Please post your midterm progress report as a comment to this post. Please include the following in your report:
1. The working topic for your midterm paper (example: American women's changing perceptions of Chinese women's education and empowerment in the twentieth century)
2. Possible interview subjects and questions planned (example: plan to interview three generations of women in the author's own family; questions may include: ask them to name famous educated Chinese women, ask them to identify their sources of information, and ask them to talk about their understanding about the relationship between education and empowerment in the Chinese context and through their own experience in the US)
3. Possible in-class readings you will read closely and draw inspiration from (example: pieces related to Gu Ruopu, Qiu Jin, Ding Ling, etc.--check syllabus for full bibliographical information).
4. Possible external academic sources (example: "Education and Gender Egalitarianism: The Case of China"--to start, do keyword searches in JSTOR and Project Muse databases for full text academic articles from lib.uky.edu)
You are required to use in-class readings and highly encouraged to consult external academic sources for your midterm. Annotate your working bibliography to show your progress. Progress report due Thursday March 6 by 10 pm.
I chose to center my paper around Western perceptions of Chinese women throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. I interviewed three generations of women in my own family (my father's mother, my mother, and my younger sister) about their changing perceptions of women in China. I began by asking what impressions they had of Chinese women while they were growing up, then asked how these impressions had changed. I asked them to talk about their feelings about traveling to China (and also their feelings about someone they know traveling to China, referencing my own trip to Shanghai last summer). Finally, in order to gauge some things for my follow-up interview, I asked them to talk about some female Chinese figures they were familiar with. I got a wide variety of answers, from pseudo-historical and fictional to royal and political. Some of the answers were not ethnic Chinese women, but (for example) Western missionaries in China or characters in films.
ReplyDeleteFollowing this, I selected pieces from our class reading to send to each of them so I could ask for their impressions. For my grandmother, I picked Lu Xun's "Regret for The Past," based upon the fact that she mentioned Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth" in her response and I know she loves to read. I felt it would be an interesting and, perhaps, more accessible piece. I provided some background to the May Fourth Movement and Lu Xun for her before she read. For my mother, I selected a chapter from Princess Der Ling's memoir. My mother mentioned Cixi as one of the figures she was familiar with and I was curious to see what she might think about the Der Ling narrative. The chapter I picked wasn't one we read in class, but I thought it was a very interesting excerpt (Chapter seventeen, The Audience Hall). I gave her some background after she read, based upon the questions she had after she finished the reading. For my sister, I haven't decided which reading to provide her, but I have communicated with her about reading something and she is willing to do so.
I feel that using the three class readings I provided to my family members will definitely provide enough content for my paper, so I haven't looked into external readings yet. I may do so once I have all the replies from my "follow-up" interview (and as such, I don't have any other bibliography information to provide).
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ReplyDeleteMy midterm paper will examine the correlation between studying abroad and modernization in China. I will interview two individuals, currently students at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and the second a student at the University of Kentucky. Both have studied abroad in China, and both are from two dominant modernized countries.
ReplyDeleteThe questions that I pose will focus specifically on where they have studied abroad (in China), and their purpose for studying abroad. After I receive a response from them, I will ask them to elaborate on their perspectives regarding western influences in China and to identify some of the traditional values that China continues to embrace. I will compare and contrast these questions with our readings from class. The two readings that I will compare are: The Beheaded Feminist, and Bound Feet and Western Dress. The characters in both literary works are individuals that have studied abroad in Japan. The students in the readings were interested in new ways of thinking, and envisioned China embracing a more modernized way of thinking. After comparing my questions and my readings, I anticipate seeing a correlation regarding how students take the initiative to study abroad in Japan, and other Western countries, in order to bring modernization to China. Some of the external academic sources are Chinese Returnees: Impact on China’s Modernization and Globalization by Wang Huiyao and an articles by Liqing Tao called Study Abroad. These articles will go more in depth about the causes of studying abroad for Chinese students and how it correlates with modernization.
