thoughts about session 4 on 7/24 w/Dr. Dube

[Anonymous]

The debate was an intriguing idea but in practice it was more like a Q&A. The debate was not formatted as such but instead questions were asked of each school of thought and answers were given with much promoting. Insomuch, it was hard to get a clear sense of how the students would have answered the questions presented and how other schools of thought would have chimed in. With this, it was hard for me to really get into the groove. I suggest that a questions is posed and everyone takes a turn answering the question to the best of their ability. After, all questions have been asked and debated upon then additional knowledge can be attributed.

[Anonymous]

Law! There should be no law! There is only "the way." The natural flow of things. In this sense my father should not be punished as he will redirect himself once he realized he has been lead astray by the need to obtain more, instead of being content with what he has. The real question is, has my father broken a law or has the law created the pressure that is needed to make men go against the natural order of things?

[Anonymous]

I agree with Mao's theory that art serves some kind of political purpose. Even America's art and literature serves some kind of political purpose and when people say, "this is art for art sake" their purpose is to possibly serve the upper class.

[Anonymous]

Dr. Dube mentioned that some people in China were critical of the Judou movie because it did not show a good face of China. Consequently, in today's news, Beijing officials censor news of the floods. Apparently, there were blog posts that criticized the government for not issuing better warnings.

China censors coverage of deadly Beijing floodsAFP – 10 hrs ago

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In the worst-hit district of Fangshan, …

Beijing authorities have reportedly ordered Chinese media to stick to positive news about record weekend floods, after the death of at least 37 people sparked fierce criticism of the government.
Censors also deleted microblog posts criticising the official response to the disaster in China's rapidly modernising capital, which came at a time of heightened political sensitivity ahead of a 10-yearly handover of power.
City propaganda chief Lu Wei told media outlets to stick to stories of "achievements worthy of praise and tears", the Beijing Times daily reported, as authorities tried to stem a tide of accusations that they failed to do enough.
Many Beijing residents took to the country's popular microblogs, or weibos, to complain that some of the deaths could have been prevented if better warnings had been issued and the city's ancient drainage systems modernised.
A call by the Beijing government for donations to an emergency flood relief fund was also criticised by microbloggers, with many ridiculing the authorities for asking ordinary people to pay for the damage.
On Tuesday, over 72,000 postings on a microblog thread focused on the call for donations were deleted.
David Bandurski, who monitors China's Internet censorship at the Hong Kong-based China Media Project, said most of the microblog postings censored in China over the last two days related to the Beijing floods.
"There could be a number of reasons for this, but the overarching reason could be the upcoming change of leadership at the (Communist Party's) 18th Party Congress," Bandurski told AFP.
"This is an important political meeting, so when people are pointing responsibility at local government incompetence, everyone goes into sensitive mode... no one wants to take responsibility for anything."
This year's Congress will see President Hu Jintao step down from his position as head of China's ruling Communist party in a leadership change that will usher in a new generation of leaders expected to be led by Vice President Xi Jinping.
Authorities were still clearing up the damage from Saturday's disaster as the country's top leaders gathered in Beijing on Monday for a meeting addressed by Hu that was given front-page coverage in state newspapers.
The China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper with a predominantly foreign readership, ran an editorial on Tuesday urging Beijing authorities to improve the drainage system, which it said "leaves much to be desired".
But much of China's state-run media steered away from critical stories, focusing on human interest angles of residents helping each other out.
Senior Beijing leaders at an emergency meeting late Monday urged greater efforts to find those still missing, identify the bodies and repair flood-damaged roads.
But residents in the worst hit district of Fangshan on the mountainous southwestern outskirts of China's sprawling capital told AFP the government was doing little to help find their missing loved-ones.
"The government doesn't help at all, every family is responsible for searching for their own family members," said Wang Baoxiang, whose 30-year-old nephew had been missing since going out in Saturday's rains.
According to official assessments released Monday, seven people remained missing, but in the badly hit Fangshan district, locals told AFP reporters that at least 10 people were missing in one small village.
Tuesday's Beijing Daily quoted mayor Guo Jinlong as saying any increases in the death toll should be reported immediately, amid suspicion that the authorities may be underplaying the impact of the floods.
Guo also urged journalists to "correctly guide public opinion", code words in China that which mean to only portray the government in a positive light.
"The news media has played a very good role in timely reporting the developments in emergency response operations, correctly leading the public opinion... and playing a role in boosting morale," Guo said.
"The focus of our rescue work and news propaganda must now be moved toward the suburban areas, especially those areas severely hit by the disaster like Fangshan."

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[Anonymous]

In my AP world class we have the discussion of whether or not Marco Polo actually was in China. What is your opinion? I planned to read Laurence Bergreen's book this summer but haven't had the time. I read Bergreen's Over the Edge of the World about Magellen and loved it.

[Anonymous]

Was the largest empire the Yuan or the British Empire? I did not catch what was said in class--Was the Yuan the largest to date and the British larger but just later? Thanks!

[clay dube]

Hi Tracy,
You're, of course, correct that this wasn't a formal debate. That's quite impossible in a half hour and four sides. If you've got more time, it's entirely possible to have groups prepare affirmative presentations and negative ones and to allow for more back and forth. It also gets one a bit off-script, so that you can really demonstrate knowledge of the doctrine. The format we used allowed for more participation and quicker coverage of more topics. It would be nice, if time permitted, to have the various groups prepare a radio ad and a poster or two.

