The Return of Confucius

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

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

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

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

Rock'n to a New Youth Culture

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

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

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

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

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”

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

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.