A project of the Furman University First Year Seminar taught by Dr. Tami Blumenfield
//By Vanessa Chambers, Austin Saggus, Grant Schuermann, Christen Sikora
Has the Chinese Government stopped or slowed down progress for environmental activism in China? Is China trying to stop or dilute this sort of activism? Is China polluting environmental activism? The answers may surprise you. Pollution in China is a serious issue and needs to be dealt with as this issue continues to grow at an alarming rate.
Continue reading “Is China Polluting Environmental Activism?”
//By Crystal Brockington, Matt Melhem, Ann Legg-Margiotta, Clare Miller
Have you ever been walking through a big city and seen someone selling a handbag for $20, but it looks exactly the same as a $200 designer bag? Well these types of counterfeit goods, which are often produced in China, are having a major impact. Not only are they affecting China’s economy by increasing their exports and employment numbers, but the market for these fake goods is so large that it affects the entire world economy as well. While the influence of these counterfeit companies is a positive thing for the Chinese economy, it hurts the legitimate companies that produce the original goods.
Counterfeit goods vary from electronics, clothing and even medications. While these items are in high commodity to the global market, China is able to produce vast supplies of goods that are almost exact replicas of the original product. China’s ambitions have expanded far beyond simple products. Today, they have developed fake Ikea and Apple stores and even produced an exact replica of a Ferrari…without an engine. Continue reading “iPhony: Fake Products Produced in China Hurting World Economy”
//By Thomas Stubbs, Connor Courtney, Christian Frabitore, Simone Alimonti, and Kate Stevens
Like the rest of China’s economy, the tourism industry is growing at an almost unimaginable rate. Travel was highly restricted for Chinese citizens until the mid-1980s, but since then it has become a form of leisure affordable for an ever-increasing number of people. For example, when Hong Kong was finally made open to mainland Chinese in 1997, soon they made up 75% of the island’s tourist population. Until the mid-2000s most Chinese tourists still traveled in big tour groups to keep their trips affordable, but since then independent tourism has become much more commonplace (Chan and Zakkour). Since more people have money and a desire to travel there has been a growth in tourism in the rural villages of China, as seen in one of our Chinese Environmental Film Festival Films, Peasant Family Happiness. The pumping of new economic life into these traditional agricultural villages would seem to be a positive occurrence. However, the conversion of an agricultural community into a tourist mecca comes with certain consequences. Continue reading “Chinese Village Tourism”
//By Brad Mogavero, Eric Williams, Gabe Mickey, Samikshya Pandey, Wenshan Li
Today, America seems to enjoy Chinese cuisine just as much as the classic cheeseburger or a juicy steak. When and how did we get this taste of China? It may be one of America’s favorites in its diverse ethnic melting pot of foods, but is the Chinese food Americans are eating as authentic as the real stuff? Even if the so called “Chinese food” Americans are enjoying is not authentic, what are some ways that they can make it so? China is a rich and vibrant culture teaming with foods that have an explosion of flavor. According to Andrew Zimmern, a popular travel channel host, the cuisine in Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province, “rivals the world’s greatest food capitals” and “belongs at the top of the charts” (Travel Channel). Americans have adopted this Chinese food culture, but that being said, when adopting another country’s food, it should be done right.
How did Chinese cuisine reach almost every corner of the U.S.? According to Chinatown, Asian American society, Chinese people first came to the west coast of the U.S. to fulfill the demand for labor. However, this immigration was halted because of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. After the ban on Chinese immigration was lifted in 1943, the U.S. saw a rise in the number of Chinese workers in the U.S.
Continue reading “Sweet and Sour America”
//By Natalie Curry With Jack Moran
Part I of Series on American Food in China Part II Part III
After glancing at the menu of any restaurant in America claiming to serve Chinese or Asian food, one might guess that this deep-fried, sweet and sour cuisine is less than authentic. The unique blend of American and Asian cuisine that is present in the United States can hardly be considered Chinese food, but it is developing in a new market, China. Americans living or visiting China are craving Americanized Chinese food and a new selection of restaurants are striving to meet this demand.
Shanghai is the site of the first Westernized Chinese restaurant, which opened in the fall of 2013. The aptly named Fortune Cookie restaurant specializes in“authentic American Chinese food”, which seems somewhat of a contradictory phrase (Fortune Cookie Restaurant). However, this phrase makes more sense when one considers that the owners of Fortune Cookie are not trying to provide authentic Chinese food, but rather the unique hybrid cuisine that originated with Chinese immigrants and has bloomed into an American favorite. Fortune Cookie serves well-known dishes like Kung Pao Chicken, Crab Rangoon, and Spring Roils (Fortune Cookie Restaurant). Megan Emery-Moore, an American expat teaching in Shanghai, discusses how Fortune Cookie’s sweet and sour chicken makes her feel like she is “at home” (Langfitt). That seems to be the essence of the appeal of Fortune Cookie for Americans, as the flavors and dishes are reminiscent of the ambiguous Chines takeout places located in nearly every American city. Continue reading “Americanized Chinese Food Invades China”
//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
//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.
