Ai Jing's "My 1997"

Here's the video of Ai Jing's "My 1997", which Andrew F. Jones notes in his article The Politics of Popular Music in Post-Tiananmen China (Blum, Jensen, pp. 306-7).

"My music teacher was my papa," she sings. "He's been working in a state-run factory for 20 years now.

"My mother used to sing northern style opera. She always sighs that she never saw good times."

"Come quick 1997!" she sings. "Then I can go to Hong Kong!"

Americans are out of touch with today’s China

“Chinese visitors to the US have shared the shock of witnessing a severe dichotomy between how much Americans seem to talk about China and yet how little they know about it,” notes Xu Wu in the May 1 edition of The Christian Science Monitor. (He is an assistant professor in strategic media and public relations at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He is also the author of "Chinese Cyber Nationalism.") Living in the world’s so-called superpower, Americans tend to assume a “type of benign negligence” he says, demonstrated by the China experts in the US who don’t even know how to speak the language. It’s difficult to understand a culture without communication.

So here are “recurring talking points in the American media” that Xu Wu finds faulty:

China is a rising power, and a rising power is dangerous.

Xu notes that China is not only a rising power, but also a returning power. As a united continental power for more than 2,000 years, China is composed, restrained, mature and, judging from history, not aggressive or expansive. “They were famous for building walls,” he says.

China is a Communist country, and Communism is evil.

Xu explains that “today's ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could easily be renamed the Chinese Confucian Party (CCP) without changing much of its ideological belief or organizational structure, or even its acronym for that matter.” (For real paranoia, check out this site: China is evil dot com ).

Tiananmen Square in 1989 is an iconic image that lingers in the minds of the Chinese.

To this Xu asks: “Is the Watergate scandal still the dominant issue facing the US today?”

As we have seen in this class, and as Xu reveals here, there is an imbalance of knowledge between what the Chinese know about Western culture and what Americans know about theirs. Chinese youth are taught from an early age English and the Western way of thinking. Those of us in this class are here by choice, not by curriculum requirement.

Since China is a top economic power, perhaps a short segment in middle school about this country isn’t significant enough to dispel the myths Xu examines in this article.

More music from China

Speaking of culture, I really like this group: Long Kuan Jiu Duan. They seem to reach across cultural boundaries, as music often will.




Here's Long Kuan crossing the great divide in the band Mika Bomb:




Let's just all get up and dance and forget our assimilations!!

Awakened by the dragon

Before I was awakened by the dragon, China was an alien place on the other side of the planet where Communism constrained every movement of its people. In spite of this constriction on individual freedom, I assumed some form of modernity had found its way into the country; I just wasn’t really sure what it looked like. I think I have a better picture now, yet also realize how much more there is to know about China. Before, I would have never wanted to visit this vast, diverse, multi-colored land, but now I would really like to make the journey.

Too bad I didn't know about The National Committee on United States-China Relations before now. It's been around since 1966 when certain scholars and business leaders began to understand the importance of reciprocal education between the citizens of China and the United States. According to its web site, the committee was founded in the "belief that vigorous debate of China policy among Americans was essential and that balanced public education could clarify U.S. interests and strengthen our foreign policy." Continuous dialogue between citizens would foster mutual understanding, "a basic requirement for stable and productive relations."

After 40-plus years, the committee's basic purposes are the same: focusing on exchange, educational, and policy programs on international relations, economic development and management, governance and legal affairs, environmental and other global concerns, mass communication, and education administration. Some of the programs the committee sponsors are these:

Public Forum Events which, in the past, have included topics on the Shanghai Communique, International climate change negotiations between Beijing and Washington, and American and Chinese views on the world and each other. Upcoming events include opportunities to hear author David M. Lampton discuss his latest book, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money and Minds, Judge J. Clifford Wallace speak on judicial reform in China, and three leading specialists examine the integration and implications of the American and Chinese economies.

"CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections" uses web casts and on-site speakers to give Americans in dozens of cities the opportunity to hear directly from policy-makers and specialists.

Twice annual Chinese education delegations visit American schools, federal government agencies, and education-related NGOs to learn about innovations and challenges in the U.S. education system with the goal of applying this knowledge to their own systems.

U.S.-China Teachers Exchange Program sends American K-12 teachers to China and brings Chinese secondary school teachers to the United States to foster the development of language and culture programs at schools in both countries.

The committee also sponsors a student exchange program and publishes several reports, including a series on China’s policies.

These programs all facilitate the belief that increased public knowledge of China and U.S.-China relations requires ongoing public education, face-to-face contact, and an honest exchange of ideas.

With organizations like this in place, and the proper high-level officials to heed its recommendations and learnings, perhaps the Sino-American relationship will flourish and help the whole world develop in harmony as well.

Folk Art and Amazon Women

This post is in response to KR's wonderful blog about Mongolian Amazon Warrior Princesses, which gave me license to post what I have been thinking ever since we read about the Mosuo.



James Harold Jennings, an untrained outsider artist, lived in Pennacle, North Carolina, in a school bus by the side of the road. He painted pictures depicting mythical modern-day Amazon women. Whether they were beating up bad boys and lyons, riding motorcycles, or raiding James's Art World, they were tough warriors, who sought to make a statement about their prowess and dominion.

I bet James would be happy to learn that there is evidence that Amazon Women existed. If he were still here, I'd be sure to let him know. At least his fantasy is still alive in his art.

China is No. 1 Internet user

Check it out: China had 221,000,000 Internet users as of the end of February, ranking it the first in the world. The proportion of users among the total population is still lower than the global average, though.

Cities need slums

Big Chinese cities need slums for migrant workers, according to Tsinghsua University Professor Qin Hui. An April 15 article on the China View web site quotes him as saying this in a speech at a public forum on urbanization in Shenzhen:


"It is no shame for big cities to have such areas. On the contrary, Shenzhen and other cities should take initiatives to build cheap residential areas for low-income residents including migrant workers who want to stay in the cities where they work."

He is right, of course, since full-time residents and the country at large reap huge benefits from the people who travel 100s of miles from their homes to do dangerous and tedious work that the more affluent consider beneath them. Without ample living space, migrant workers are left to squatting in corrugated, cardboard shacks or residing in unfinished or partially demolished buildings, train stations, on the streets, and under bridges and eaves. Some are lucky enough to live in cramped domitories provided by their employers (see photograph).

With no immediate expectation for legal residency, even though they live in the cities most of the time, migrant workers will not be seen as regular members of city life. However, as Qin noted, migrant workers need to be included in cities' plans for providing housing to low-income citizens. The migrants could even build their own homes in designated areas, he said. Indeed, approximately 30 percent of them work in construction.

"To protect the rights of these people, we should respect their freedom to build houses in some designated areas, and improve their living conditions," said Qin.

It is interesting to note how migrant workers are treated as outcasts, even though they provide needed labor and services to city dwellers. Long hours, poor living and working conditions, sorry pay, and sometimes no pay are some of the agonies they face to provide living expenses for their families back home in rural locations. As seamtress Zheng Jingang says, "Sometimes I think about the foreigners wearing the clothes we make. The material is quite expensive and I think: I'm working here but I can't afford to wear these things. But I'm a migrant worker. I know a lot of things are unfair."

Work Cited: Solinger, Dorothy, The Floating Population in the Cities, pp. 274-288, China Off Center, ed., Blum and Jensen, 2002.