...he used those experiences to write and became a Nobel Prize winner. A writer of both short and long stories and novels about the ordinary lives, culture and spirit in China, many people were certain he would be the winner. The day the winner was announced, the writer was hiding in his house to try and avoid the media. The media, local and foreign, found his house and camped outside ready to celebrate the winner. As Mo Yan explained to the media during a press conference, he was surprised but pleased he won. Mo Yan, ready to continue with research and writing, would hope the media would not stay long; however, being able to openly celebrate, his country wanted to continue celebrating his success. His win has led to many things: have a literature museum and school named after him, a statue built, plans for a tourist route, and stamps, t-shirts, spirit bottles and many other products made with his name and image on them. With the fame brought by winning the Nobel Prize, pressure and anxiety were present followed. Mo Yan is the second richest writer in China, but cannot decide if he is happy. He explains that he is under pressure and stress, so he is not sure how he can be happy, but having won the Nobel Prize, he cannot be unhappy. Having written stories of mostly of rural life being a ‘representative writer of his generation’ (Wu), he is highly regarded by other writers, as well as criticized for not taking on more social responsibilities. Mo Yan wrote stories like Feng Menglong...
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...Richard Rokosz CHIN 3801 March 11, 2016 Midterm 1. There are some perennial subjects in Chinese or Japanese poetry, for instance, love, nature, celebration of life, etc. Discuss one subject: How have different poets in different historical periods approached the subject? For instance, how is love depicted by different poets? Chinese poetry has since the beginning featured the subjects of love, nature and celebration of life as recurring topics. Almost every poem we’ve analyzed and discussed in class has included references to one or more of these subjects. Nature is the perennial subject that has resonated with me most, as it has encompassed the majority of metaphors and comparisons in the poetry we’ve read. Chinese and Japanese poetry metaphorically incorporate animals and the seasons. The animals will often represent humans. Their actions also symbolize different human actions. In no other cultural tradition has nature played a more important role artistically than in that of China. Since China’s earliest dynasty, real and imagined creatures of the earth (serpents, cicadas, and dragons) were gifted with special powers. In the Chinese imagination, mountains were also infused with sacred power since ancient times. They attracted the rain clouds that watered the farmer’s crops. They concealed herbs used for medicines, magical fruits, and minerals that held the promise of longevity. Mountains with caves and grottos were viewed as gateways...
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...Chinese Literature: A Lens for the Humanities Although the humanities are often a subject of bitter debate in school today, when the most important thing seems to be to acquire marketable skills, many people acknowledge the importance of the humanities to education and the world overall. Yet, too often, when people discuss the salient features of the humanities, they narrowly and overly focus on the Western traditions. However, many important characteristics of the humanities can be found in the Eastern tradition as well, and in Chinese literature in particular. This essay discusses how some common Chinese stories exemplify vital aspects of the humanities and consequently increase our understanding of culture. First, what are the humanities? According to Stanford University, “The humanities can be described as the study of the myriad ways in which people, from every period of history and from every corner of the globe, process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world” (Stanford University). Often, humanities classes focus on these topics – yet all too often, students learn a narrow view of the humanities, one that seems to assume the world began in Greece and ended in America. Although people often viciously criticize the humanities, since the correlation between studying them and earning a big paycheck is a difficult logical leap for...
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...CLB 9003 Cross-cultural Studies of Children's Fantasy Literature (1st Term, 2013-14) Term Paper “Compare children’s images in Western and Chinese children’s fantasy literature” Name : So Lok Ching Student ID :4028177 Instructor : Dr Tong Man The development of Western and Chinese children’s fantasy literature varies a lot. Western children’s fantasy literature has a much earlier development process. In Ancient Greece and Rome, there was no distinction between children and adult’s literature, children and adults shared the same literature. Until the 18th century, a remarkable French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, believed that every child has a unique value and children should not be seen as immature adults. He also emphasized the importance of moral development in his writing ‘Emile’, in which he believed it could be performed by living a simple life. Rousseau’s ideas had a major influence on the development of children’s literature. People raised awareness about children and children’s fantasy literature was flourishing in the 19th century. In this Golden Age, different varieties of children’s fantasy literature were written to entertain children, such as modern fantasy stories and adventure stories. The naughty image of children could be shown in many adventure stories as well, such as ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ (1876) by Mark Twain and ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ (1883) by Carlo Collodi. Up to the 20th century and recent decades, Naughty main...
