ancient China. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1975.

Introduction to Chinese Culture, Cinema and Literature

2009-04-08T07:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to CHNS260. This course will be fast and furious and with your participation, maddeningly entertaining. I've posted the syllabus for your perusal and am confident you'll find a number of topics that will both interest and befuddle you. The idea of the course is to introduce familiar, stimulating and controversial topics on China on a daily basis in a salon-like format. Daily readings are the foundations for open, lively discussion on a given topic for that day. Your informed, intelligent opinions (and occasional rants) are urgently solicited. I look forward to meeting and hearing from you all soon.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Informed by cutting-edge approaches to the study of China, this multimedia-enhanced course introduces students to classical and modern Chinese literature, culture and cinema. Topics integral to the history and perception of China guide daily discussion and include: kungfu, nationalism, hiphop, buddhism, basketball, gender, sexuality, insanity, the rickshaw, etc. As students deepen their understanding of the historical significance of these topics they will continuously be challenged to formulate what it means to be Chinese and to interrogate how and why they define it in such ways.

COURSE OBJECTIVES
(1) To increase specific and general knowledge of China’s artistic and cultural history;
(2) To enhance skills to analyze the different artistic genres and cultural phenomena of the Chinese-speaking world;
(3) To learn to produce different kinds of evaluative literature of the arts: (a) collegiate essay, (b) film review, (c) book review, (d) presentation(s);
(4) To develop appropriate, professional communication skills through writing assignments, class discussion and presentations.

TEXTS
To save you money most of the primary readings are made available online (as PDF files or HTML files) through the course websites and library e-Reserves. You need to access the texts well in advance in case there are problems with the websites. There are also two other inexpensive books that you will need to purchase for the course:

(1) Gascoigne, Bamber. The Dynasties of China. London: Constable & Robinson, Ltd., 2003. (~$12)

(2) Berry, Christopher J. and Mary Ann Farquhar. China on Screen: Cinema and Nation. New York: Columbia UP. 2006. (~$20)

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:
(***The instructor withholds the right to adjust the syllabus at any time.)

Week I : Cultural Foundations

5/18 M Introduction to Course: What does it mean to study “Chineseness”?
5/19 T Bronze Vessels and Brazen Kings (read The Dynasties of China)
5/20 W Hooking-Up in Antiquity (Selections from the Shi Jing)
5/21 Th Words to Live By (Selections from the Great Learning and the Middle Way)

Week II: The Rise of the Intellectual

5/26 M Confucian Cortegiani (Selections from the Analects, the Mengzi, the Laozi and the Zhuangzi)
5/27 T On Fluttering Sages (Selections from the Liezi and the Biography of Transcendents)
5/28 W Heroic Portraits (Selections from Records of the Grand Historian)

*Book Review (The Dynasties of China, ANGEL)

Week III: Life On the Margins

6/2 T How to be a Hermit (Selections from Tao Yuanming, Xie Lingyun, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei)
6/3 W My Zen Teacher is Nuts! (Selections from The Platform Sutra and Recorded Conversations of Zen Master Yi Xuan)
6/4 Th So I Married an Axe Murderer (Selections from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio and Sketches from the Cottage)

* Presentations (ANGEL)

Week IV: The Art of Governance

6/9 T Presentations
6/10 W Palace Politics (Selections from Story of the Stone)
6/11 Th Monkeys Rule (Selections from Journey to the West)

* Test 2 (Week 4, ANGEL)/* Collegiate Essay (ANGEL)

Week V: Modernity and Liberation

6/16 T Insanity (Selections from Lu Xun’s short stories and essays)
6/17 W “Iron Women and Foxy Ladies” (Selections from Mao’s Red Book, the Historic Liberation of Chinese Women, The White Haired Girl)
6/18 F Selling Punches and Puns: Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan

*Film Review (Raise the Red Lantern)

Week VI: China and the West; a Remix

6/23 F Zhang Yimou and His Girls (Watch Raise the Red Lantern, Media Center)
6/24 M Shakespeare, the Sonnet and China (Watch The Banquet, Media Center)
6/25 W Yao Ming and Olympic Dreams (Selections from People’s Daily)

Final

6/29 M *Test 2 (On China on Screen: Cinema and Nation and what it means to be “Chinese”)

CHN 120 日記

2009-02-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

中文120
2011 年 3 月 11 號

活動總結：
今天我們不做什麼──開玩笑──嚴格的說，我們作了好多事，可是它們不算是典型的而已。不要看書，我們聽孔子的話，看一篇關於日本8。8級強震的新聞報告，還有看了馬龍魚的網頁──那個傢伙真有病。誰要變成一隻美人魚？！拜託！

然後，我們看 Griffin 和 Karly 唱卡拉ok。他們很棒，是不是？麥克風 (microphone) 的冠軍 (champ)! 呵呵！"Juliette, 我們結婚吧！"

Chinese Cinema: Imaginative Modes for Engendering a Nation

2009-01-11T03:53:00.000-08:00

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course provides answers to three broad questions:

(1) What and (2) How does Chinese cinematic history tell us about the quest for national (and transnational) identities?;

(3) What are the changing strategies, modes and contents of particular visual narrations of said identities?

