In the dazzling global metropolis of Shanghai, what has it meant to call this city home? In this account—part microhistory, part memoir—Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways from the Republican, Maoist, and post-Mao eras. Exploring three dimensions of private life—territories, artifacts, and gossip—Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century. First built by British and Japanese companies in 1915 and 1927, the two homes at the center of this narrative were located in an industrial part of the former "International Settlement." Before their recent demolition, they were nestled in Shanghai's labyrinthine alleyways, which housed more than half of the city's population from the Sino-Japanese War to the Cultural Revolution. Through interviews with her own family members as well as their neighbors, classmates, and co-workers, Li weaves a complex social tapestry reflecting the lived experiences of ordinary people struggling to absorb and adapt to major historical change. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who all fought for a foothold and haven in this city, witnessing spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories.
When a victim of abuse became abuser, then what would happen? Who killed him? His parents, his childhood friends, his classmates, his teacher, the indifferent neighbors or himself? RainBirth, Bright Yang, Dusk Lin and Eagle were born in same alley and year. In the year when he was fifteen, RainBirth committed suicide and hung himself up in a forest behind his school. Bright Yang found in about one week, nearly everyone forgot about him, none cared about his death. She wanted to find the truth behind his death. Through her hard efforts, she found bit by bit the things behind his death. Then did she get all the information? Eagle, and Dusk Lin gave their own accounts about his death? Were their accounts different with the one of Bright Yang? Finally RainBirth gave his own account about what happened after he became ghost, which account do you think is real or more close to reality? In the end, could you find who killed RainBirth? Could you find a solution to solve the problems? When the child comes into the world, his brain is as clean as a white board, everything to him is colorful and beautiful. During his growth, he was abused by his father, he was bullied by his schoolmates, he was molested by his teacher, and he was not cared a bit by his parents, then he learned to cope the world through his own way, he became an abuser. He instinctively found the weaker, he transferred all his maltreatment to the weaker by every chance with scheme. Then how should he be saved? How could we prevent this kind of tragedy in this world? Does every couple have the right to give birth a child?Isn’t it a tragedy to issue the marriage certificate with medical screening for curable illness but the privilege to give a birth of child and take a oath to take care of the growth of the child? Who would take care of those abused children and prevent them to become ferocious abuser? Only when one realizes there is a problem, then the possibility of solving the problem could exist. When everyone turns a blind eye to a problem, then soon or later everyone will become a victim of the problem or part of the problem. Maybe one extra word or look will extinguish the crime. As a human, we should at least try no to become an indifferent person, no matter who small our power we might have, just like a the original streams of great river, if many tiny things come together, we should and might prevent the tragedy.
It’s a self-salvation story about several young people who were victims of abusive or problematic families. Prince grew up in a family which only paid attention to the only boy of the family; Jade Zhen’s father was in prison due to unintentional homicide; Singer Wu gave up his dream due to his father was in a vegetative status after a traffic accident; Author Forbearance was abused like an orphan after his father died in an accident and his mother remarried; Reverence Liu grew up in single parent family. Loneliness and indifference had been engraved in their memories. After their grow-ups, they decided to fight against their broken hearts and the secular stereotypes of the society, persisted to look for the lingering glow of love. In the process they faltered forward without giving up their hopes and fights. They acted just like a bobbing leaf in a river, till they bumped with each other. They began to have a new life after salvation in the process of loving and being loved, leaving their sad or painful past behind, and getting ...
This accessible, illustrated introduction explores the history of Chinese music, an ancient, diverse and fascinating part of China's cultural heritage.
From soil to cloud, from valley to peak, From dark to bright, in this complex and changeable world, What one could take as life, What one could take as an enlightenment. The story revolves around two characters: Guang He and Sheng He: Guang He was abandoned by his mother and abused by his stepmother when he was a child, and after he grew up, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for injuring a person by mistake, and after his release from prison, he searched for the road to redemption; Sheng He was born in the darkness, but preferred to be bright, and was trapped in the valley, but his heart belonged to the mountains; she is a ray of light that shone through the jungle when Guang He sunk in the darkness of the fog, and she is a resilient straw when Guang He plunged into the dangerous shoals. She is a soft straw when Guang He falls into the dangerous shoals of the rapids. Do people who have made mistakes deserve to be forgiven? How can the goodness drowned by the prejudices of the world seek redemption? Please don't let your words become the knife that kills. How to achieve salvation for others and salvation for oneself? Who pays for the sins of all?
