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, among other things, Lu Xun’s attempt to break free from a dominant cultural tradition. Allow yourself to be such a mad person for a moment and say something seemingly insane about a social convention or institution that you feel deserves to be called into question and indicted.
    • 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 someone or you feel 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 embody to legitimate Western colonization of China and domination of the world?

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

    • The heroine Xiaoxiao is decidedly a figure of the primitive, backward and ignorant; that she survives her sexual scandal has to be an act of poetic justice Shen Congwen wants for China as a nativist writer. To what extent do you relate to her, with no idea of self-autonomy, human rights or even the coed?
    • 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. To what degree do you appreciate or even sympathize with his dignity as a spiritually demoralized person? 

Fifth forum for assignments for September 5 — 10

      • Family ties are important to the individual no matter where s/he is. It is the one place where people behave differently from when in a democratic society in which one’s duties and obligations come from one’s social contract and not status. Why do you (dis)like and (dis)identify with Juehui (Chueh-hui) who considers freedom and equality more important than family loyalty, kinship and love? 

    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 situations. In what ways are Mr. Lin’s business failings as a merchant and his family hardships related to global capitalist markets? 

    Seventh forum for assignments for September 12 — 17

      • Wei Ming in The New Woman and Zijun in Regret for the past represent the educated women in China. What seem to be the limits of Chinese feminism in the 1920s and 30s according to the two story plots? Why do the two female protagonists fail to achieve a sense of agency?

    Eighth forum for assignments for September 17 — 19

      • Chingching (a.k.a. Zhenzhen) in Ding Ling’s When I Was in Hsia Village goes through a rite of passage. Thanks to her horrific experience in WWII, her transformation from a village girl into a conscientious communist and gains a higher sense of life. What are the pieces in the mosaic of her new identity as a Red Army soldier different from China’s village life as she knew it? 
      • 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?  

    Ninth forum for assignments for September 19 — 24

      • Among other things, the film White Haired Girl (1950) is a Sinification of Marxism. As shown in the film, the communist land reform is part of a democratic revolution that ushers in a modern China. In what sense is Xi’er truly liberated and communist revolution “progressive“? 
      • The Red Brigade of Women, directed by Xie Jin, mythologizes Chinese communism, with Wu Qionghua waking up to Marxian idea of class struggle between the rich and poor. In this new social theory, what is the point up to which rule is legitimate and revolt criminal but beyond which rule is unwarranted and revolt heroic?

    Tenth forum for assignments for September 26 — October 1

      • A paragon of virtues and a hero of high socialism the poster boy of Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958-61), Lei Feng is the product of his time; how much an inspiration is he to you to commit yourself to a cause greater than yourself?
      • Have you ever felt a bond with strangers whom you believe in the same cause as you the way internationalists Agnes Smedley, Norman Bethume, Isaeral Epstein, and Sydney Rittenburg felt with Chinese communists? Are people spiritually empty or is their inside full when driven by a need to connect?

    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 to change the world or want it so that you won’t let society change who you are?

    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 witness; what is the point at which you would support mass democracy as Chen Ruoxi did but beyond which you would not be part of a democratic revolution? 
      • 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. How to avoid or improve on Mao’s brand of socialism done in the name of equality that punished hardworking people like Hu Yuyin and Qin Shutian while rewarding the lazy (Wang Qiushe) and the wicked (Li Guoxiang)?

    Fourteenth forum for assignments for October 17 — 22

      • Lu Xinhua’s The Scar to demythologize Mao and expose Mao’s illiberalism; if you were Xiaohua, would you ever scar your family members to stay loyal to a political cause? When would you denounce your friends and family if they are not on the side of social progress?
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      • To what extent would you still endorse a revolution or cause that brings about miscarriages of justice and blood shed? If you were Old Xing unable to marry whom you like or keep the pet you want to adopt, would you still think kindly or positively of the community in which you lived? Why?

    Fifteenth forum for assignments for October 22 — 24

      • In what way is Tian Zhuangzhuang’s film an “attempt to deconstruct the ‘grant narrative of social revolution’ as Zhang Xudong suggest?

    Sixteenth forum for assignments for October 24 — 29

      • What causes Feng Wanyu’s psychological disorder (amnesia)? Would you act like Dandan towards parents in similar political climate? 
      • Whom or what did Bajin and Wen Jieruo blame for the deaths of their loved ones? Were they more or less critical of the past than director Zhang Yimou?