In this course, we examine the major cinematic modes, genres and themes of Chinese film invested in the construction of national identities from the cinema’s infancy in the late Qing (1905) to the present. Through the investigation of various historical, operatic, realistic and combative modes of cinematic narration, we come to a detailed understanding of Chinese cinematic history and how it participates directly in efforts to imagine various Chinese communities whose roots are in the national. Because such imaginations on screen are visually and rhetorically unique, we approach our analysis of these films with the realization that a coherent national identity can not be taken for granted. In fact, that these films artfully narrate their tales in unique ways is a testament to the continuing evolutionary and pluralistic nature of Chinese national and transnational identities. It is our privilege to experience and to analyze these numerous visual displays of what it can mean to be Chinese in a modern world.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

(1) To enjoy the spectacle of 100 years of Chinese cinema;
(2) To become an educated reader of Chinese cinematic history;
(3) To learn the major cinematic modes, genres, themes and gendered imaginations of Chinese productions in their endeavors to define the national;
(4) To become a proficient writer of the collegiate essay and professional film review;
(5) To inspire you to enjoy the next 100 years of Chinese cinema.

TEXTS

Assignments for the course will consist of a combination of film viewing and the reading of critical, secondary literature. Required films for the course are available on reserve in the library’s media center. All secondary literature is retrievable online (as PDF files or HTML files) through the course websites and library e-Reserves. You need to access the texts online well in advance in case there are problems with the websites.

SCHEDULE

*The instructor may adjust the syllabus at any time. Be sure to refer often to the course website.

Opium War Films 鸦片影片: Historicizing a National Wound

Unit 1

*Rosenstone, Robert A. “The Historical Film: Looking at the Past in a Postliterate Age.” The Historical Film: History and Memory in the Media. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2001. 50-67.

*Chow, Rey. “Introduction: On Chineseness as a Theoretical Problem.” Boundary 2 25.3 (1998): 1-24.

Unit 2 *Bu Wancang’s 卜万苍 Eternal Fame 万世流芳 (1943)

Unit 3 *Zheng Junli’s 郑君里 Lin Zexu and the Opium War林则徐 (1959)

Unit 4 *Li Quanxi’s 李泉溪 The Opium War 鸦片战争 (1963)

Unit 5 *Xie Jin’s 谢晋The Opium War 鸦片战争 (1997)

*First film review due

Shadow Opera 影戏: Staging the Nation as Spectacle

Unit 6

*Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde.” Early Cinema: Space—Frame—Narrative. Eds. Thomas Elsaesser and Adam Barker. London: British Film Institute, 1990. 56-62.

*Chen Xihe. “Shadowplay: Chinese Film Aesthetics and Their Philosophical and Cultural Fundamentals.” Chinese Film Theory: A Guide to a New Era. Eds. George S. Semsel, Xia Hong, and Hou Jianping. Trans. Hou Jianping, Li Xiaohong, and Fan uan. London: Praeger, 1990. 192-204.

Unit 7 *Zhang Shichuan’s 张石川The Classic Daughter 女儿经 (1934), *Fei Mu’s 费穆 Remorse at Death 生死恨 (1948)

Unit 8 *Wang Bin’s王滨The White-haired Girl 白毛女 (1950)

Unit 9 *Xie Tieli’s 谢铁骊Azalea Mountain 杜鹃山 (1973)

Unit 10 *Chen Kaige’s 陈凯歌Farewell, My Concubine 霸王别姬 (1993)

Unit 11 *Ang Lee’s 李安Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 卧虎藏龙 (2000)

*First essay due

Socialist Realism现实主义: A Focus on the Family

Unit 12

*Elaesser, Thomas. “Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama.” Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Woman’s Film. Ed. Christine Gledhill. London: BFI, 1987.

*Chow, Rey. “Introduction.” Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films. New York: Columbia Up, 2007. 1-25.

Unit 13 *Yuan Muzhi 袁牧之 Street Angel 马路天使 (1937)

Unit 14 *Sang Hu 桑弧New Year’s Sacrifice 祝福 (1956)

Unit 15 *Allen Fong’s 方育平 Father and Son 父子情 (1981)

Unit 16 *Chen Kaige 陈凯歌Yellow Earth 黄土地 (1984)

Unit 17 *Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 Raise the Red Lantern 大红灯笼高高挂 (1990)

*Second film review due

Kung-fu Flicks and New Violence武侠片: Experimentations in Loyalty

Unit 18

*Louie, Kam. Theorizing Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. 1-22.

*Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema. London: Routledge, 1993.

Unit 19 *Lo Wei’s 罗维Fists of Fury 精武门 (1972)

Unit 20 *Gordon Chan’s 陈嘉上 Fist of Legend 精武英雄 (1994)

Unit 21 *Ronny Yu’s于仁泰Fearless霍元甲 (2006)

Unit 22 *Chang Cheh’s 張徹 Five Shaolin Masters 少林五祖 (1974)

Unit 23 *Lau Kar-leung’s刘家良Drunken Master II醉拳二 (1993)

Unit 24 *Zhang Yimou’s 张艺谋Hero 英雄 (2002)

*Second essay due

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

(1) 2 FILM REVIEWS (10% EACH; 20% TOTAL): Two one-page popular film reviews that address the history, plot and opinions of a production will be required during the course of this session. Any film within a proper category may be selected for this assignment. These reviews will roughly be based upon the conventions of New York Times film reviews, which will be explained in a detailed handout in the first week of the course. All assignments will be typed, single-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and handed in at the beginning of class on the final day of each categorical unit.

(2) 2 COLLEGIATE ESSAYS (10% EACH, 20% TOTAL): Two one-page essays that address, question, or complicate issues raised by the films and assigned readings will be required during the course of this session. The instructor will state the topic and set the critical parameters of the essay a week before the assignment is due. All assignments will be typed, single-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and handed in at the beginning of class on the final day of each categorical unit.