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...Topic-Students’ attending classes in Chinese language and literature As a part of traditional Chinese culture, Chinese language and literature are important and the representatives of Chinese culture. Nowadays, some universities in China have made it compulsory for all students to attend classes in Chinese language and literature in order to improve their Chinese level. Advocators think it can improve the level of how Chinese use their “mother tongue”. And it will help people’s life. Conversely, rivals believe that students should learn Chinese in a more lively way and university students are mature enough to learn Chinese in daily life. In brief, this action both has advantages and disadvantages and brings out different opinions. According to the followers, attending Classes in Chinese is a good way to improve Chinese’s language level. At present, Internet slang is popular with teenagers and foreign languages like English are put on an important place while Chinese is neglected more and more by students. As a result, many young Chinese cannot speak or write properly. Worse still, even some CCTV presenters usually make some mistakes in a program, which reflects the worse status of Chinese language level. Thus, it is necessary for students to attend Chinese classes. What is more, there is much wisdom in Chinese culture and philosophy. People in modern society are all busy with work or study and do not have enough spare time to learn traditional Chinese and philosophy carefully. Furthermore...
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...Student No: 5904913 Paper: Chin 343 Lecturer: Dr Haixin Jiang Brief outline: This essay takes <Daughter of the river> for an example to analyze the growth of the female in the early 1960s. <Daughter of the river> is written by Hong Ying and published in 1997. With raw intensity and fearless honesty, Daughter of the River follows China's trajectory through one woman's life, from the Great Famine through the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square. From the perspective of content, the novel adopts autobiographical components based on the author's own life experiences, involving in the physical and psychological crisis of the protagonist. This essay will take different examples discuss the growth of female in the modern Chinese literature. outline: 1. Introduction Daughter of the River is a memoir of China concerning the growth of the female in the early 1960s written by Hong Ying. Born during the Great Famine of the early 1960s and raised in the slums of Chongqing, Hong Ying was constantly aware of hunger and the sacrifices required to survive. As she neared her eighteenth birthday, she became determined to unravel the secrets that left her an outsider in her own family. At the same time, a history teacher at her school began to awaken her sense of justice and her emerging womanhood. Hong Ying's wrenching coming-of-age would teach her the price of taking a stand and show her the toll of totalitarianism, poverty, and estrangement on her family. With raw intensity...
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...Politics of the Tang Dynasty: Military force helped the Tang Dynasty to enhance the empire’s borders and influence. Power was shared by the scholarly-elite and imperial families (Craig, et al, 2010) and imperial unity was restored reducing aristocratic rule. A Bureau of Censors was established to oversee all officials. Improvements for civil service were done by investigation. Emphasis was placed on knowledge of Chinese literature and Confucian classics. Society of the Tang Dynasty: Wise governing, international trade, national strength and a strong economy established a stable social order. An open door policy was in place and there was a lack of extortion. Economics of the Tang Dynasty: The dynasty faced economic stress due to the focus on the arts and pleasurable existence. Political weakening of power led to further economic distress. Politics of the Sui Dynasty: The 29 year Sui Dynasty built the Grand Canal and began the restoration of the Great Wall. This required over-taxation of the peasants. A rebellion in 618 ended the dynasty. The country returned to a focus on establishing a legal code. The political structure has endured. A central government system united China under a new system. Political unity returned as nomads and nobility were brought together under state control and the bureaucracy was rebuilt. The central government was known as the “System of Three Cabinets and Six Departments” .The three cabinets were a legislative policy making branch, a deliberation...