For this project, I will focus on the different perceptions of Chai Ling in the student protest movement of 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Using Chai Ling as a case study, I want to know what we can learn about the status of women (specifically women of the same status as Chai Ling) and issues of nationality during the late 1980s and early 1990s – the early reform period in a post-Mao world. Using both American and Chinese subjects, I plan on analyzing the interaction between the perceptions of Chai Ling and the acceptable role of a woman in society.
ReplyDeleteI will begin by interviewing several individuals who are familiar with Chai Ling and her actions in 1989, including two American women, one Chinese woman, and one Chinese man. If possible, I will interview a male professor at UK who is familiar with her. While my questions will change depending on each individual, they will focus on what information each person knows about Chai Ling and how that has shaped their perception of her. For the Chinese subjects, I will ask the following questions: Were Chai Ling’s actions justified? Do these actions, and her subsequent success in America, call into question her nationality or faithfulness to China? Do you think the fact that she is a woman has influenced how she is perceived? What are your thoughts about Chai Ling’s forgiveness letter? Does this influence her “Chinese-ness”?
For the American interviewees, I will ask the following questions: What has shaped your perception of Chai Ling? Are you familiar with the controversy surrounding her words and actions in 1989? Do you think the fact that she is a woman has influenced how she is perceived? If she did indeed commit crimes against the people she was leading, could anything make up for these actions? What about her work with All Girls Allowed? What are your thoughts about Chai Ling’s “forgiveness” letter? Does this influence her nationality?
As for internal readings, I will rely on the texts on Qiu Jin, Yu Dafu’s “Sinking”, and Harris’s “The New Woman Incident”.
-Kristine Harris, “The New Woman Incident: Cinema, Scandal, and Spectacle in 1935 Shanghai,” in Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender, University of Hawaii Press, 1997, 277-302.
-YU Dafu: “Sinking,” in Joseph Lau and Howard Goldblatt eds., The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, Columbia University Press, 1995, 44-69.
-“The Beheaded Feminist QIU Jin,” in The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China, 767-808.
As for external readings, I will use the following:
-Douglas, C. A. (1989). “Asian Feminism.” Off Our Backs 19.8 (1989): 13. Online.
-Wright, T. (1999). “State Repression and Student Protest in Contemporary China.” The China Quarterly, 157 (1999): 142-172. Online.
I have not yet found anyone I can interview, but my planned interview questions mostly relate to my topic which is male sexuality and the ways in which it reflects/effects/impacts women's rights through various time frames, specifically as compared to the US. I will ask various questions such as how taboo women's sexuality is in, say, the 1970s compared to current day. What types of clothing are women expected to wear in the 70s? Now? Are women sexualized in Chinese pop culture as they commonly are in American and even Korean pop culture? What is the common modern opinion in terms of the expectation for women to be petite? Is that still a subconscious expectation today?
ReplyDeleteI will be referencing the readings we did in class regarding male sexuality and also taking some things from other various readings. Since I'm doing a similar paper also about male sexuality in another course, I will also be cross-referencing some of my research for that paper as well which will include a book called "Male Sexuality" by Dr. Michael Bader.
I'm really interested in your topic, Do you happen to have any good starting points you could refer me to? I've never taken a class that dealt with male sexuality, so I'm curious about what people have to say about it, especially how it relates to permissiveness towards female sexuality.
DeleteWorking Topic: Sex in Shanghai
ReplyDelete3-4 friends from Shanghai currently studying or working there. I want to get from them their stances towards sex, stories they have heard about sex in Shanghai, what their friends do, if people talk about it and how, why they feel the way they do and if anything would change their opinion.
In Class Readings:
Modernizing Sex is an account of the sex trade in the 1920-40s in shanghai. Which is relevant to the sex trade currently occurring today in the same place. It would be interesting to examine if the various viewpoints delineated apply to modern times as well.
Shanghai Baby is a personal memoir of one woman's search for identity, morality and love, with unapologetic depictions of sex. This is useful to see the culture as it was experienced by one individual (or written to be like) from a short period ago.
