Tami Blumenfield – Debunking Myths of China

Food, Fakes, Tourism, and Environment: New Posts, With Gratitude

Tami Blumenfield / April 26, 2015April 26, 2015 / About This Blog

Students in the 2015 Debunking the Myths of China First Year Seminar have completed their work creating, editing, commenting on, and revising their blog posts.

Food was the most popular category for posts this year. Posts include Talk Noodle to Me, Sweet and Sour America, and a series of posts on American-influenced foods coming to China (Americanized Chinese Food Invades China, The Golden Arches March into China, and The Colonel Infiltrates China).

Three posts explore counterfeit products, environmental issues, and tourism. These include iPhony: Fake Products Produced in China Hurting World Economy, Is China Polluting Environmental Activism?, and Chinese Village Tourism.
Continue reading “Food, Fakes, Tourism, and Environment: New Posts, With Gratitude”

Chinese Environmental Film Festival

Tami Blumenfield / March 19, 2015May 6, 2015 / Furman's Chinese Environmental Film Festival

One way to address myths and misunderstandings about China is to view films and discuss them with experts from a range of fields and backgrounds. In February 2015, Furman hosted the Chinese Environmental Film Festival to accomplish this goal. Students from Debunking the Myths of China, a First Year Seminar class, helped coordinate festival publicity, refreshments, and logistics. Faculty participating in the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) exploratory grant and LIASE Student Fellows also helped make the festival a success. Festival sponsors provided financial support and helped procure the films needed for the festival screenings.
Read more about the festival

Participants in the Chinese Environmental Film Festival included (from left to right) Ruheng Duoji, Emily Yeh, Tami Blumenfield, Onci Archei, Jenny Chio, Antonia Giles, and Fuji Lozada.

Debunking the Myths of China

Tami Blumenfield / April 11, 2014January 18, 2017 / About This Blog

Welcome to the China Myths blog. The Furman University First Year Seminar: Debunking Myths of China uses this space to share research and information about China, delving deeper into topics than standard news coverage and linking to further resources. We welcome your comments and contributions.

Dr. Tami Blumenfield

Assistant Professor of Asian Studies
Furman University

China Myths According to Evan Osnos

Tami Blumenfield / December 4, 2012May 6, 2015 / Politics

Just like Furman University’s First Year Seminar classes, Evan Osnos has been working on his list of myths about China. See his New Yorker article for details. Do you agree with his assessments?

Foods Across Cultures: A Reflection by Parker Havis

Tami Blumenfield / November 28, 2012May 6, 2015 / Food

This picture of our last night in China on July 4th highlights the breadth and many different kinds of Chinese foods that we were able to experience on our trip. While neglecting some more exotic foods that we experienced, this picture even contains Sprite, which may seem normal, but it reminds me of the fact that all water must be boiled before it could be consumed. Furthermore, this selection of food taught me the Chinese tradition of eating noodles on your birthday for long life. Additionally, these meals in China were normally more personal experiences than in America due to the sharing of entrées.

See Trista Baldwin’s 2011 article on the CNN Travel website for more information about Chinese eating habits.

Farewell Banquet

Photo by Parker Havis, Suzhou, China, July 4, 2012.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.