(3) 4 QUIZZES (5% EACH; 20% TOTAL): Four pop-quizzes will be administered that will test the student’s knowledge of the films assigned in each category. Quizzes will vary in length from 5-10 questions. All questions will require short answers.

(4) FILM PROJECT (40%): As an alternative to the standard final, this course allows for the creative synthesis and expression of the larger themes of this course. Any group of 3-4 students may combine their efforts to produce a short film (5-10m) and present it (script and all) at an end-of-the-semester film festival. Three components of the project will be graded: (1) the script (10%); (2) the cuts (initial and edited)(10%); (3) engagement of themes of the course (10%).

or, FINAL EXAM (40%): The final will be a comprehensive examination consisting of three sections (short answers, short essays and long essays) that review the specific details of Chinese cinematic history and the broad questions proposed in the course description. The details of the final exam will be confirmed by the instructor.

Fantastic Bodies: Contemplations of the (Super-) Human in Classical Chinese

2009-01-10T03:19:00.000-08:00

(Li Xi, “Zhuangzi Dreaming He’s a Butterfly,” 2008)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course combines the traditional aims of classical Chinese pedagogy with a historical and theoretical engagement of ancient texts that make them stimulating objects worthy of our attention and study. In Fantastic Bodies, we will acquire the necessary knowledge of classical Chinese grammatical components and vocabulary that will make it possible for us to understand, translate and engage ancient poetic, philosophical, medical and historical texts on way to exploring the nature and function of discourses and debates concerning the human body in ancient

China

. The corpus defining the parameters of our exploration of Chinese bodies will include The Classic of Poetry, The Analects, Mozi, The Songs of Chu, The Art of War, Zhuangzi, Liezi, Shiji, the Classic of the Soul’s Center, and others. By way of our in- and out-of-class assignments and discussions, we will gain the ability to execute more accurately, confidently and fluently readings of classical texts as well as to discuss the pressing cultural matters that occupy their pages.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

(1) To increase our specific and general knowledge of classical Chinese language, literature and culture;

(2) To enhance our understanding of key grammatical components of classical Chinese;

(3) To broaden our vocabulary of ancient Chinese words;

(4) To hone our ability to translate accurately and interestingly into English ancient Chinese materials;

(5) To develop our ability to offer clearly and cogently studied opinions on philosophical and cultural questions in a formal setting.

SCHEDULE
*The instructor withholds the right to adjust the syllabus at any time.

Topic Text Grammatical Focus

Beauty

Unit 1 “關雎,” 詩經 (“Guanju,” Shijing) 之

Unit 2 “桃夭,” 詩經 (“Tao yao,” Shijing) 其，于

Unit 3 “摽有梅,” 詩經 (“Pao you mei,” Shijing) 兮

Unit 4 “野有死麕,” 詩經 (“Ye you si jun,” Shijing) 無，而

*Recitation I due

Moderation

Unit 5 “為政,”論語 (“Wei zheng,”Lunyu） 以，何

Unit 6 “里仁,” 論語 (“Li ren,” Lunyu) 者，也

Unit 7 “辭過,”墨子 (“Ci guo,” Mozi) 是

Unit 8 “梁惠王上,” 孟子 (“Liang Hui Wang,” Mengzi) 焉，乎

Unit 9 “盡心下,” 孟子 (“Jin xin xia,” Mengzi) 所，非

*Critical Translation I due

Languishment

Unit 10 “終風,” 詩經 (“Guanju,” Shijing) 則, 莫

Unit 11 “山鬼,” 楚辭 (“Shan gui,” Chuci) 得

Unit 12 “離騷,” 楚辭 (“Li sao,” Chuci) 為，亦

*Recitation II due

Pain

Unit 13 “兼愛中,” 墨子 (“Jian’ai zhong,” Mozi) 然, 夫

Unit 14 “弱民,” 商君書 (“Ruo min,” Shang jun shu) 故

Unit 15 “行軍,” 兵法 (“Xing jun,” Binfa) 勿, 凡

Unit 16 “五邪,” 靈樞經 (“Wu xie,” Ling shu jing) 乃, 若

Unit 17 “廉頗藺相如列傳,” 史記 (“Lin Xiangru,” Shiji) 矣, 皆

*Critical Translation II due

Transcendence

Unit 18 “黃帝,” 列子 (“Huang di,”Liezi) 已, 如

Unit 19 “湯問,” 列子 (“Pang wen,” Liezi) 惟

Unit 20 “養生主,” 莊子 (“Yang sheng zhu,” Zhuangzi) 哉, 時

Unit 21 “達生,” 莊子 (“Da sheng,” Zhuangzi) 奚, 將

*Final

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

(1) ATTENDANCE/PARTICIPATION (40%): Role will be taken at the beginning of every session. This class requires daily preparation and exposition of classical texts as well as participation in in-class discussions and assignments. In order to maximize these points, students must regularly attend, be prepared and be actively involved in the day’s activities.

(2) IN-CLASS RECITATIONS (10% EACH, 20% TOTAL): As a time-tested method of fostering appreciation for a text and increasing our capacities of memory to progress in our classical studies, this course will require students to recite two short passages in front of their peers. Extra points will be given for stylistics.