    Seventeenth forum for assignments for October 31 — November 3

      • As national allegory, the film bids farewell to something forever lost for Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou who stand for values and traditions. What is being lost in the course of modern Chinese history as reconstructed by Chen Kaige? 
      • Why does it make little sense to continue playing the legend of King of Chu and his concubine who lived and died in third-century B.C.?

    Eighteenth forum for assignments for November 5 — 7

      • Like most love stories, the romantic love in Zhang Jie’s novella ends anything but that. What is being revealed as the biggest hurdle to free love?
      • Zhang Xian’s novella is also a love story that does go well for Cunni and Xiao Baozi. To what does the author attribute as the reasons for romance to awry? 

    Nineteenth forum for assignments for November 7 — 12

      • Why is Wayne Wang’s film called Chinese Box? What is the essence of Hong Kong/Chinese culture as the director reveals it to be?
      • How are we as viewers led to understanding colonization of Hong Kong by the British? What is the complexity one has to understand about the formation of Chinese cultural identity?
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    Twentieth forum for assignments for November 12 — 14

      • In 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?
      • What is the point Zhang Yimou is making here about the changes brought about by the policies of Deng Xiaoping to reform and open-door?
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    Twenty-first forum for assignments for November 14 — 19

      • To the heroine in Ermo (1994) struggling in the post-Mao China where the pre-modern, the modern, and the post-modern coexist, why is it hard to be happy in a market society and culture of commodities?
      • In Wayne Wang’s film Chinese Box (1997), why is it problematic for Hong Kongers, Vivian, Jean and John, to live with the truths about themselves, each others, and their past?
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    Twenty-second forum for assignments for November 19 — 21

      • Zhang Yimou’s film Happy Times seems a swan song for failed socialism in China, nostalgic of the “good old days” of Maoism; how do you like Old Zhao as a victim of the cutthroat competition in China?
      • Goldmann argues that “the novel is the epic of an age in which the extensive totality of life is no longer directly given, in which the immanence of meaning in life has become a problem, yet which still thinks in terms of totality.” A character from the novel, would Old Zhao 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?

    Twenty-third forum for assignments for April-11

      • Blind Shaft is a crime drama about moral degradation in post-Mao China. To what does Li Yang attribute as the cause of this moral crisis?
      • As economic disparity becomes more pronounced in post-Mao and post-socialist China, Tang and Song feel social injustice. In what sense are their political and moral instincts different from the peasants killing the landed gentry during the communist land revolution?
      • Does the moral struggle of the two con artists validate Michael Sandel’s points that, “some of the good things in life are corrupted or degraded if turned into commodities”? Would they be good people if China remained socialist and resisted capitalist consumerism?

    Twenty-fourth forum for assignments for April-16

      • 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?
      • Which side of the argument are you on as presented in this Intelligence Square? Use the film to substantiate your view.
      • “The psychic life of civilized man is full of problems.” (Jung, p.95, Modern Man in Search of A Soul) What are some of these problems for the two thieves (Wang Bo and Wang Li) and the two con artists (Song and Tang in Blind Shaft)?

    Twenty-fifth assignments for April-18

      • To the extent that this group of migrant workers in the theme park reflect Jia Zhangke’s critique of post-socialist reality, what goes wrong with “the world”, the theme park linking China to global capitalism?
      • Do you like what Zhang Xudong refers to as the “poetics of vanishing” in this film by Jia? What vanishes as China globalizes its economy?
      • 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?

    Twenty-sixth assignments for April-23

      • To the extent that Lost in Beijin (2007) is realistic, what is being identified as the cause of the “global moral crisis” (Wing Shan Ho) as far as Li Yu the director is concerned?
      • How do you like the changes in Chinese feminisms and women’s liberation movements as documented, represented, and elaborated in such film stories as Xiaoxiao, The New Woman, Red Brigade of Women, Love Must Not Be Forgotten?
      • The film, as suggested by its title, is ideological noncommittal. “Since socialism and capitalism were children conceived in the cradle of the great project of modernity, they were both doomed to follow suit in this respect.” (p.69) Do you share Zygmunt Bauman’s sentiments as a socialist:
          • Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burned-out human dreams and charred hopes. It will keep on being resurrected as long as the dreams are burnt and the hopes are charred, as long as human life remains short of the dignity it deserves and the nobility it would be able, given a chance, to muster. And if it were the case, I hope I’d die a socialist. (p.71)