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Nice article in the NYTimes about professional baseball in South Korea. Fans are both more organized and rowdier than you might guys.http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/world/asia/to-understand-korean-baseball-head-to-the-stands.html?emc=edit_th_20141103&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=53391876&_r=0&referrer=

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I asked Anne Walthall about this book and was gratified to hear that she likes it as well. When I taught modern Japanese history (back at Berea College), I assigned it and thought that it was excellent. Here's the info:

Saga, Junichiro. Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small Town China. Kodansha USA, 1990.

I couldn't find it on Kodansha's website, but Amazon and Barnes and Noble both list it.

When the book came out, it was even reviewed by Charles Soloman (an animation expert) for the LA Times:
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-06-17/books/bk-141_1_japanese-culture

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I'm surprised that no one has mentioned The Red Scarf Girl in our discussion of biographies. It's mentioned in the Asia in My Classroom forum. Many teachers have used the book. The author's website is at: http://www.jilijiang.com/. Do any of you know the book? Have any of you hosted the author?

I'm on the author's mailing list and by chance today I received this note:
//////////
Hi there:
I can't believe it's almost Nov, and it is the time to plan.
I will be visiting schools overseas next March and April. If you are interested in inviting me again, I will be available before March 10 or after April 30.
As many of you know, my presentation fits with curriculum units on China , world history, and government. It has been described as powerful, inspiring, and educational.
The honorarium is $1300 per day plus travel expenses. I also encourage two schools to share a day to reduce the cost.
If you're interested, please find more details at http://www.jilijiang.com/school-visits/generalinfo.htm and contact me directly at [email protected].
///////

If someone has experience with Jili as a speaker or her book as a source, please do share.
edited by Clay Dube on 10/28/2014

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Of course, Deng Xiaoping's influence on China's rise and transformation is immense. Harvard's Ezra Vogel devoted 10 years to writing a giant biography of Deng:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674055445 (includes a 20 minute video interview with Vogel)

Here's a critical review of Vogel's biography:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/books/review/deng-xiaoping-and-the-transformation-of-china-by-ezra-f-vogel-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Vogel discussed Deng's opening to the world and his effort to nourish science and technology in China during a visit to USC. Watch his talk at:
http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=2632
(also at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI01S6bfooU)
(also at iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/usc-u.s.-china-institute-speaker/id524459663?mt=10)

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In terms of having a direct effect on people, few compare in the 20th century with these three Asians: Mao, Gandhi, and Nehru. Very different people with very different legacies.

Let's sample three biographical accounts, the first of which is based mostly on what Mao said about himself.
Snow, 1937 revised a bit by the author and edited by Chinese state publishers - http://uschinaforum.usc.edu/topic19682-session-7-1025-readings.aspx#post27597
Read also, the review of Red Star and what Snow's biographer wrote about Snow's trip to meet Mao. You may also find the interview with an actor playing Snow interesting.

Then, let's read the Communist Party's 1981 evaluation of Mao and the deMaoification beginning in 1979.
http://uschinaforum.usc.edu/topic19682-session-7-1025-readings.aspx#post27593

Li Zhisui was Mao's doctor for twenty-two years. Let's read a short selection of how Mao treated him and others at the start of the Cultural Revolution:
http://uschinaforum.usc.edu/topic19682-session-7-1025-readings.aspx#post27596

Then we have the bestselling 2005 book by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. They weren't the first to shatter the myth of the battle of Dadu Bridge, but they have offered the most systematic and negative account of Mao. Here's a selection. Please also read the reviews of the book and watch Jung Chang's short video discussion.
http://uschinaforum.usc.edu/topic19682-session-7-1025-readings.aspx#post27594

Chang/Halliday's account stimulated some academics to attempt an evaluation of Mao. Was he a monster? I don't have a book excerpt for you, but do have some reviews of the Benton book.
http://uschinaforum.usc.edu/topic19682-session-7-1025-readings.aspx#post27594

There are many other biographies of Mao Zedong. Two popular ones are by Philip Short and Jonathan Spence.

Finally, here is current Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He insists that all of the CCP era must be seen as a positive whole. He rejects the idea that the first three decades were bad and the good started after the death of Mao.

