thoughts about session 10 (Clayton Dube)

I certainly did enjoy the last session where we "wrapped things up" about our discussions on China. I would like to do some research on the more modern problems in China that we talked about - environment, demographics, technology, China's place in the world. After hosting the Olympics, I would have thought China would have been a little more open, but maybe there was too much democracy in China and they want to remain by themselves, still having Google censor internet searches. What an interesting nation.

In our final class discussion, we talked about inflation and the people of China having to use a part of their paycheck to purchase government bonds. I wonder what the people's perspective on this matter was. Did they expect to ever have their money returned? Did the people ever express resentment towards this or was it simply second nature?

• I was looking through the notes I took on our last day of class, looking for facts that I could use in my Geography class that would help my students understand the effect of protest and revolution. More specifically, how an issue in one country can have a direct or indirect effect on the political status of another country. The two countries that were a perfect example for this were the former Soviet Union and China. When looking through my notes I came across the information that we covered on the student protests in Tiananmen Square. It was these protests in China, that in part, led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the fall of Communism in the U.S.S.R. in the early 1990's. I like the idea of making this comparison because a lot of my students see distance as a form of protection. They often think that since something is happening is a country that it is too far away for it to happen in their country. I want them to understand history and always be sympathetic to others' situations. I want them to also learn the power that humans have to make change, because one day it can be your neighbor in trouble and the next day it can be you. It is important for us all to never forget the past.

The last and final session was just as informative and stimulating as all the other meetings in these serious of workshops. I found myself in groused not just in the historical facts but in Dr. Dude's personal experiences, that make the lecture come alive. I also remember watching the events of Tieneman Square in June of 1989, from the comfort of my living room, and thinking "wow" Tank Man is a very brave soul, and he better hide before the Chinese government finds out who he is. As was mentioned in class, his identity was never relieved but, his actions had an impact around the globe. I always use the images of "Tank Man" to remind my students that one person can make a difference.

I agree with Annet's comments about another big topic we talked about during the last class, which was Tainanmen Square. In our textbooks, the focal point of this topic centers on the incidents that occurred between April and June of 1989, and is usually only given one paragraph. I enjoyed learning so much more about the backstory of this famous event, especially the demonstrations that occurred 3 years earlier in the Winter of 1986. I enjoyed hearing stories like that during this incident, the Party had the schools contact the students’ parents, the organizers were jailed, and that there was essentially no violence. Professor Dube then went on to tell the story of the June 4th incident in greater detail and certainly in a way in which I would like to mirror when discussing this incident with my students. I was intrigued by the his point that this was all happening on TV and how much of a big deal/embarrassment it was because Gorbachev was due to arrive in Beijing at the same time. We also learned of the presumed idea that students of good will were manipulated by “Black Counterrevolutionary Hands”. It’s little side-stories like these that I love to sprinkle in the lecture that keeps my students engaged. Finally, I like the emphasis placed on the idea that Tainanmen Square had such an impact on revolutionaries of the time, specifically the events that occurred later on the year (fall of the Berlin Wall, protests in Romania, etc). It just may have been one of the most significant contributions to the fall of Communism all over Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is definitely imperative that students identify that as one of the many connections between two seemingly different and separate entities such as China and the Soviet Union.
edited by cbacon on 6/27/2011

Party membership is not all that we in the west tend to think. Many people in China are not official members of the Communist party. Many young people are not interested in joining the party. There was a recent article in the LA Times about the second film in there series about the Communist party. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-communist-movie-20110624,0,2466369.story

People are "encouraged" to go see it. The young people interviewed said they would see it, but that it doesn't really make them want to join the party. The young people I talked while I was in China were not members of the party. In fact, my host said that most young people are not members, and that it doesn't really matter if you're not interested in politics.

This is definitely a shift in attitude. How will this affect the future of China's government remains to be seen.

One of things Prof. Dube talked about in the last class was the upcoming 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, which occurred yesterday. This received some coverage in the American media, including the following two articles from the LA Times and NY Times, both of which address the mixed feelings the Chinese have about the party. The NY Times article, however, focuses more on the occasional nostalgia for the revolutionary past, especially for those whose childhood memories are evoked by the "red songs" of the past. I found that an interesting reminder of the ways in which the political is often also the personal (to turn the old feminist slogan on its head!).

NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/world/asia/30redsong.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=revolutionary%20classics%20of%20china&st=cse
LA Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-party-20110702,0,1814407.story?page=1&utm_medium=feed&track=rss&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20latimes%2Fmostviewed%20%28L.A.%20Times%20-%20Most%20Viewed%20Stories%29&utm_source=feedburner