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This is a picture.

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I can just type in a web address: china.usc.edu.

Or I can make the web address hot: http://china.usc.edu

It's easiest to copy and paste in an address: http://www.lacma.org/art/ExhibPrice.aspx

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I want to stress this point.

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Javier,

This is just astonishing. I hope you record some of what your new friends tell you so that you can share it with your students and with us at the reunion.

Everyone else,

Perhaps you didn't have a couple Chinese houseguests waiting for you, but have you had any Chinese or Japanese encounters since we parted company? Maybe a restaurant trip, a chance meeting, or deciding to rent a Chinese or Japanese film?

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Hi Folks,

It's just been announced. A Chinese who started studying Japanese at age 22 has just received Japan's most prestigious literary prize. This should be a great inspiration to those seeking to learn Asian languages and for those eager to teach about Asian literature. Here's the announcement that Yang Yi had earned the award:

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/culture/20080716TDY01304.htm

This article includes the author's response:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080716a2.html

Here's a Japan Times editorial about the author and her work.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20080718a1.html

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Hi Leigh,

We'll have to miss the monks at work lighting torches Itsukushima. We'll be aboard a train at that time.

I readily understand the desire to spend time at one of the monasteries, but we won't be able to accommodate those sorts of defections. We need to stick together to enable us to retain group flexibility (early departures, late returns) and avoid hassles with bags, etc.

Sorry.

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Hi Folks --
From the Beijing Airport guide, here are things you may not bring (and I'd have been worried if you had planned to bring this stuff):

I According to Notice on Inspection and Quarantine for Immigration to China, the following items are prohibited for entry:

* Human's blood and its products;
* Fruits, capsicum, eggplant and tomato;
* Animal corpse and its specimen
* Soil;
* Animal pathogen, destructive insect and other harmful organism;
* Alive animal (except pet dog or cat) and animal's genetic material, including semen, fertilized egg and embryo, etc.;
* Egg, pelt, bristle, coffin bone, horn, meat (including viscera) and their products; fresh milk, cheese, butter, cream, whey mist, silkworm chrysalis, silkworm egg, animal's blood and their products; aquatic animal products;
* Transgene biological material;
* Worn-out clothes.

II According to applicable provisions issued by China Customs, the following items are prohibited for entry:

* All kinds of weapons, imitative weapons, ammunition and explosive objects;
* Spurious currency and feigned marketable securities;
* Print, film, photo, disk, movie, tape, videotape, videodisc, laser disk, computer storage medium and other objects, which are harmful to Chinese politics, economy, culture and morality;
* Various acrid poison;
* Opium, morphine, diamorphine, bhang, as well as other dope and psychoactive drug that may cause addiction;
* Animal, plant and their products, with dangerous germ, destructive insect and other harmful organism;
* Foodstuff, medicine or other objects, which are from epidemic areas and harmful to human and animal's health, or other pestiferous ones.

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The Palo Alto High School news reported on our fellow traveler Jaclyn Edwards's upcoming adventure. Have you made sure that your school newspaper knows you are China and Japan bound? Please do spread the word and promise to do an interview with student journalists upon your return.

Jaclyn -- thanks for spreading the word.

Here's the article:
http://voice.paly.net/view_story.php?id=6928

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Leigh asks where we'll meet in SFO. The southern CA folks will fly to SFO and will be in the transit area (avoiding the joys of repeating the security screening). The northern CA folks will clear security and go to the same gate where we'll be located. We're flying United to Beijing. You'll get the gate number when you check in.

REMINDERS: We have e-tickets and everyone has a seat assignment.

Northern CA folks should have received their passports. Bring them and a credit card or other ID to check in.

Southern CA folks will assemble in front of the United check in counter. You must be on time (check your email and this thread for updates.) You will receive your passport at the check in line. We need the time to get checked in and clear security.

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Hi Jacklyn,
Yes -- the northern California teachers will fly directly to SFO. The southern California group will fly directly to LAX.

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We've scheduled time in a couple of places for you to explore on your own. Of course, you're always welcome to get up early and have a look about.

One of the places we've set time aside for is one of Beijing's preeminent shopping streets, Wangfujing. At the north end of the street there is an intersecting street which in the evening features a wide variety of odd delicacies. Chinese and foreign tourists love to gawk and to occasionally sample some of the treasures there.

I've been taking photos of the street for many years, but few of mine match those assembled in the attached presentation by someone named G. Pollack. The pdf is large, but well worth checking out. I hope that our group could put together and exchange useful collections such as this. (This is also posted in the Asia in My Classroom forum, in the contemporary China thread.)

By the way, I usually can provide more detail about the origins of the presentation. In this case, however, the file was forwarded to me from my nutritionist brother who received it from another nutritionist. I wish I knew who G. Pollack is -- it's a nice bit of work.

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My brother is a nutritionist and he received the attached pdf from one of his nutritionist pals. I don't know who the photographer is, but the shots are sharper than the ones I took of these same Beijing street vendors on numerous visits since 2004. The photographer has also labelled most of the items available for sale.

These street stalls are located on a street that intersects Wangfujing near the end of the pedestrian street. It's a major destination for Chinese and foreign tourists.

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Two new web documentaries are available at the SPICE website:

http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/road_to_beijing

Go to the NBC Documentary and the Silk Road Ensemble links to see the videos and download pdf versions of the teaching guides. There is an email address to use if you'd like to get a dvd with the documentaries on it. [Edit by="Clay Dube on Jun 3, 11:41:31 PM"][/Edit]

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Aileen's recommendation is a great one. I hope she doesn't mind if I mention that Saltzman also plays himself in a movie based on his memoir. Saltzman's an insightful writer. Several passages in the book stand out, including when he discussed the end of WWＩＩwith his students. You may be interested in other books he's written, including a memoir of how he became interested in martial arts. He's a local guy. Perhaps he could be persuaded to speak at a PV event at some time. He's married to filmmaker / tv director Jessica Yu.

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Michael's suggestions are outstanding. I would like to suggest another book that's not usually thought of in the context of women's history. Jonathan Spence (one of the greatest of this generation of historians) focuses on three individuals in his masterful Gate of Heavenly Peace. The first is Kang Youwei, a man who rose to advise the emperor in 1898 and then to flee the wrath of the empress dowager who would essentially put the emperor under house arrest. Qiu Jin is the second person. She left her husband, studied in Japan, returns to China and becomes committed to overthrowing the Manchu Qing dynasty. And the third is Ding Ling, the writer who Michael mentions above. As a young woman, Ding Ling fostered enormous discussion as she wrote of a young woman who admits to desires and dreams. She served the revolution, writing about land reform and more, but ran afoul of political winds and was largely silenced during Mao's last decades. Spence is a great writer and this is a wonderful book. It's a terrific example of using biography to illuminate important historical periods.

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