Has the current political system in the People's Republic of China lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese public? On the basis of three carefully drawn surveys of Beijing residents between 1995 and 1999, the author finds that diffuse support for the current political system—based on attitudes toward institutions and values—remains strong, at least among city-dwellers, though it is gradually declining. Specific support for current political authorities, as measured by evaluations of their performance in major policy domains, is much weaker, with many citizens evaluating the authorities' performance as mediocre. In analyzing the longitudinal data presented here, the author finds that the same set of key sociodemographic attributes and sociopolitical orientations variably influence citizens' attitudes toward the political system and their evaluations of leaders' performance. Further, the study shows that citizens' attitudes toward the system, on the one hand, and their evaluation of incumbents' performance on the other, have different impacts on forms of political participation, such as voting and contacting authorities.
Rural-urban migration has been going on in China since the early 1980s, resulting in complicated sociolinguistic environments. Migrant workers are the backbone of China's fast growing economy, and yet little is known about their and their children’s identities – who they are, who they think they are, and who they are becoming. The study of their linguistic practice can reveal a lot about their identity construction as well as about transitions in Chinese society and the (re)formation of social structure at the macro level. In this book, Dong Jie presents a wide range of ethnographic data which are organised around a scalar framework. She argues that three scales – linguistic communication, metapragmatic discourse, and public discourse – interact in complex and multiple ways.
Ethnographic fieldwork is something which is often presented as mysterious and inexplicable. How do we know certain things after having done fieldwork? Are we sure we know? And what exactly do we know? This book describes ethnographic fieldwork as the gradual accumulation of knowledge about something you don’t know much about. We start from ignorance and gradually move towards knowledge, on the basis of practices for which we have theoretical and methodological motivations. Jan Blommaert and Dong Jie draw on their own experiences as fieldworkers in explaining the complexities of ethnographic fieldwork as a knowledge trajectory. They do so in an easily accessible way that makes these complexities easier to understand and to handle before, during and after fieldwork.
Since the mid-1990s, as China has downsized and privatized its state-owned enterprises, severe unemployment has created a new class of urban poor and widespread social and psychological disorders. In Unknotting the Heart, Jie Yang examines this understudied group of workers and their experiences of being laid off, "counseled," and then reoriented to the market economy. Using fieldwork from reemployment programs, community psychosocial work, and psychotherapy training sessions in Beijing between 2002 and 2013, Yang highlights the role of psychology in state-led interventions to alleviate the effects of mass unemployment. She pays particular attention to those programs that train laid-off workers in basic psychology and then reemploy them as informal "counselors" in their capacity as housemaids and taxi drivers. These laid-off workers are filling a niche market created by both economic restructuring and the shortage of professional counselors in China, helping the government to defuse intensified class tension and present itself as a nurturing and kindly power. In reality, Yang argues, this process creates both new political complicity and new conflicts, often along gender lines. Women are forced to use the moral virtues and work ethics valued under the former socialist system, as well as their experiences of overcoming depression and suffering, as resources for their new psychological care work. Yang focuses on how the emotions, potentials, and "hearts" of these women have become sites of regulation, market expansion, and political imagination.
This study explores the question as to whether the way in which Chinese management handles conflict is fundamentally different from elsewhere or much the same. It does so by examining in detail an international joint venture construction project, where managers rooted in contrasting business systems were brought together, and by showing how the project progressed over time, how various conflict situations arose, and how they were handled. In addition, the book provides an in-depth account of the inner workings of the Chinese business world, touching on issues such as: differing international standards and management procedures the peculiarities of Chinese red tape paternalism and nepotism the limits on contract in contemporary China the involvement of local officials. Of interest to scholars and managers alike, this study benefits from the unparalleled access the author secured to all the parties involved. Working alongside managers as a participant observer, Jie Tang uses the fine detail of ethnography to convey a vivid impression of the lives of managers in China today and the forces with which they have to contend.