(3) CRITICAL TRANSLATIONS (10% EACH, 20% TOTAL): Twice during the semester, a critical, annotated translation of a classical text will be submitted to the instructor. The translation will include: (1) the original Chinese text with a literal interlinear English translation; (2) a stylized, interpretative English translation; (3) a critical exposition of the material; and (4) an end-note apparatus defining all relevant grammatical structures, words and consulted secondary sources.

(3) FINAL (20% TOTAL): The final will require students to select a classical passage of their choice that addresses the course’s theme, and recite and expound upon its content to the class (~20minutes).

CHN 120 日記 (2011)

2008-03-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

中文120
2011年4月29号，星期五

R-

老師把新課的生詞給學生介紹一下，老樣子用奇怪，可疑 (ke3yi2; suspect) 的活動。這次，他封锁 (feng1suo3; cordon off) 了教室右边的黑板指定用于寫字。我們把黑板當作 (dang1zuo4; treat as) 漢字長城。我們的長城比中國北部，真正的長城還酷 (ku4; cool) ！下課了以後，Lucas 親切地為我拍照片 (pai1zhao4pian4; take a picture) 。以下有世界上新的長城。hmmmm，我在想。。。我們應該把生詞寫在肉商紙上了，然後把紙在牆上貼起來。下次吧。。。

這個周末是我和我太太的結婚紀念日 (ji4nian2ri4; anniversary). 我們太忙了，所以我們只留在家吃飯。我們做了四道菜的晚飯。好好吃。出去吃飯好玩，但是在家裏吃飯也不錯。更 (geng1; more) 便宜 (pian2yi; cheap))，更舒服 (shu1fu; comfortable).

E- 童安格，把爱放在心里面

A-

L-

今天的活動：
*小謝
* 句子
* 20-2
* 20-8
* 20-7一起 (来还是去）
* p.339, use table to do charades
* 对话
中文120
2011年四月27号，星期三

R-
星期三老師有了很多的計劃，可是他最後勉強丟了它。因爲天氣的關係，我們得馬上離開，去地下躲避 (duo3bi4; hide; find cover)。這個星期的天氣真不好，起碼 (qi3
ma3; at least) 有了三個龍捲風 (long3jiao3feng1; tornado) 警告。以前沒想到kentucky的天氣真麽不穩定 (wen2ding4; stable), 易變的 (yi4bian4; unpredictable)。我們在地下等著惡劣 (e4lie4; awful) 的天氣吹過去, 有的人聊天兒，有的人把iPhone拿出來看天氣報告（bao4gao4；report），預報 (yu4bao4; forecast). Lucas很想知道 joke's on you 中文怎麽說：你是笑柄，Lucas--聖誕節快樂。。。我們從地下室出來大家突然看到外面刮大風，下一個暴雨，我們幾個人決定偷 (tou1；steal) 用垃圾袋放在头上躲雨。

中文120
2011年4月26号，星期二

R-

昨天Griffin没来上课真巧(zhen1qiao3; what a coincidence) 因為Karly告訴我們他生病了。可怜 (ke3lian2; pitiable) 可是還是有助于我們的課。好像Griffin不舒服，咳嗽，疲倦 (pi2juan4; exhuasted)，頭疼。也許 (ye3xu3; perhaps) 他今天回來上課? 不知道。好了的話，他肯定會來。他特別乖乖 (guai1guai1; good, obedient)，可靠，有信用。昨天我們也有一個客人 (ke4ren2; guest) 來參加，可是他不是普通 (pu3tong1; normal) 的客人而是我的老闆 (lao3ban3; boss)！哎呀！他旁聽的原因 (yuan2yin1; reason) 是觀察課程，評價我的工作。結果呢？不錯。他覺得我們的課挺好的。呸呸！你們都做得很好。

我們昨天也看了麥儅勞的廣告和另外一個horsedragonfish的漫畫。看麥儅勞的廣告我們認爲中國人都不吃飯，只用薯條 (shu3tiao3; fries)，奶昔 (nai3xi1; milkshake) 奏音樂。麥儅勞的東西好用作鼓！潜水员加油加油！horsedragonfish的漫畫，虽然很恰當（qia4dang1; appropriate) 的，可是也真奇怪 (qi2guai4; wierd)：你病了，可是。。。唧唧。。。唧唧。。。看我的帽子吧：）讓不讓人開心？

E-
臺灣廣告

A-

L-
白银之匙漫画

今天的活動

*兩個聽寫

*表演

*習題

*电影

中文120

2011年4月25号，星期一

R-

昨天早上我们开始彼此问：你舒服不舒服？那里不舒服？可是没有人回答，只有一些蟋蟀（xi1shuai4；crickets）做唧唧。。。唧唧。好像没有人生病，我们都很健康。太好了。反正（fan3zheng4；anyways）我们联系说话不意味着我们应该说真的。上课说假的（jia3de；bogus）也可以阿，没问题（mei2wen4ti2；no problem）。后来你们懂了这点，开始说谎（shuo1huang3；tell lies）：老师，我头疼，发烧，明天要看医生！他咳嗽，胸部不舒服。。。等等。

你们还是记得（ji4de；remember）昨天看的horsedragonfish的漫画吗？有一个年轻人走路，看到一句涂鸦（tu2ya1；graffitti）。他说：我好想知道涂鸦说什么。所以，他去那儿看一看。最后发现到涂鸦说什么？。。。他不高兴了，难过的回家了(nan2guo4; sad). 故事（gu4shi；story）的寓意（yu4yi4）呢？别（bie2；don't）好想看涂鸦。涂鸦就是魔鬼（mo2gui3；devil）的工具！哈哈！

