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According to this Canadian Press story, three US films will be released in China this March. They are National Treasure: Book of Secrets, The Golden Compass, and 10,000 BC. Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness was released in January. Only 20 foreign films are officially released in China each year, though people routinely watch a large variety of films via pirated DVD copies.

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Matt,
These are great suggestions -- please put them into either the web resources thread or one on art.

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test file

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This is Bold. This is italicized text.

USC US-China Institute

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Hi Folks,
I've attached a document with some useful websites attached. Let's visit one or two during our intro to the discussion forum effort. Click on the icon below to open the attached file.

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Hi Folks,

Many loved the series put together by Rob Gifford and Louisa Lim. You may find the new series featuring Ted Koppel's reports of interest. The first looks at coal mining in China. Lim contributes another slide show and more.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19203190

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Thanks for the terrific web site suggestions. Because these will be of interest to teachers beyond our seminar, please post such reviews in the web resources section of the Asia in My Classroom forum.

web resources

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Hi Folks,
We've got info on the flow of visitors in the "On an Average Day" section of our website. You might send students to this resource to learn about killer pollution, holiday migrations, and more.

Here's the basic site: http://china.usc.edu/resources.aspx
click on the average day tab.

Here is the entry on Chinese visiting the US:
http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=744

And on Americans visiting China:
http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=738

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Hi Sarah,

Please take this discussion to the main Asia in My Classroom forum, this is topic that is important to all concerned with historical preservation. The Associated Press story is available at the LA Times website: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-fire12feb12,0,1878963.story

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Michelin says that Tokyo may be THE place to eat. 160,000 restaurants (20,000 in Paris and 23,000 in New York) and many of them are considered outstanding. I'm sure most are beyond my budget. Read the Washington Post story on Tokyo restaurants at:
http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/14/AR2008021403921.html?wpisrc=newsletter

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Hi Folks,

Remember what we stressed about the elements that make an ideology coherent and powerful.

1. A convincing explanation of the current situation and how we got here.
2. An exciting description of where we should be as a society, explanations of how things work, how people relate to each other.
3. A guide or action plan for getting from where we are to where we ought to be.

In preparing for our debate, please keep these elements in mind. When you can, link all three in answering the core questions identified on pages 46-47 of the philosophy unit.

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Judi's questions are good ones. I find the practice abhorrent and agree with Judi's point that plastic surgery, tattoos, piercings, and so on are generally undertaken by adults (well informed adults? that's another question, sober adults, yet another question). Also, these are generally reversible (not pain-free and not necessarily easy, but reversible). Footbinding was carried out on children by adults and left them permanently injured.

Footbinding is one of the topics that every teacher needs to discuss when looking at the varying experiences of Chinese women. It emerges about a thousand years ago and survived into the last century.

Not all women had their feet bound. Many non-Han ethnic groups such as the Hakka and Manchus did not bind their women's feet and it was much less common among ordinary people in the South than it was in the North, probably because women in the South usually joined in agricultural labor.

How are we to understand this custom and role men and women played in perpetuating it? How should we raise the topic with children? Is it enough to note that our own culture imposes standards of beauty that cause some to endure suffering, surgery, or psychological damage?

Below are some web resources on footbinding that you may find interesting.

California resident Beverly Jackson is a longtime collector of the shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet. She traveled to China and interviewed women who had their feet bound and produced a lavishly illustrated volume Splendid Slippers. Her website offers short excerpts from the book, reviews of it, and -- of course -- a link to buy the volume. Combined with works by Howard Levy and Dorothy Ko, this is a good resource to draw upon in introducing the practice to students.

http://www.silcom.com/~bevjack/

Levy, Howard S. Chinese Footbinding: The History of a Curious Erotic Custom, Foreword by Arthur Waley. Introd. by Wolfram Eberhard. New York, W. Rawls, 1966.

Ko, Dorothy. Every Step a Lotus : Shoes for Bound Feet. Berkeley : University of California Press, 2001. Click here to see the UC Press webpage on the book. You can download and read chapter 2. It includes terrific images. Prof. Ko has also written "The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China," The Journal of Women's History 8.4.

Feng Jicai, one of China's most popular writers, authored an interesting novel on the custom and its place in family and social life. Three Inch Golden Lotus. It was translated by David Wakefield and published by the University of Hawaii Press.

Yue-qing Yang's recent film Footbinding: The Search for the Three-Inch Golden Lotus is available and includes interviews with Chinese about the custom. In the film, Dorothy Ko argues that footbinding is routinely misunderstood.[Edit by="Clay Dube on Jan 11, 5:01:53 PM"][/Edit]

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Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007. She had twice been elected prime minister of Pakistan and was in the process of rallying support for another campaign. In August, marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of Pakistan, she spoke to a Council on Foreign Relations audience . A transcript of the conversation as well as video and audio of it are available from the CFR website.

Click here for the Bhutto conversation.

Incidentally, the CFR site is a terrific resource for educators. There are many speeches as well as background papers available there on Asian issues and on US-Asian relations.

[Edit by="Clay Dube on Jan 11, 4:27:34 PM"][/Edit]

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Hi Folks --

We love these film reviews. Please post film reviews in the film festival thread. Please put, as C. McMahon did, the name of the film in the subject line.

Thank you!

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The best space to discuss the Images of East Asia workshop (which was organized by the USC U.S.-China Institute and supported by the UCLA-USC Joint East Asian Studies Center is in the Asia in My Classroom forum.

Please visit the Asia in My Classroom forum to discuss the workshop. To sign up for other teacher training workshops, please visit: http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=189.

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