In volume 2 of Liu Bin's Zhuang Gong Bagua Zhang, Professor Zhang Jie documents the style of Bagua Zhang developed by Liu Bin, one of Cheng Ting Hua's top students. Professor Zhang became a disciple in this tradition in 1979, apprenticing under the well-known expert Liu Xing Han in Beijing. He was carefully trained for many years, practicing Bagua's circle-walking techniques under the trees of Temple of Heaven park—the same place where Dong Hai Quan, Cheng Ting Hua, and many other masters used to train. A two-volume series, Liu Bin's Zhuang Gong Bagua Zhang gives equal attention to Bagua Zhang's history, its practice, and the culture from which it arose; Professor Zhang presents Bagua Zhang as a guide for everyday living, stressing the Chinese concept of balance in all things. While volume one instructed students in the fundamentals of Bagua practice (stances and footwork, the circle walk, and the single palm change), volume two teaches variations on the single palm change; the eight mother palms; the twenty-four movements of five elements, three levels form; and the twenty-four movements of eight palms, eight fists, and eight elbows form. Professor Zhang also introduces readers to weapons training with the continous sword form and the coiling dragon long staff form. Step-by-step photos and descriptions document the forms, while never-before-published historical photographs and first-hand accounts of the development of the art provide a rich background for the practical instruction. Volume two also goes further into the history of Liu Bin's lineage, including profiles of many notable Bagua masters. The author's personal contact with many of these masters, including ones that risked their lives to carry on the tradition through the Cultural Revolution, allows him to record their stories in vivid detail.
This book discusses the penetration, growth and operation of transnational civil society (TCS) in China. It explores impacts on the incremental development of China's political pluralism, mainly through exploring the influences of the leading TCS actors on the country's bottom-up and self-governing activist NGOs that have sprung up spontaneously, in terms of capacities, strategies, leadership and political outlook, as a result of complex interactions between the two sectors.
What kind of role can the middle class play in potential democratization in such an undemocratic, late developing country as China? To answer this profound political as well as theoretical question, Jie Chen explores attitudinal and behavioral orientation of China's new middle class to democracy and democratization. Chen's work is based on a unique set of data collected from a probability-sample survey and in-depth interviews of residents in three major Chinese cities, Beijing, Chengdu and Xi'an--each of which represents a distinct level of economic development in urban China-in 2007 and 2008. The empirical findings derived from this data set confirm that (1) compared to other social classes, particularly lower classes, the new Chinese middle class-especially those employed in the state apparatus-tends to be more supportive of the current Party-state but less supportive of democratic values and institutions; (2) the new middle class's attitudes toward democracy may be accounted for by this class's close ideational and institutional ties with the state, and its perceived socioeconomic wellbeing, among other factors; (3) the lack of support for democracy among the middle class tends to cause this social class to act in favor of the current state but in opposition to democratic changes. The most important political implication is that while China's middle class is not likely to serve as the harbinger of democracy now, its current attitudes toward democracy may change in the future. Such a crucial shift in the middle class's orientation toward democracy can take place, especially when its dependence on the Party-state decreases and perception of its own social and economic statuses turns pessimistic. The key theoretical implication from the findings suggests that the attitudinal and behavioral orientations of the middle class-as a whole and as a part-toward democratic change in late developing countries are contingent upon its relationship with the incumbent state and its perceived social/economic wellbeing, and the middle class's support for democracy in these countries is far from inevitable.
China's massive economic restructuring in recent decades has generated alarming incidences of mental disorder affecting over one hundred million people. This timely book provides an anthropological analysis of mental health in China through an exploration of psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychosocial practices, and the role of the State. The book offers a critical study of new characteristics and unique practices of Chinese psychology and cultural tradition, highlighting the embodied, holistic, heart-based approach to mental health. Drawing together voices from her own research and a broad range of theory, Jie Yang addresses the mental health of a diverse array of people, including members of China's elite, the middle class and underprivileged groups. She argues that the Chinese government aligns psychology with the imperatives and interests of state and market, mobilizing concepts of mental illness to resolve social, moral, economic, and political disorders while legitimating the continued rule of the party through psychological care and permissive empathy. This thoughtful analysis will appeal to those across the social sciences and humanities interested in well-being in China and the intersection of society, politics, culture, and mental health.