"Mao is a great figure who changed the face of the nation and led the Chinese people to a new destiny..
[Mao was a] "great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theorist...
"Revolutionary leaders are not gods, but human beings...
"[We] cannot worship them like gods or refuse to allow people to point out and correct their errors just because they are great; neither can we totally repudiate them and erase their historical feats just because they made mistakes...

Xi spoke at the 120th anniversary of Mao's birth: http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-12/26/content_31015643.htm

So - what do you make of Mao? What good, if any, did he accomplish? What bad policies or practices, if any, did can be attributed to him? How does he measure up?
edited by Clay Dube on 10/26/2014

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Chiang Kai-shek was a dominant figure in China for two decades, until driven from the mainland in 1949. He died in 1975. For most of the post-1949 period, Chiang has been depicted as the leader of a corrupt, ineffective regime that failed to defend China from the predations of the Japanese. In recent years, however, Chiang's been elevated on the mainland. He's still seen as the leader of the reactionary Nationalists (Kuomintang), but he's now being depicted as a patriot.

Here's an Associated Press article by Louise Watt about Chiang's new image.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/08/18/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/mao-enemy-chiang-kai-shek-gets-new-life-in-chinas-mainstream-culture/#.VEtmYcncZsc

Because Japan is now being reviled, Chiang's efforts against the Japanese during the Pacific War are being celebrated.

Jay Taylor's mammoth biography of Chiang, published in 2011 is well-thought of.

Here's footage of Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, speaking after a 1965 meeting with US President Lyndon Johnson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nhuLrS4F_M

Chiang's wife is the subject of two substantial biographies: Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady and Pakula, The Last Empress Wesleyan College, where the Soong sisters studied, has a webpage about them: http://www.wesleyancollege.edu/about/soongsisters.cfm

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Xinran travels around China and listens carefully. Her vignettes are quite illuminating. In addition to the book excerpted here, she's the author of The Good Woman of China, another excellent read.

Here Xinran is in the poor mountainous province of Guizhou. She shares the story of Yao Popo, Granny Yao, a Chinese traditional medicine specialist. Yao is 79 and has had one challenge after another. For her the Cultural Revolution was a good thing - people needed her knowledge. She managed to raise seven children in a tiny room. Read to the last page to find out what two blessings she's thankful for.

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Emily Honig and Gail Hershatter are two of the top contemporary historians of China. Hershatter has also served as president of the Association for Asian Studies and recently published a book on women in the 1950s. Here are two selections, the first noting the state efforts to help young Chinese pair up and how the young started putting up personal ads. The second selection (from p. 122 forward) includes stories from women about their courtship experiences and advice to men and women on selecting a spouse. There are some men in the mix. Xie Xue from Hunan, for example, writes, "Fellow countrymen, when you pick a partner, don't forget -- a woman who has her own goals is preferable."

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On the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the government's crackdown, the journals of Zhao Ziyang, which had been smuggled out on cassette tapes, were published. Zhao had been premier of China from 1980 to 1987. When student demonstrations caused Deng Xiaoping and other party elders to remove Hu Yaobang as the Communist Party's general secretary, Zhao was put in his place. The selection I've attached includes two short chapters where Zhao discusses the way he was removed from office following the hardliners crackdown in Beijing.

Here is a NY Times story about the book: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15zhao.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The Times website includes audio clips from the cassettes that were smuggled out. In the first, Zhao talks about the crackdown. The Times has provided a transcription.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15zhao-transcript.html

Our Assignment: China segment on the media coverage of the demonstrations and crackdown is here:
USCI website: http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=3366
YouTube (high definition):

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Edgar Snow was a reporter from Missouri anxious to get to China's "red areas," the communist controlled areas. He knew that publishers and readers would be interested in reports about the communists. He finally managed to do this in 1936. He turned the opportunity into Red Star Over China, one of the most influential books in English on China in the 1930s. The book included stories about the Long March and Mao Zedong talking about his own life. It became a best seller.