[clay dube]

Hi Tracy,
The British empire was certainly more far-flung, though in terms of land area and the share of the world's population, the Mongol empire (of which China was part) was far greater.

[Anonymous]

The movie was quite interesting, and it showed a tragic end were it could be argued that those that tried to mess with the Dao ended up being destroyed. Another point, which is that westerners do not seem to understand the desire that the Chinese have in always portraying China in a good light. The regime interpretation of the movie certainly could have been interpreted by some as a repudiation of the gov't. but I wonder if the everyday common person reached the analysis of the destructive nature of the cultural revolution. Nevertheless, as Americans we need to understand better the Chinese point of view. As far as Marco Polo according to the evidence I heard in class today it seems he didn't go to China.

[Anonymous]

It seems that is becoming increasingly more difficult for the Chinese government to censor all that is happening in China or what filters out of China.

[Anonymous]

I thought it would be interesting to interpret the movie Judou ,by Zhang Yimou, from the perspective of a legalist. First of all, each character vividly portrays the evils of the Confucian philosophy. The father does not treat either his wives or his nephew with the care a virtuous uncle and husband should, even though they are compliant, dutiful, and respectful. The wife has no Confucian recourse open to her to remedy her dire position, and in desperation to save her own life seduces the nephew and produces the child her impotent cruel husband desires above all else. The innocent child is cursed by a superstitious Confucian inauspicious birth date as he enters the world. The nephew is saddled with remorse and guilt over his valiant gamble to save the life of his love, because he had to go against his Confucian upbringing and fail in his role of dutiful nephew. The father is injured and paralyzed and lies in bed seething with anger at the news that his wife has deceived him. The son he is so proud of is not his. His Confucian duty to his son is ended and he lashes out at the innocent child. The wife and nephew respond with anger and force, but Confucian principles stop them before the nephew can strangle the nephew. To ease their guilt and bring harmony to the home, the wife and nephew begin to care diligently for the seemingly helpless father. The father repulses them and soon he plots and attempts murder of his family by fire. Again the wife and nephew can find no relief in their Confucian world from the dangerous situation they must endure. As the child grows, he observes that all is not righteous in his Confucian world. His mother is not virtuous, his uncle is not honorable, and most horrifying of all he senses that his own father is plotting to kill him! In this Confucian dilemma, with the adults unwilling to live up to their proper roles, the child drowns the father, strives to keep his mother and the nephew apart. Ultimately this effort to restore virtuous harmony to his house comes to a fiery end on the altar of Confucius. How very different the tale would be if legalist philosophy had been adopted. There would be societal justice for a husband that murdered a wife and legal recourse for a battered one. No woman would have to dishonor herself to save her own life. A nephew would keep lascivious thought to himself. An innocent child would never be branded by his community with an inauspicious fate.

[clay dube]

Hi Temika,

Here are edited versions of Mao's Talks on Art and Literature (part of a rectification/standardization campaign):
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm

Mao was following earlier Marxists in arguing that all art is the product of a class and reflects the biases of that class. This Stanford website offers a variety of socialist realist art from the Soviet Union, China, and elsewhere:
http://www.stanford.edu/~gfreidin/gallery/propart/propart.htm

A collection of Marx and Engels's observations on art/literature:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/index.htm

[clay dube]

Here's the Frances Wood volume that relaunched the Marco Polo debate:
http://www.westviewpress.com/book.php?isbn=9780813389998

Here's a review of the book:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_world_history/v010/10.1schmidt.html

Another reviewer, T.H. Barrett begins his review:
If half a millennium of European expansion was inspired in no small part by a hoax, then surely we ought to know? But testing the veracity of Marco Polo today is not so easily done. The last British researcher into Marco Polo’s travels died in 1957, and the last historian of China who knew any Mongol left for America in the Eighties, at about the same time that the last British scholar who had learned Mongol as well as Chinese – the originally intended co-author of this book – decided that there were no career prospects for anyone with such skills and converted himself (very successfully) into a historian of Chinese art. That left two or three good historians who dealt with Marco Polo’s epoch in Asia, but largely from Middle Eastern sources, plus a handful of historians of China like myself who knew something of the issues, but generally avoided considering them unless compelled to do so. And with good reason: more than twenty-five years may have passed, but I distinctly remember how Frances Wood and I were warned that anyone contemplating working on the Mongol period in Chinese history would be issued with a bottle of aspirin, in view of the immense difficulties involved in studying an empire which employed in its administration not only classical Chinese (which we found hard enough) but also Mongol, Persian and Uighur Turkish. (subscription required, London Review of Books)

Here's a 2011 news article that picks up the discussion:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/8691111/Explorer-Marco-Polo-never-actually-went-to-China.html

[Anonymous]

I had never heard of Marco Polo's journeys being doubted. This gave me the idea of having students read the text book version of Marco Polo and his journeys/significance and then compare it to articles questioning the existence of Marco Polo. Students could then choose a short essay question, such as: Do you think Marco Polo journeyed to China and what evidence do you have to support your position? Does it matter if Marco Polo went to China and why or why not? I found an interesting article that would be easy for kids to read. I teach middle school so finding other articles written at grade level might be difficult. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/marco.htm
edited by jsheehan on 7/24/2012

[Anonymous]

This article talks about how the Great wall of china might be twice as long as they originally thought. Up from 5,500 miles to over 13,000 mi. And although this might be nice for Chinese history, Koreans are saying China is claiming something that is part of their ancestors accomplishments.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/22/is-the-great-wall-of-china-longer-than-previously-thought/

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