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...Title: Un-Packing Packaged Cultures: Chinese-ness in International Business Author: Can-Seng Ooi Publisher + year: Published online: 10 July 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007 Kew words: Chinese business practices . Chinese management . Critical management studies . Foucault Short summary (approx five sentences): This paper focuses on how the Chinese are represented in the international business literature. Chinese cultures are packaged to make knowledge about the Middle Kingdom more accessible to a general audience. This paper concludes that researchers should reflect on the power they yield when they represent another culture, and that the general public may privilege theories that are accessible rather than sound. The author tries in this paper to un-package packaged cultures, meaning that culture is hard to package, because culture is dynamic and heterogeneous. Main points: This paper is inspired via Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge – Therefore when we look at Chinese literature it is important to ask yourself: What is presented? Who is presenting? And for what purpose? All researchers face the same difficulties in framing a culture into a coherent and yet complex entity. A society is diverse, culture changes and it is at times difficult to differentiate between imagined culture and actual reality. Packaging culture is a difficult task because society is heterogeneous and dynamic. Talking about culture has also...
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...“Save the children . . .” (Xun 10). The previous quote was taken “A Madman’s Diary” one of Lu Xun’s notorious short stories. “A Madman’s Diary” is a narrative told through the perspective of a man who had fallen into a state of insanity, believing that everyone in his village, including his brother, was cannibalistic and would eat him; however, cannibalism in the story symbolizes so much more. Lu Xun lived from 1881 to 1936 and is considered one of China’s most influential writers. In his work he would criticize the corrupt culture of his country and inspire revolutionary thoughts in his readers. The traditional Chinese culture that Xun was criticizing in “A Madman’s Diary” relates to the Confucian philosophy. Confucianism deals mostly with...
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... Candidate name: Junru WEN Language A-‐Chinese Extend Essay Candidate number: 049153-‐0035 空洞的灵魂,浮萍一生 ——浅评《她是一个弱女子》中的郑秀岳形象 High School Attached to Northeast Normal University International Baccalaureate Extended Essay Candidate name: Junru Wen IB candidate number: 049153-‐0035 Supervisor: Nannan Li Subject area: CHINESE Date: 10 / 01 / 2013 Main...
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...Relationship Between the Individual and Society From the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, China was in the social transformation era. More accurately, people was in the alternating period of the feudal traditional conservative ideology and emerging modern thoughts. Hence, the authors always wrote the stories about how individuals reacted to such social changes. Like three stories, Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary,” Yu Dafu’s “Sinking,” Mao Dun’s “Spring Silkworm” which depict how the individuals’ respond when they face two totally different ideologies or moral codes. These three stories show three different conditions, three different choices, and lead to three different results. One common thing is that all protagonists are suffering in that old society. First, Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” describes a madman who is the first rebel in modern literary history. The madman was born in the feudal scholar-bureaucrat family, everyone lived around him was bound by the feudalism. However, he was not one of them, he had modern thoughts and yearn for a just society. Unfortunately, he could not find a person with a like-minded goal, and everyone else saw him as a madman. He thought that society was an “eat people” world. For example, he read history intently half the night until he saw the whole book was filled with the two words “eat people”. He thought the history were all wrote about how the powerful people oppress the poor. And he felt sorrow that such merciless history...
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...Throughout this paper we will compare and contrast the cultural syncretism and legacies of the Americas and Africa and the resistance to cultural change that the westerners encountered in both China and India. We will also discuss the factors of these outcomes, and the effects on modern cultures today. Many legacies have been given to us from China and India. China gave us the Great Wall of China. This was built during the Ming dynasty and was built to protect China from invasions from the north. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279CE) the printing press was revolutionized which allowed the transmission of knowledge into China. When Marco Polo arrived in China the Chinese scholar-painters resisted foreign domination. Luxury goods such as lacquerware was a very popular item. Lacquer is a clear liquid made from the sap of the Chinese Rhus verniifers tree. This was used to protect materials from water, heat, and acid. This is still used in todays’ society. Porcelain is ceramic ware produced in China and is still used in modern society. Dinnerware of today along with many gifts are still made from porcelain. The Sub- Saharan Africans were a large community united by kinship and generally were ruled by chieftains. The Europeans were interested in these people for purpose of slave trading. The church was interested in converting Africa’s pagan population over to Christianity. West Africa was believed to be the center of the regions culture. They gave us sculptors, and ritual dances such...