External Sources TBD
1. Working Topic: The topic that I am interested in researching is about the changing role of women in Chinese society after the revolution of 1911. This was when the Qing Dynasty lost power because of the revolutionaries in southern China. I want to examine the role played by women before, during and after the revolution in society. I also want to examine whether (overall) the revolution was either a positive change or a negative change for women. I want to specifically focus on policy. We often think that revolutions are always positive, but some (namely the Iranian Revolution of 1979) actually set the women’s rights movement years behind. I want to find out whether this was the case for the Chinese Revolution of 1911. Because of interview issues, I might have to pick another topic. I’m thinking of researching women’s rights in modern china and focus on subjects like the one child policy.
ReplyDelete2. Interview Subjects: This is where the problem arises because I do not know many people who have knowledge about China in the early 1900s. This is what compels me to change my topic to something more recent, perhaps an issue in the present. If I do decide to do something more recent, I do know some people that might have knowledge about the other topic. They are classmates with roots in mainland China. Perhaps I can \ interview Luo Laoshi?
3. In Class Readings: Feminist Imagination in the Qing Dynasty,
• “Historical Introduction: Qiu Jin,” in Chinese Studies in History, vol. 34, no. 2 (Winter 2000-2001), 5-9.
• “The Beheaded Feminist Qiu Jin,” in The Red Brush; Writing Women of Imperial China, 767-808.
• “Flowers in the Mirror” (Li Ruzhen, ca. 1818) in Estelle Freedman ed., The Essential Feminist Reader, Modern Library, 2007, 37-46
4. Academic Sources: The problem with the first topic is that the external information I can find is from Chinese editorials. And it seems to be biased in one way. Bias is not necessarily a negative thing (if used correctly).
• http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/chinesewoman/11-2.htm
• http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-10/10/content_13858611.htm
You could look on http://www.jstor.org/ for some articles on a keyword search. If you log in with UK credentials, a lot of articles are free to read and download. As for interview, that would be more difficult.
DeleteMy topic for my midterm paper is going to be along the lines of prostitution and what exactly this means to a native Chinese. I plan to ask three girls their opinions on this matter. I would like to do three Chinese girls at different ages, but I think I will be asking girls all within about 10 years of each other. I have aslo thought about asking my american friend who is currently in China about this matter to see what she knows about it, but I am not sure I can get in contact with her in time. I plan to ask my participants basic get to know them questions to see what there status of living is in China. I also want to ask there educational background and some short family history questions. Then I will ask general knowledge questions about prostituion in the world and see if they think that it is prevalent in China now, or what they knew of it in the past. I will also ask questions like: Do you know the difference between streetwalkers and courtesans? and Do you think there is a simple solution to prostitution being that this is so prevalent in many countries? Where is prostitution most prominent? Is it still going on today?
ReplyDeleteI will use the "Moderning Sex" article as my reference and I plan to share my knowlegde that I took from this article with my participants to expain why and what exactly I am asking. I will possibly look at some outside reading after I get the responses from my participants.
1. Working Topic: Perception of Chinese Women and possible inequalities that they face in two cultures (their own and in America). I want to compare and contrast the views of Chinese women in the U.S. and then in China.
ReplyDelete2. Possible interview subjects and questions planned: I plan to interview my father who has a lot of background in history and then a woman of the U.S. culture. I want to interview someone of the Chinese decent who can tell me about the inequalities they face, but have not been successful yet. I want to initially ask them simple, general questions about what they know about women in China and then give them an excerpt of the two readings from class (Miss Sophia's Diary and Flowers in the Mirror). Then I will ask them questions asking how they perceive the story in Chinese culture and then how it would be perceived in America. I want them to compare and contrast the same issue in two different nations.
3. Possible In-class readings: I will use two readings that went away from the norm of the general "woman role" and that is "Miss Sophia's Diary" and "Flowers in the Mirror." These two stories looked at women stepping out of their normal role and away from inequality. These would be a good contrasting story to what people perceive as the norm.