E-

麦当劳广告

A-

L-

horsedragonfish

今天的活动：
*习题，功课本
*一起年初对话
*即兴表演

中文120

2011年4月，22号，星期五

R-

星期五开始有一点奇怪。八点到了很少学生在椅子上坐，等老师教课。那时我认为有可能（you3ke3neng2；maybe）我们新的（xin1de；new）慢学阶段（jie1duan4；phase），已经适得其反（shi4deqi1fan3；backfire）。心里我想我们应该马上取回老的框架。。。可是等了十分钟左右（zuo3you4；about），学生终于（zhong1yu2；finally）来了。所以，目前（mu4qian2；for the present）我们继续（ji4xu4；continue）按照慢学框架上课。

这个周末在很多的美国家庭是比较重要的节日（jie2ri4；holiday），尤其是在基督教（ji1du2jiao4；Christian）的家庭。它是复活节（fu4huo2jie2；Easter）。谁妈妈寄给他色彩的鸡蛋，巧克力（qiao3ke4li4；chocolate），毛茸茸（mao2rong1rong1；fluffy）的小兔子玩具？我受到了一批（yi1pi3；a bunch of）花生浆巧克力鸡蛋，Reese‘s 牌子的。我天啊！好好吃！香（xiang1；fragrant）得不得了！那个糖果（tang2guo3；candy）一接触你的舌头你就吃得上瘾（shang4yin2；get addicted to）。我等不及（deng2bu4ji2；can't wait）回家吃掉它！

E-

小兔子乖乖

A-

L-

grafitti-涂鸦（tu2ya1）

今天的活动：

- 你舒不舒服？

- 再次念出对话

- 即兴表演（医生和病人）

- 语法

- 语法习题

中文120

2011年4月，19號，星期三

R-
昨天早上老師發起騷動 (sao1dong4; drop a bomb)! 因為老師來晚了三分鐘，大家以為 (yi3wei2; think mistakenly) 不會上課，可是他們錯了！老師來了，也打出他的 “a” 水平 (da3chu1 "a" shui3ping2; bring your "a" game). 開玩笑 (kai1wan2xiao4; just kidding)－－其實不然。老師宣布出中文120的慢學階段（jie2duan4; phase). 從今天以來，沒有小考，也沒有對話。為了好好地邁出第一步，我們被分成三個小組。老師任命三個學生替他當老師，教同學第十九的生詞，筆畫，定義（ding4yi4；definition），等。 Lucas 覺得有一點尷尬（gan1ga1；awkward），James 順利地接管權力，還有Sandy 哈哈地逗樂 (dou4le4; entertain) 他的同學。明天也會這樣下去。

Jefe y Yim 的報告真有意思（you3yi4si；interesting）。他們解釋中國電視文化怎麼樣。有可能人人都以前以為中國中央節目無聊（wu2liao2；boring）極了，沒想到有那麼多戲劇，喜劇，卡通，約會遊戲。我們快來看黑貓警察吧！！

E-
SPRITE

A-

L-

Horsedragonfish

今天的活動：

－功課笨

－課本

中文120

2011年4月，18號，星期二

R-

星期一我們復習，星期二我們考試了。考卷有三個部份：第一是口試，第二是筆試，第三是辭彙（ci2hui4； vocabulary）。口試方面，我認為你們作的不錯，有的人說他們今年夏天要回家，有的人說他們出國（chu1guo2；go abroad）旅行，譬如法國，中國，英國等，有的人說多了一些，有的只（zhi3；only）說了一點而已。有可能（you3ke3neng2；maybe）他們根本沒有什麼夏假計畫（ji4hua4；plans）。你要的話，也可以留在這兒替我作研究：）

那麼，第二部份，學生得寫一封信給媽媽說明一下CENTRE學生生活怎麼樣。因為我提前一天告訴你們，好像大家背上要寫什麼。一拿到（na3；grasp) 考卷（kao3juan4； test），大家的鉛筆趕緊走了，飛來飛去！後來，我想想考試應該不太難，學生都提前二十分鐘離開。然後，我聽我學生說辭彙部份難極了！太過分了（guo4fen1；extreme）。我天啊！老師應該多關心學生，再調調考試的難度。

其實，從今天以來，我打算改變一下我們課程的框架（kuang4jia4；framework;structure）。我們瞧瞧（qiao2; to see）。。。

E-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ith7KvAESI

A-

L-

Horsedragonfish

今天的活動：

。學生導致

。一起作功課

中文120

2011年4月，10號，星期一

R-

上個星期五作完街上藝術品以後，我們回去教室聼Jordan和Brian的表演。老師以爲是關於上海，可是不是--很丟臉，真沒面子！他們説明一下上海同性戀驕傲的運動怎麽樣，也教我們一些生詞：同性戀，同志，雙性戀，等。Jordan說上海大學老師罵他那件事，老師就生氣了說：“Centre 付出那個人的薪水嗎？。。。我應該跟她說兩句話。” 老師就要提出挑戰，開始壓啪顱骨。Jordan也告訴我們他畢業了以後要回去上海在IBM工作。