In Utopian Ruins Jie Li traces the creation, preservation, and elision of memories about China's Mao era by envisioning a virtual museum that reckons with both its utopian yearnings and its cataclysmic reverberations. Li proposes a critical framework for understanding the documentation and transmission of the socialist past that mediates between nostalgia and trauma, anticipation and retrospection, propaganda and testimony. Assembling each chapter like a memorial exhibit, Li explores how corporeal traces, archival documents, camera images, and material relics serve as commemorative media. Prison writings and police files reveal the infrastructure of state surveillance and testify to revolutionary ideals and violence, victimhood and complicity. Photojournalism from the Great Leap Forward and documentaries from the Cultural Revolution promoted faith in communist miracles while excluding darker realities, whereas Mao memorabilia collections, factory ruins, and memorials at trauma sites remind audiences of the Chinese Revolution's unrealized dreams and staggering losses.
The title of this book does not do it justice, for the book ranges far beyond Taiwan's diplomacy in Southeast Asia. The most authoritative book published to date on Taiwan's foreign policy (1949 to 2000), it covers Taiwan's foreign relations and diplomacy with Western developed states, the states of Africa and Latin America, Japan, the People's Republic of China, and the countries of Southeast Asia. Based on Chinese and English sources as well as personal interviews and correspondence, Chen Jie presents a wide-ranging, comprehensive view of Taiwan's efforts to gain greater international recognition. . . . Combining impressive scholarship with interesting analysis, Chen Jie presents new ways of understanding why Taiwan acts the way it does and sprinkles the explanations with wry humor. . . . All in all, a tour de force. Summing Up: Essential.' - S. Ogden, Choice Taiwan has become a significant player on the world stage in many areas and has developed a distinct international profile and influence. Its pro-active foreign policy firmly reminds the world of a new political entity's achievement, aspirations and unfulfilled ambitions. This pioneering book discusses Taiwan's pragmatic diplomacy as a way of seeking legitimacy, survival and development for a burgeoning nation-state, against the dynamic changes in domestic and international scenes and tumultuous relations with China.
This book points out the legal roots of the alignment of Cross-Strait political relations and the issues of Taiwan's participation in international space, and the Treaty of San Francisco and the “Undetermined Status of Taiwan”. Based on an academic standpoint, the book studies the legal theories related to the alignment of Cross-Strait political relations and the issues of Taiwan's participation in international space from the Mainland Chinese perspective. It focuses on the different descriptions and regulations of the alignment of Cross-Strait political relations between the Mainland of China and Taiwan and discusses the status, forms, problems, and prospects of the coexistence of the two sides in the international space. Compared with the policy oaths used in current studies, the book systematically discusses the alignment of Cross-Strait political relations and the issues of Taiwan's participation in international space with a theoretical interpretation. It uses detailed historical materials, especially valuable policy documents and excerpts of speeches cited of the Mainland of China. This book puts forward a series of important propositions, such as the construction of a mechanism for Taiwan’s orderly participation in the international space and means of existence of the Taiwan region in the international space.
Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017)--awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while serving an eleven-year prison sentence--helped shatter longstanding barriers to freedom of organization and expression in China. This biography, written by one of his closest friends, retraces Liu Xiaobo's inspiring life, from his childhood years through his imprisonment. He became terminally ill while incarcerated and died July 13, 2017.
Prologue. 1. Cholesterol. 2. Genesis of Statins. 3. Merck's Triumph. 4. Discovery of Lipitor. 5. Development of Lipitor. 6. To Market, To Market. 7. Baycol, Crestor, and Drugs beyond Statins. 8. Reflections. Appendix. Trademarks of the Drugs. Bibliography and Notes. Index.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.