4. Possible external sources: I have not looked at any extra sources because I think I will be good with what I have. It may be something that I look into for my final paper and expanding the paper.
Topic: The effect the Chinese media has had on society’s perception of Chinese women throughout the 20th and 21st century.
ReplyDeleteInterview Subjects: A couple American students that have studied in China, they are mostly females. An older Chinese woman who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and has also studied in America.
Interview Questions:
• How has the Chinese media (newspapers, commercial, etc.) affected Chinese society's view of women in regards to prostitution, place in the home, working, etc? Both historically and in modern day?
• Why do you think the media has such a great affect on societal views and women's own perspectives?
• Do you think the media has a positive or negative influence on women; has the media hindered or expedited the progression of women in society?
• Have you been influenced by media in regards to your body image, career goals, or worldviews? How so?
Possible In-class Readings:
Gail Hershatter, “Modernizing Sex, Sexing Modernity: Prostitution in early Twentieth-Century Shanghai.” In Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State, ed. Christina K. Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, Lisa Rofel, and Tyrene White, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, 147-174.
• This source provides stereotypes of prostitutes that were formed by the media.
Kristine Harris, “The New Woman Incident: Cinema, Scandal, and Spectacle in 1935 Shanghai,” in Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender, University of Hawaii Press, 1997, 277-302.
• This source uses a source of media, a silent movie, as a case study for how audiences perceived the “new woman” in Chinese society.
New Woman (dir. CAI Chusheng, 1935); Center Stage (dir. Stanley Kwan, 1992).
• I can use scenes from this movie to decipher how the director portrays his vision of the “new women” to his audience.
Shen Congwen, “Xiaoxiao,” in Joseph Lau and Howard Goldblatt eds., The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, Columbia University Press, 1995, 227-236.
• This source gives perceptions of the young urban population by the rural population in China
Possible External Academic Sources:
Glocal Understandings: Female Readers' Perceptions of the New Woman in Chinese Advertising
Kineta H. Hung, Stella Yiyan Li and Russell W. Belk
Journal of International Business Studies
Vol. 38, No. 6 (Nov., 2007) , pp. 1034-1051
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
• This source offers female readers’ perceptions of the “new woman” in Chinese advertising.
• This source explains studies that were done using Chinese advertisements that included pictures of women during and after the Maoist era.
• This source creates four categories of the new Chinese woman, defines them, and then shows advertisements to females to get their perceptions.
• One very intriguing statement from this source is, “Chinese womens’ construal of the ideal self is consistent with the Chinese people’s love/hate relationship with things foreign, given their painful historical past with foreign powers and current sociopolitical views on modernizing China.” (p 1049)
State of the Field: Women in China's Long Twentieth Century
Gail Hershatter
The Journal of Asian Studies
Vol. 63, No. 4 (Nov., 2004) , pp. 991-1065
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
• This source discusses Chinese women in the 20th century in regards to women and marriage, family, and sex, women and labor, and women and national modernity.
• One very important quote is, “Dai Jinhua examines how literary works and films of the 1980s and 1990s position women variously as objects on men’s desire, as the cause of political chaos and men’s disenfranchisement…” (p1039)
• This source also states, “They (women) are also blamed for engaging in prostitution, conducting extramarital affairs with local men, and destabilizing marriages.” (p1026)
1.Filial piety in the modern world from the viewpoint of our generation.
ReplyDelete2.Chinese national (has never been abroad)
Chinese national studying abroad in US
Chinese-American who grew up in US
American who grew up in US
Questions:
a.Their idea of filial piety
b.How they respect their parents (their own experience of filial piety)
c.Eastern/Western views of filial piety
d.Ask them if they believe filial piety is important in the modern world or if It is something of traditional ways
3.Bound Feet and Western Dress
Yu Dafu
Qiu Jin
4.I am not sure of external sources dealing with filial piety, however I would like to find out dealing with more contemporary authors in this area.