昨天江龍說他的週末過的非常好。所以，老師問他為什麼？週末怎麼這麼好玩。他老樣子盯著我看，像青蛙一樣，。。。嗨。。。有沒有人？江龍，。。。你好？你在不在？老師放棄了問他的室友Luke江龍怎麼了。Luke只搖頭說他不知道。他回家參加朋友的婚禮，不知道江龍做什麼，可是有可能江龍喝醉了。Luke 進一步說明推測江龍喝了33杯啤酒。老師懷疑說不可能，江龍的酒量無法那麼厲害！他太小，太矮的。我們在旁邊辯論他的事的時候，江龍一直沈默，盯著我們看。有一點令人毛骨悚然的。我們開始學生詞詞源的時候，江龍戲還是繼續。 Luke跟他爭吵誰要寫火車。孩子孩子孩子，冷靜一點兒，好不好？！我們都可以用火車。

星期二有小考，星期三有對話，星期五自由了！老師不在！

E-

雪碧广告

A-

http://nf.nfdaily.cn/nfdsb/content/2011-04/11/content_22554350.htm

L-

http://comic.kukudm.com/

今天的活動：

＊小考

＊句型

＊有什麼車子？

＊語法

＊理想的旅程（從。。。到；先，再，然後；坐，騎，開）

＊對話（翻譯）

中文120

2011年4月，8號，星期五

R-

今天老師給學生們一個大驚奇。大家準備好來上課，期待表演十七課的對話。昨天晚上你們在課本上汗了好幾滴水悲傷 “這兒天氣不錯啊。冬天不太冷，夏天熱極了”等等。但是，老師突然消除這個檢測告訴學生跟著出去做即興街上藝術品。學生覺得有一點奇怪，可是爲了不考試他們作什麽都行。

所以，老師請學生在YOUNG大樓前面樓梯坐下，聼他的指示。老師和學生會在一起做一個小人行道報告。我們分成五個小組；四個要寫艾未未被逮捕前最後寫的微薄。第五小組就畫畫：艾未未的畫像和一個明朝無价的陶瓷花瓶。Sandy 決定破碎花瓶--太殘忍了。我們的小組勞動的時候，飛龍跟Liz給我們拍照，攝影小記錄片。我們都快要成名了！。。。反正，言歸正傳，我們希望艾未未快要被警察釋放了。

作完街上藝術品以後，我們回去教室聼Jordan和Brian的表演。老師以爲是關於上海，可是不是--很丟臉，真沒面子！他們説明一下上海同性戀驕傲的運動怎麽樣，也教我們一些生詞：同性戀，同志，雙性戀，等。Jordan說上海大學老師罵他那件事，老師就生氣了說：“Centre 付出那個人的薪水嗎？。。。我應該跟她說兩句話。” 老師就要提出挑戰，開始壓啪顱骨。Jordan也告訴我們他畢業了以後要回去上海在IBM工作。

E-

A- Arts.21 Still Unbowed in Munich

L-

Horsedragonfish （Buy a new watch）

中文120

2011年4月，5號，星期二

R-

活動總結：

昨天我們開始看一個影片。他是關於（guan1yu2；about）一位非常有名的中國藝術家（yi4shu4jia1；artist），AiWeiWei. 他最近被中央警察逮捕（dai4bu3；arrested），現在不知道在哪兒坐牢（zuo4lao2；incarcerated)。他的設施藝術品很美，真讓人考慮，反省（fan3xing3；ponder，reflect）。影片理他說一句有意義的話：人生命不保證，所以（suo3yi3；so,）最好趁著機會做到與眾不同（make a difference）。

作了小考以後，我們練習寫字。寫字不容易，很難。如果隨便寫，應該沒問題了，可是如果你按照筆畫官方的次序寫，字就難化了。有時候，你想對的次序，倒是不對的。很複雜（fu4za2；complicated）。後來我們看一下中國的天氣：北京最冷，廣州最熱。中國東部少雲，一會兒多雲，一會兒晴天（qing2tian1；sunny），跟Danville昨天的天氣差不多（cha4bu2duo1；about the same）。下課以前，我們試試作17－7習題，可是好像（hao3xiang4； it seems like）看字有一點麻煩（ma2fan；problematic）。我覺得我們應該多練習看小故事什麼的（she2mede； or something）。別擔心，慢慢來（man4man4lai2；it'll come）。

E-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JtL_UUJPoE

A-

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/world/asia/05shanghai.html?_r=1

L-

Horsedragonfish

今天的活動：

*小考

*中國天氣（www.weather.com.cn）

*17－8

＊一起看對話1 （Integrated Chinese Lesson 10）

*對話

中文120

2011年4月，4號，星期一

R-

活動總結：

我沒想到jim的理想的房子會那麼大！五個多洗澡間，我天啊！還有三個客廳，一個在地下室理或者在護城河（hu4cheng2he2；moat），我還不清楚（qing1chu；clear）。對了，我知道了：jim的房子是故宮（gu1gong1；forbidden palace）。難怪房間那麼多。。。我很好奇（hao4qi4；curious）誰用那些房間？

昨天的天氣惡劣（e4lie4；terrible）極了！風太大了！溫度有一點兒高。好像（hao3xiang4；it seems）美國南部的天氣都一樣（yi2yang4；the same）：白天颳風，夜裡雷雨（lei2yu3；thunderstorm）。學生說他們老家氣候怎麼樣：Phan 的老家最多雨的，Jenn的夏天的時候最熱的，Liz的冬天的時候，最冷的。我的老家（Vermont) 是最多雪的。

