Questions for Writing Responses

When you post your reading responses, make sure they address the questions listed below for each assignment; Think of these open-ended questions as you read and answer them to the best of your ability; no point is taken off for fragments, syntactical errors or poor diction. Avoid plot summaries or perfunctory remarks such as “yes” or “no”. Feel free to comment on others’s ideas that strike you as thoughtful and insightful. 

First forum for assignments for August 22-27

    • Madman’s Diary (1918) is a frontal attack on Confucian tradition in pre-modern China, the basis of social etiquette and cultural decorums. Think of one social convention or cultural institution that you have always felt oppressive, and say something critical about it, be as sarcastic, ironic and intelligent the madman.
    • The first-person narrator in Yu Dafu’s Sinking (1921) is going through an identity crisis, unable to wiggle out of a situation over which people have no control, such as one’s gender, ethnicity or family. Identify similar circumstances under which you or someone felt like the hero, lost in his negative narcissism.   

Second forum for assignments for August 27-29

    • Written through the lens of Western Sinophilia and/or Sinophobia, The True Story of Ah Q ridicules the “Chinese national characteristics” as missionary Arthur Smith understood them. What “Chinese” characteristics do you see Ah Q allegorize that are not limited to just the Chinese but in fact universal, i.e. our own psychological deformities get projected onto others? 

Third forum for assignments for August 29 — September 3

    • The character Wang Five shares neither Black Li’s conservatism (Confucian and Christian) nor White Li’s progressive activism (equality and liberty). No part of the privileged elites, his status as a social laborer affords him some objectivity to speak truth about the two Li brothers. With which of the three characters do you resonate and why? 

Fourth forum for assignments for September 3 – 5

    • Xiaoxiao is an image of rural China and an anachronism in the age of republican revolution. How do you understand her as a child bride and her survival of sexual transgression? What can you infer from the story about Shen Congwen’s views as a nativist writer on human rights and personal liberty?
    • Not unlike the suicidal hero in Sinking, Dragon Sha’s withdrawal from the world of martial arts is a national allegory of China being marginalized by Western subjugation by the mid 19th-Century. Have you or your friends experienced similar withdrawal or personal setback due to larger sociopolitical and cultural changes in history? 

Fifth forum for assignments for September 5 — 10

      • In nearly every family, someone has got to have the final say or the last word on things. This is a way to privilege social status rather than social contract as the basis of one’s duties and obligations. How sympathetic are you with Juehui (Chueh-hui) who considers family loyalty and kinship hurdles of one’s individual freedom and equality? 

    Sixth forum for assignments for September 10 — 12

      • Written three years after Wall Street Stock crash in 1929, Family Shop of Mr. Lin connects the dots between the economic life in rural China and global financial crisis. Can you think of ways in which your life is also affected by the free market and global capitalism? 

    Seventh forum for assignments for September 12 — 17

      • Wei Ming in The New Woman and Zijun in Regret for the past are but faces of the educated women in China in the 1920s and 30s. What seem to be the limits of Chinese feminism in according to the two story plots? Are their limits and problems still relevant or no longer meaningful to us living a century later?

    Eighth forum for assignments for September 17 — 19

      • Zhenzhen (a.k.a. Chingching) goes through a rite of passage. Her torments in WWII enable her to transform from a village girl into a conscientious communist and gain a sense of agency. What difficulties or hardships in your life have enabled you to grow stronger and understand life better? 
      • Sister Liu in A Kiss by Shi Tuo outgrows her romantic notion of love at the end when she bumps into Tigerfish many years later. What is her epiphany and what does it tell you about human memory and self-deception? Have you been self-delusional and hurt by your own unrealistic expectation or naivete? 

    Ninth forum for assignments for September 19 — 24

      • Among other things, the film White Haired Girl (1950) is one of many versions of the communist land reform. Is a democratic revolution always “progressive”  if the liberation it brings to some like Xi’er also entails the annihilation of others like Huang Shiren? 
      • In The Red Brigade, directed by Xie Jin, Wu Qionghua realizes that her personal liberation is contingent on class struggle of the proletariat and the bourgeois. What is the point up to which the rule of the poor is legitimate and revolution heroic but beyond which it is unwarranted and revolt criminal?

    Tenth forum for assignments for September 26 — October 1

      • A paragon of virtues and a hero of high socialism the poster boy and product of Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958-61), Lei Feng inspired many of his contemporaries to be altruistic and serve a cause greater than one’s self. Is he laudable? Do you know someone who has been a beacon of light when you are self-obsessed? 
      • Have you ever felt a bond with strangers with whom you believe you share the same cause the way internationalists Agnes Smedley, Norman Bethume, Isaeral Epstein, and Sydney Rittenburg felt with Chinese communists? Were these individuals driven by an inflated ego or were they living a fulfilled life when connected to the interests of other people?

    Eleventh forum for assignments for October 1 — 3

      • What are some of the “old ideas” being called into question in this film as an elaboration of Mao’s idea of modern education as a way to empower the laboring masses and democratize China? Do you want an education geared towards changing the world or an education so that you won’t be easily changed by society?

    Twelfth forum for assignments for October 3 — 15

      • In The Execution of Mayor Yin, Taiwanese writer Chen Ruoxi shares her opinion of the Cultural Revolution as a live witness; do you know of any political or religious faith so great that you are prepared to give your all, including your life? Are there circumstances in which Mayor Yin’s staunch faith is called for? 
      • Men are social animals and need communities to realize their humanity. But some times, the collective becomes a form of political correctness in which Lin Zhao, Yu Luojin and Zhang Zhixin met their tragic ends. How do you like these individuals who fell victims of mass hysteria?