The working topic for my midterm is based off of the patriarchal oppression against women in Chinese culture. I’m possibly thinking about incorporating the roles woman play in the family including bearing and raising children. I have currently contacted two people who were adopted from China, one whose family were immigrants to America, and several people who have visited China themselves as subjects. Questions that were asked to said subjects were as follows:
ReplyDeleteDo you have family ties to China? If so, how? What kinds of stereotypes, if any, do you find yourself facing because of your background? Do you have any experience with arranged marriage (within your own family or others)? When did your family come to the USA? Describe your familial structure with the racial background as a guide. How did your parents meet? Do both of your parents work? If no, which parent works? Is there a specified reason for this? How many siblings are in your family? What roles does your grandfather/father have within your household? What roles does your grandmother/mother have within the household? What do you find is expected of you from your family (grades, job, relationship)? Are there any favorite stories you have been told from your parents or grandparents about their lives growing up, or any stories in general that have been passed to you? Have you visited China? If so, when and where? For how long? What was your reason for visiting? Before visiting, what was your understanding of the Chinese family structure? Can you think of any interactions you had with any Chinese families that stick out in your mind? Before visiting, were you familiar with the concept of ‘bound feet’ for Chinese women? Did you come into contact with any people with bound feet? Has your views on bound feet changed since visiting? Have your experiences changed your original perspectives of the Chinese family structure?
Possible in-class readings that I plan on using include The Country Girl and the City, Regret For the Past, Bound Feet and Western Dress, and Dangerous Pleasures. External sources will include the film “Raise the Red Lantern” as well as an article named "Men Are More Able": Rural Chinese Women's Conceptions of Gender and Agency” from the journal Pacific Affairs.
The working topic for my midterm paper is going to be the broad topic of marriage. More specifically I am going to interview my father about India’s arranged marriages which occurred back in the day and also currently. I’m also planning on talking to him about his current marriage since he is married to my mother who is an American woman rather than the typical Indian woman. In order to help me tie my paper into the topics we have discussed in class, I’m going to interview his Chinese friend as well as his wife hopefully in order to get the marriage perspective (both currently and in the past) in China. Towards the end of my paper I hope to tie in my own individual American perspective being raised by an interracial couple within the United States. My opinion will be a reflection of how my upbringing and surroundings have affected my point of view.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the types of questions that I have thought about asking, they will vary depending on the interviewee. For my father, I will be asking questions such as how he viewed his parents’ marriage (arranged) as well as how he thinks of the overall subject of arranged marriages. More specifically I will ask him questions about why he decided to not have an arranged marriage and how his family viewed that decision. Also when it comes to the more current marriages in India, I will ask him how come his family still decides to do the more traditional arranged marriage. I will also ask him how common arranged marriages are now compared to back during his parents’ early life. When interviewing the Chinese couple I will ask them firstly if their marriage was arranged and if not then do they know anyone who was. I will probably also ask both my father and the couple about the woman’s versus the man’s role in a marriage in India and China. It is likely that I will come up with more specific questions after they answer the more broadly based questions on marriage.
I’m not positive on exactly which internal sources I will use due to the fact that majority of our in class readings touched on marriage or relationships in general in some way. This means that I shouldn’t have no real difficulty with connecting the answers I receive from everyone to the readings. The external sources that I’m going to use are not for certain yet either. This is due to the fact that I want to find external sources that will fill in any missing holes of my paper might. I will search for these sources throughout the time that I am spending writing my actual paper. I’ll need to have the answers from those that I’m interviewing as well as determine the internal sources that I’m using in order to determine what holes need to be filled.
After writing the majority of my paper and seeing various perspectives, I am going to draw my own conclusions on marriage (including arranged and not arranged). I feel that it will be important to write my own perspective as the writer of this midterm paper.
For my topic of my midterm oral project, I am going to look into the what is the "Modern Woman". I want to explore what makes this modern woman in China and what are the qualities of a modern woman.