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...stance in China market is not consistent with their mission, it conflict with the principal of fairness and freedom from Google. Because people could not access politically sensitive sites that appear in Google’s result due to the censorship of Chinese government, Google’s comprise with Chinese censorship had oppose to its principal in order to develop Chinese Market. But the truth is Google quit Chinese Market in 2009, because the leadership members of Google cannot stand the accusations from other organizations and customers, and they didn’t reach an agreement with Chinese government , finally Google quit Chinese market, it still follow principal finally. 3.Do you think that Google should have entered China and engaged in self-censorship, given the company’s long-standing mantra “Don’t be evil”? Is it better to engage in self-censorship than to have the government censor for you. 4.If all foreign search engine companies declined to invest directly in China owing to concerns over censorship, what do you think the results would be? Who would benefit most from this action ?Who would lose the most? If those foreign search engine company decline to enter Chinese market, it will accelerate the absolute monopoly of the Chinese internet...
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...Susanna Zhang Eacs 4B Section 6pm During Lu Xun’s study in Japan, some topics that he was interested in were “What are the qualities of the ideal human, what does the Chinese character lack most, What is the source of illness.” This made me pause for a little while and try to answer these questions myself. Just like Lu Xun, I was also surprised that his mother called him back to China was for an arranged marriage to a girl that he has never met. Usually in novels, we hear the women’s point of view in the marriage. The author then goes on talking about Lu Hsun’s literary work. The author says “many of his stories are flawed, though they are genuine by virtue of their depth, strength, and gravity.” You can tell that Lu Xun was a great write through the words the author uses in describing each work as “masterpiece” in “Madman’s Diary”, “transcends cultural boundaries and should reach the reader’s heart” in “New Years Sacrifice,” ect. I learned that Mao admired and respected Lu Hsun and “hailed him as the commander of China’s cultural revolution.” The author comes up with three reasons for this. First, Lu Xun’s literature was based on utilitarianism, secondly, he “subsumed literature and arts under politics”, and finally because Lu Xun was a “relentless fighter.” One of my favorite articles was a “Madman’s Diary.” The narrator had illusions that the doctor was going to eat him and that his own brother was the doctor’s accomplice. When the narrator says “ I know their way;...
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...results, and 280,000 related videos on Youku, which is the China’s largest online Youtube. Some people argue that it is Chinese “Gangnam Style” (Sun). One related video it shows that Chinese paramilitary soldiers are performing a dance of the song “Little Apple” during a show by the local government. On November 24, the South Korea girl pop group T-ara released a remake of the music video of “Little Apple,” and translated most of the words to Korean. On the same day, the Chopstick Brothers performed “Little Apple” at the American Music Awards, where they were awarded the “Best International Music.” “Little Apple” is but one example of a new style of Chinese pop music that has appeared in the last few years. Other examples include “The Most Dazzling Folk Style,” by Phoenix Legend (2012), “So Cool,” by Da Zhang Wei in 2014, CCTV Spring Festival Gala (which is the premier mainland Chinese television event of the Chinese new year), and “Chick Chick,” composed and sung by Rong Wang (2014). These pieces represent a new style of Chinese pop music: “earworm songs.” As Chinese pop music industry, the new trend the style of an earworm song became immensely popular, attracted more people, and had hugely influenced Chinese society. In my paper, I will analyze this new style of Chinese pop earworm music with the particular song “Little Apple” and its affect on Chinese society. Sacks Olivers mentioned that the first time anyone used the word of “earworm” as a literal translation by German...
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