E- *Ai Weiwei （http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2010/mar/18/ai-weiwei-turbine-hall-tate） A- ＊ L- ＊遭到雷击 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJhsUAQ4ttQ&feature=related 今天的活動： *寫字 *小考 *中國天氣（www.weather.com.cn） *17－2， 17－7 *句型

中文120

2011年4月，1號，星期天

R-

活動總結：

上個星期五我們作第十六課的表演。“我籃球打得不太好”可是“她餃子包得又快又好吃”（you4。。。you4；both。。。and）。這一次老師可憐了一點學生（ke3lian2；pity），不讓他們背（bei1；memorize）全部對話（quan3bu4；all），把臺詞分成三個不同的角色（jiao3se4；roles）。哇塞！這個老師非常好！我分配的時候有一些學生提醒我說第二個角色只（zhi3；only）有三個句子而已（er2yi3；only）。我不知道怎麽回答；分配就是這樣。不能再改變，所以我告訴他們這次只好接受（jie1shou4；accept）。下次只得說三個句子的同學一定要背上最長的臺詞。就是！老師很公平（gong1ping2；fair）！從哪來就會到哪去！只要是這樣。。。

糟糕（zao1gao1；oh my gosh）了！三角龍，他怎麽出現了？我覺得用皮帶控不了他！那個士兵（shi4bing1；soldier）是病！哈哈！ ok。。。那，表演作完了以後，我們聼一個chinesepod的中級播課：“一對一”，由willfarrel的電影semipro所激發。這個播課教我們很有用（you3yong4；useful）的場上髒話（zang1hua4；swears）：放屁吧你！（whatever）；有種就來（bring it！）。我們下次上場我期待你們說新的東西。。。

E- * A- Ai Wei in prison L- Horsedragonfish 今天的活動： *詞源 *寫字 *weather。com *老家的天氣怎麽樣？

中文120

2011年3月30號，星期三

R-

活動總結：

馬龍魚馬龍魚馬龍魚。。。我喜歡你，你讓我很高興。。。hmmmhmmmhmmmm. ok了。

馬馬虎虎那個漫畫有一個青少年給他媽打電話。他媽問他那邊幾點鐘（那，幾點呢？），天氣如何（ru2he2；like 怎麼樣）（那，如何呢？），生活過得怎麼樣（那，過得怎麼樣？）。他怎麼知道生活過得怎麼樣，只看窗戶外面知道了：花園裡邊有兩隻馬，兩隻老虎；用數學（shu1xue2；math）再說，兩隻馬加（＋）兩隻老虎得（＝）還好（alright）；馬馬虎虎。馬龍魚是一個非常好的老師？將來（jiang1lai2； in the future）要替代者就給他打電話過來。

那，得得得得得。。。還是得得得得得。看起來沒什麼差別（cha1bie2； difference），但是一定有，再說差別很大：第一個有副詞功能，第二是個動詞。那功能怎麼分別呢？我再給你們看：得在動詞前面，他也是動詞，可是在動詞後面，他有副詞作用：（1）我得吃飯，（2）我吃飯吃得很快；意思完全不一樣了。我說明了這些以後，幾個學生有一點懷疑（huai2yi2； doubt），問我為什麼中文這麼複雜（fu4za2；complicated），他們裝說說正經（zheng4jing1； serious) 的，可是他們蒙不了我，我知道他們真正（zhen1zheng4：true）的問題是：中文怎麼這麼笨！反正，我保持冷靜（leng3jing4；cool），世界上除了韓文以外，有科學，邏輯的語言不存在。只好習慣各種語言不同的特色才瞭解他們的邏輯。

E-

Chinesepod 一對一籃球

A-

＊

L-

Youtube 四川搞笑片

今天的活動：

＊對話

＊Chinesepod 一對一

＊電影

中文120

2011年3月29號，星期二

R-

活動總結：

嗨。你們今天怎麼樣？昨天上課的

時候，我問你們這句話大家就齊聲（qi2sheng1；in unison）說 “老師好”，真讓我感到驚訝（jing1ya4；surprised）。後來我想一想，為甚麼回答那麼熱情的，是因為那天課程八點半才開始（kai1shi3； begin）。八點半比 8：00 那裡好；半個小時而已（er2yi3： only). 反正（fan3zheng4；still，anyway），事實就是這樣。八點半上課你們都更清醒（qing1xing2；awake），高興。

生氣鳥。。。小心（xiao3xin1；beware）

好了，然後我們看了一些運動廣告：一個有人跑步，拿報紙丟到鄰居的房子－－很可怕！那個傢伙（jia1huo3；dude）扔（reng1； chuck）東西扔得太蒙，給穿浴衣人的胳膊撕裂了。惡心（e3xin1；disgusting). 第二個是一個橄欖球員，他滿意（man3yi4；content to）把自己的身體往山坡下（shan1po1；mountainside) 扔掉。他雖然撞到了好幾棵樹，還是高興采烈地站（zhan4；get up）。作運動的人有病（you3bing4；have issues），是不是？

我們也練習寫字：健身房，體育館，鍛鍊，等。這篇課的生詞有很多的筆畫（bi3hua4； strokes)。太多了！太過分了（guo4fen1；ridiculous）！後來Jessica和我一起（yi4qi3；together) 唸出一個小對話。你有什麼愛好？游泳嗎？你游得怎麼樣？課本上的人物游得很快！ “ 得 ” 是這篇課的語法重點，有副詞（fu4ci2；adverbial）的功能（gong1neng2；function）： “我寫字寫得不好”

E-

＊

A-

＊

L-

Horsedragonfish “Mamahuhu”