I've attached a selection from John Maxwell Hamilton's biography of Snow. It tells of his efforts to get to the red areas and the work he did there. I've also attached a review of the book from Feb. 1938. William Arthur Deacon described it as a "superb piece of reporting" and lauded its biographies and more. A photo of Mao is included along with the caption that he got paid $5, had just two uniforms, and "his life is a thriller."

Some interesting video resources are available. The "China Watching" segment of our Assignment: China series includes Hamilton talking about Snow and Snow interviewing Zhou Enlai: http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=3043 (also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ssHLYRiDI )

In 2012, the Kansas City Public Library staged an interview with Edgar Snow, portrayed by an actor. He gets to China at about the 10 minute mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTGFL2MEqo

Chinese Central Television produced a two part documentary on Snow. At the three minute mark of part 1, the impact of Red Star is stressed.
part 1: http://english.cntv.cn/program/documentary/20140216/104223.shtml

part 2: http://english.cntv.cn/program/documentary/20131221/102266.shtml

Finally - to show the odd status of Snow's work and the difficulty the Chinese state has in dealing with how to talk about Mao, in 1986, when the Party had formally ruled that Mao wasn't perfect, the state press issued Mao Zedong: Biography, Assessment, Reminiscences. There's actually not much assessment here. None of the selections date from after 1949. And who opens the biography section? An edited version of Snow's biography of Mao from Red Star Over China. Why do you think it might have been included? A portion of that selection is attached.
edited by Clay Dube on 10/25/2014

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Li Zhisui was Mao's doctor from 1954 until the Chairman's death in 1976. His book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, was an immediate sensation. Li appeared on 60 Minutes and his book was widely read. Attached is a short chapter dealing with the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

I've also attached a review of the book by Richard Bernstein, who had been Time magazine's bureau chief in Beijing before he moved to the New York Times. The review is available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/02/world/the-tyrant-mao-as-told-by-his-doctor.html

USC's own John Wills also reviewed the book. His Foreign Affairs assessment is at:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50563/john-e-wills-jr/the-emperor-has-no-clothes-mao-s-doctor-reveals-the-naked-truth

Here's a History Channel documentary that focuses on Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Orville Schell, James Lilley, Annchee Min and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuY-2ZotlSU

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Her biography/memoir of her grandmother, mother, and herself was a giant success. Wild Swans sold over 10 million copies. So Jung Chang had the money and time to take on a big topic. Together with her Russian historian husband Jon Halliday, they utilized new resources from Soviet archives and interviews to produce another bestseller, Mao: The Unknown Story (Anchor Books, 2005).

Attached is a chapter looking at the famed Long March. It was on this famous retreat that Mao supposedly became the dominant party leader.

Here's a 13 minute CBS report from 2007 that features Chang/Halliday:
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-real-mao-tse-tung/

Chang's biography is quite controversial, so controversial in fact that another book was published to discuss its claims:
Benton, Gregor and Lin, Chun, eds. (2009) Was Mao really a monster?: the academic response to Chang and Halliday’s "Mao: the unknown story". Routledge, 2009.

I've attached a New York Times review of the Chang/Halliday book and an academic review of the Benton/Lin volume. That review is from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/books/21book.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

A few videos of Jung Chang talking about her book on Mao are available on YouTube. Here's a short one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCC1EtKmPPU
edited by Clay Dube on 10/24/2014

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We'll distribute hard copies of this short handout. It includes propaganda directives issued by the post-Mao government and a portion of the 1981 party decision on Mao and his era. The are from Barme, Shades of Mao, 1996.

A full English version of the "Resolution on Certain Questions" is also attached. It is available on the web at: https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/cpc/history/01.htm.

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Han Han is a wunderkind. Handsome, fantastically successful as a novelist, hugely popular as a blogger, he's now made a feature film. Attached is a 2011 profile of Han Han by The New Yorker's Evan Osnos.

His film The Continent was released in July 2014. Here's a review from The Hollywood Reporter.

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Mark Salzman was among the first Americans to live in China after the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. He wrote a memoir of the experience, Iron and Silk, and later co-wrote and starred in a film based on the book. The film emphasizes Salzman's study of martial arts. Salzman lives in Southern California.

You can see the entire film on YouTube.

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