ReplyDeleteI am going to interview my cousins and his wife, who is Chinese, and they live in China. I am going to ask them how would they define the modern woman in China. I am also going to ask them if they know about Qiu Jin and Ruan Lingyu and how they would see them as a modern woman.
The sources that I am going to use from our class are the popular figures Qiu Jin and Ruan Lingyu and the stories Xiaoxiao and Miss Sophia's Diary. I think that these four things are a good start to explore what the modern woman stands for.
Does the social progress push forward women's progress? Or women's progress affects the social progress in the twentieth century. (Title)
ReplyDeleteEmpress Dowager Cixi banned foot binding and encouraged women to have education. Those moves pushing for the china's social progress and civilization developed.
On the other side, Cixi herself declared reforms after the Boxer Rebellion. She made friends with foreigners and accepted their advices to release women's right. We can see Cixi welcomed western women in her final years although she refused to adopt western models of government. The overall social environment is no longer what it was before; cixi knows she has to change.
1. Does the social progress push forward women's progress? Or women's progress affects the social progress in the twentieth century.
(1) Women's progress pushed Social progress and civilization developed forward
(2)What kind of women will bring a Social Progress? Powerful and educated women
Interview：
I will interview my two grandmas. My dad’s mom was born in a rich family and she went to a female school，where she learnt English and some course especially for women such as sewing class. My mom’s mom was born in a poor family. She went to school too but she just got a basic education. They had different kind of education in the same times. But they got the same problem. Both of them had a bad relationship with their husband.
About the internal readings, I will reference Cixi, De ling and Qiu Jin's story.
2. Chinese women's progress was affected by Chinese women or western women?
All these people such as de ling and qiu jin were studied overseas. They brought back an advanced thought so the Chinese women were affected by western women indirectly.
3. The social progress pushes forward women's progress.
Women were encouraged to get an education. Women realized their life can be changed by getting education.
(1)Why the prostitution became more popular among those educated women during the twentieth century?
(2) Prostitution represents human civilization backward or progress?
Summary and conclusion
My topic is going to be female athletes in China. for this topic, Im going to talk about how female athletes are treated by the athletic department in China, and Im going to use an example, which is the famous tennie player Li Na.
ReplyDeletemy interview is going to be a friend of my, who was a basketball player in China, a girl. she was on the Chinese U21 National team. Im going to ask her about how she "survive".
and Im going to interview a graduate student who is from China, and he worked sports for Jiangsu TV station and the CCTV before he came here. Im going to ask him about something he heard or saw when he was a sports journalist.
my in class reading material is Qiu Jin. because it talks about the female rights and how women should be treated equally as men.
my outside resource is going to be the film, 'number 5'(nv lan 5 hao)
What is love?
ReplyDeleteThis oral history will seek to navigate the contemporary cultural perception of love. To contextualize the broad topic, there will comparison and study of its perception over the past century in China; through close readings of pieces from our class (Yu Dafu, Ding Ling, etc.). Considering cross-cultural barriers and preconceptions of love between what I believe and what a Chinese peer might believe, love is a generic term. Through interviews and close study of authors’ works this project will attempt to narrow the definition and generality of the word. Love can be peaceful or tumultuous, contenting or frustrating, cool or heated. It is important to understand one’s own concept of it as well as others’ construction of the meaning in order to better understand how it could or should play out in context.
An interview might begin with a broad question “how do you understand or define love?” And the goal would be to narrow the interviewee’s definition to a point of personal experience and or personal expectations of love; then to compare these to the expectations of love in “Sinking”, “Miss Sophia’s Diary”, “Tiny Times” and other pieces. How have characters from these stories pursued or rejected contemporary conceptions of love? What is traditional versus new love? How should love affect one’s life? How should it affect the nation? How does it affect men? Women?
I will certainly pull outside sources for this discussion. In the very least I will use pieces read in CHI 430 and beyond that perhaps studies done by psychologist on perceptions of love.
Interview subjects will include various Chinese classmates and friends living in Lexington. Perhaps I will email Chinese friend living in China still and even American friends who live there now and could give helpful insight into their view of love in China.