中文120

2011年3月28號，星期一

R-

活動總結：

大家好。我是安凱德，CENTRE的中文老師。很高興認識你們。我家有五個人：太太，三個女孩子，和我。沒有狗，沒有貓，也沒有生氣鳥（sheng1qi4；angry bird）--謝天謝地（thank heavens）。有生氣鳥的話，恐怕會有事故！我愛我的血，不要給飛禽吃。救命，救命（jiu4 ming4；save me）！

那，昨天早上我們開始問學生他們怎麽過春假。有的說他們去海灘曬黑，有的回家睡個嬾覺，還有其他的學中文學一個不完。。。我們都知道誰騙（pian4；cheating）誰！用假期學中文，你懞（meng1；trick）不了我！你試試看誰最聰明（cong1ming2；smart）。我們看一看誰有文品，誰沒有。在我的名字前有官方稱號？很明顯 (ming2xian4；obvious）。

看完了一個古怪（gu3guai4；bizzarre）臺灣的汽水廣告以後，我們收拾我們的東西，把背包，鞋子，和腦子都往（wang3；towards）體育館去打籃球。大家說他們不做運動--奇怪（qi2guai4；strange），有可能大學生生活太急（ji2；hectic）。傳球，投球，運球，籃板。。。江龍和昭寧是很厲害（li4hai；awesome）的教練！我們的籃球員也不錯。我們算一下誰贏得了什麽獎品：Sandy “活潑”第一名，Karly “堅韌”第一名（好像她咬了Brian一口胳膊），還有 Jim “漂亮”上籃（shang4lan2；layup）第一名。下次，國家決賽。。。

E-

Jay Zhou 超人不會飛

A-

龙颜大悦天雷

L-

NIKE搞笑廣告

中文120

2011 年 3月 17-27號

R-

活動總結：

哇塞! (wa1sai1; WOW) 我們好久不見！有了一個都星期沒上課！我真想你們！不相信嗎？你們懷疑，問我：老師，真的（zhen1de； really）嗎？我誠實說：真的。可是我確定（que4ding4; sure）我的學生在海灘上曬黑（shai4 hei1； tan），呆呆地看著辣美女，強壯的好漢不想我。。。鳴鳴. 那，說真的你們怎麽過春假？誰回家？旅行？作公益事？學中文？。。。騙人。。。

那，你們玩耍兒的時候，老師做什麽？備課，寫文章，做研究，等等。可憐（ke3lian2; pitiful) 的生活.

E-

喝汽水（Vitalon，臺灣廣告)

A-

利比亞（xinhua）

L-

Horsedragonfish

今天的活動：

*詞源

*寫字

*看書

中文120

2011 年 3 月 15 號 R- 活動總結：我們今天學什麼？誰知道？我們還是學位置詞。今天進一步學語法。譬如：在，有，是怎麼用。一個東西有好幾個不同的坐標 (coordinates) 說明他站在什麼地方。比方說：

安德在LISA左邊，LIZ的前面

老師對面是安得嗎？是是

今天教室裡面有沒有安得？

那，你們現在中國得上個廁所的時候，問路應該沒問題。等等，有可能還是有比較大的障礙 (obstacle). 應該記住中文有好多廁所的同義詞：洗手間，衛生間，浴室，廁所，等。糟糕！

E- ＊ A- Housing in China (Youtube) L- Horsedragonfish

今天活動：

＊我的宿舍

＊看購房。com

＊課本習題 ＊對話

中文120 2011 年 3 月 14 號 R- 活動總結：今天安老師用一個非常難過 (sad) 的消息開始：日本有核泄漏。我們都要幫助日本恢復正常的生活。看了這個新聞以後我們再次看馬龍魚的網頁。這次他沒說美人魚的事。他說一個關於我們太陽系的笑話－－奇怪－－我根本 (fundamentally) 不動科學幽默 (scientific humor). 可憐 (pitiful) 的冥王星。。。鳴鳴。他現在不是行星。我們也看一個音樂影片：“誰會救我們？” PK-14 超人 (superman)!! 好哇！

除了聽那些沒用的東西以外，我們也開始新的課。十五課是關於方向跟位置：在LISA的旁邊有什麼東西？。。。有什麼？。。。唧唧。。。唧唧。。。誰會救老師？ LIZ！謝謝你！對啊！有桌子。在LISA的旁邊有兩張桌子。太好了！明天有小考－－復仇好好甜！

E- 黑貓警長：偷玉米 (Youtube) A- http://world.people.com.cn/GB/14117911.html （利比亞） L- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVFKcD-snYI （臭鞋） 今天活動： ＊在那裡？ 看購房。com Typical Chinese House (Youtube) Housing in China (Youtube) 生詞聽寫 句型

中文120 2011 年 3 月 11 號 R- 活動總結：今天我們不做什麼──開玩笑──嚴格的說，我們作了好多事，可是它們不算是典型的而已。不要看書，我們聽孔子的話，看一篇關於日本8。8級強震的新聞報告，還有看了馬龍魚的網頁──那個傢伙真有病。誰要變成一隻美人魚？！拜託！然後，我們看 Griffin 和 Karly 唱卡拉ok。他們很棒，是不是？麥克風 (microphone) 的冠軍 (champ)! 呵呵！"Juliette, 我們結婚吧！" E- PK-14 Tamen (Youtube) A- chinadigitaltimes.net (Ministry of Truth) L- horsedragonfish.com/page/6