    Thirteenth forum for assignments for October 15 — 17

      • The story by Gu Hua and the film by Xie Jin expose Maoism as a communist dystopia, a failure to democratize while allowing healthy competition to prod production. In your estimate and in the context of the story, what would be a good balance between self-entrepreneurship on the one hand and state control to ensure social fairness?

    Fourteenth forum for assignments for October 17 — 22

      • Lu Xinhua’s The Scar to demythologize Mao and expose Mao’s illiberalism; but outside that historical and political context, family or domestic strife routinely occur in other places and times. How much do we owe to parents who brought up up, and to friends and members of society through whom we grow to be an independent thinking adults?
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      • When the communal and collective life becomes so regimented that no contention or deviation is tolerated, it is questioned and called to question as it is here by Zhang Xianliang. What are some instances of illiberalism you have have encountered as someone for religious tolerance and human rights?

    Fifteenth forum for assignments for October 22 — 24

      • Blue Kite is subdivided into “Father”, “Uncle”, and “Step-father” to implicate the historical episodes of (1) the AntiRightist movement in 1957, (2) the Great Leap Forward, and (3) the Cultural Revolution. What is one of your encounters with History in which you or your family (father, uncle, step-father) felt ill at ease in the time periods in which they find themselves?
      • In new mode of thought enabled Tian Zhuangzhuang to reconstruct the past and “deconstruct the ‘grant narrative of social revolution’ as Zhang Xudong suggest?

    Sixteenth forum for assignments for October 24 — 29

      • Dandan lives to regret what she did to her parents, so terrible that Feng Wanyu has a problem (amnesia) to remember what happened. How sorry do you think Dandan should be for her foolishness as a Maoist and Red Guard? 
      • Whom or what did Bajin and Wen Jieruo blame for the deaths of their loved ones? Whom do they hold responsible for the needless loss of human lives?

    Seventeenth forum for assignments for October 29 — 31

      • As national allegory, the film bids farewell to the values and traditions that Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou perform to enact. What is being lost in the course of modern Chinese history as reconstructed in the film? 
      • Give one example of something becoming obsolete, outdated and archaic in the course of world history that we often think synonymous with progress? 

    Eighteenth forum for assignments for October 31 — November 5

      • Fu Gui goes through twentieth-century in China as if history means nothing; in this sense, he is China as Hegel understood the civilization, namely, ahistorical or non-historical. Does history have to make sense? 
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      • Is the idea of man as the agent of historical change an illusion or self-deception? Does the film suggest and provide ways of thinking of time other than a linear line of progress, punctuated by dramatic plots or historical periods?  

    Nineteenth forum for assignments for November 5 — 7

      • Like most romantic stories, Zhang Jie’s novella about love is not spiritually up lifting. Does the author reveal the universal dialectics of love and marriage?
      • Zhang Xian’s novella shows a tragedy when private emotions are regulated or dictated by a moral majority. Where do you draw the line between public opinion and personal rights and liberty (e.g. LGPT identities)?

    Twentieth forum for assignments for November 7 — 12

      • In the post-Mao and post-socialist China as depicted in the film, what do people consider to be happy times? Why is Old Zhao unable to achieve happiness and would he agree with Yi Zhongtian as a neoliberal saying that “market economy is the salvation of China” and that the capitalist revolution ensures the rights of private property and dignifies human existence? 
      • .While commenting on the works by French writer Honere de Balzac, critic Lucian Goldmann points out that his novels signify that the Medieval values of charity, altruism and love are being replaced by the bourgeois values of individualism, thirst for power and eroticism. Do you see this happen? 

    Twenty-first forum for assignments for November 12 — 14

      • Yet another critique of China’s market economy and global capitalism, Feng Xiaogang’s film calls for a return to ancient religions such as Tibetan Buddhism. As a modern person, how do you like the aesthetics of primitivism?
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      • Is there something fundamentally tragic about the way modern civilization advances if and when we feel uprooted from traditions and alienated from our own humanity through different stages of modernity? Do you agree with Carl Jung that “The psychic life of civilized man is full of problems”?

    Twenty-second forum for assignments for November 14 — 19

      • To the extent that Lost in Beijin (2007) is realistic, what does it say about Li Yu’s view on Chinese feminisms women’s liberation? Is a liberal economy in the age of global capitalism any friendlier to women than a feudal or rural economy where Xiaoxiao resides

    Twenty-third forum for assignments for November 19 – 21

      • Wayne Wang’s film called Chinese Box (1997)? What is the essence of Hong Kong/Chinese culture as the director reveals it to be, where people interact as the colonizer and the colonizer? 
      • In your our estimate, how important a factor is race in personal identity and in identity politics? More or less important than gender identity? Why are the interactions between Vivian, Jean and John so complicated in 1997? 

    Twenty-fourth forum for assignments for November 21 – 26

      • Why do the two lovers often fail to achieve intimacy and become “comrades” when both are from the mainland and culturally rooted in the same traditions? 
      • do the factors of diaspora and migration complicate romantic relation between Ho and Lai? What are the appeal and attraction of being a Faustian man who cannot stop to live life?  

    Twenty-fifth assignments for November 26 – December 3

      • To the extent that Eat Drink Man Woman is about Taiwan, what changes have there been in people’s attitudes towards food and sex?
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      • The meeting of two generations in NYC generates sparks as well as conflicts. What has Western (Anglo-American) way of life done to the Chinese and what do the Chinese contribute to the cosmopolitan life in NYC?

    Twenty-sixth assignments for December 3 — 5

      • Do you like the position of China’s New Left that cares about the (in)equality of social wealth or that of the Neoliberalism that prides the freedom of the individual more than anything else