Assistant Professor of Asian Studies
Furman University
//By A. Becklehimer and M. Turner
With China’s modern education system clearing not living up to its potential, seen by the only mediocre performance of students and their less than desirable state of health, many people are questioning the problems and how to fix them. Similar in nature to America’s ACT, China’s “Gaokao” test is a cumulative review of their education thus far, and is state mandated (Zhao, Xu, Haste, Selman). Unlike other systems that also take large consideration of other factors, such as personal merit, experience, grades, and involvement, China’s system relies very heavily on this one test, which will forever determine where the student can attend school. The pressure to do well on this test is what has created such a hostile and counterproductive environment to learn in for these students. This pressure is only heightened by the one-child culture China has thrown itself into. As each student is now a second-generation only child, this means they will have two parents and four grandparents that dedicate their time to the child, and will expect highly of the only child to do a good job representing the family. The lack of siblings to divert attention from these students has all the more created an environment that only promotes the drilling of the highly government-regulated education into their minds. Some Chinese parents having tried to take action against this by placing their children in private schools with alternative methods of education, often labeling themselves as havens that will “emphasize the need to help children that develop as individuals.” (Johnson) The goal of these schools is to actually make sure the children leave as smarter and more well rounded individuals, as opposed to the hive-mind the government has attempted to create with state-modified accounts of every little detail.
Ian Johnson. “China’s new bourgeoisie discovers alternative education.” New Yorker Vol. 89, Issue 47 Febuary 3, 2014. 34.
Zhao, Xu, Helen Haste, and Robert L. Selman. “Questionable Lessons From China’s Recent History of Education Reform.” Education Week 33, no. 18 (January 22, 2014): 32.
//By Caroline Gunter and Plicca Watt
You are probably assuming the only type of pollution is environmental, well the Chinese Government says otherwise. One particular type of pollution in China is spiritual pollution. In the early 1980’s the Communist Party led a campaign against what they coined “spiritual pollution”. In reality, the campaign was a way to keep the western cultural and economic influences out of China. The Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign started at the conclusion of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Political leader and activist Deng Xiaoping gave a speech criticizing the academic circles for focusing too heavily on humanization, calling it un-marxist. In 1984 the New York Times describes the campaign saying the exemptions include “fashionable clothing, youthful aspirations for a better life, science and technology, religious belief, Western musical, art and literary classics and economic prosperity, including commerce with the West.” The Party’s main idea was by terming any western influence vaguely as spiritual pollution they could portray to the people to stay away from just about anything. The propaganda ministry removed any of it from the countryside, hereby excluding a huge portion of Chinese population. This campaign ended within three months of its beginning. It is clear that the Chinese Government did not see labeling foreign ideals as spiritual pollution as a wise or successful choice.
Work Cited:
“Spiritual Pollution Thirty Years On” by Geremie R Barmé in Australian Centre on China in the World on 17 November 2013.
http://www.thechinastory.org/2013/11/spiritual-pollution-thirty-years-on/
“China Is Said To End a Campaign To Stop ‘Spiritual Pollution’” by Christopher S. Wren in The New York Times on 24 January 1984.
“The Rise and Fall of the Campaign against Spiritual Pollution in the People’s Republic of China” by Shu-Shin Wang in Asian Affairs in 1986.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30172073
//By Plicca Watt
In the Eastern coastal Chinese city of Hangzhou shrewd entrepreneurs are turning the city’s trash into valuable, clean energy. The Hangzhou Environmental Group (HEG) has transformed the city’s decades- old landfill into a methane gas powered energy plant and even attracts tourists to the plant site with environmental video games, hikes in the eco- park, and so called “trash tours.”
When garbage decomposes, a toxic methane gas is released which warms the earth twenty times faster than carbon dioxide. The HEG’s power plant traps and transforms the harmful gas into clean energy. Not only is this a profitable way to produce energy, but this system also helps curb pollution and better the environment in China. Part of the reason why China has experienced problems with pollution in recent years is due to the exorbitant economic growth. With a growing middle class, more Chinese people the economic ability to purchase consumer goods which in turn means more garbage is produced that will end up in the Chinese landfills. Even the Chinese government have shown concern for the nation’s environmental and pollution issues. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao states, “Environmental pollution has become a major problem in China’s current development and it has not been addressed well.”
It is encouraging to see that the Chinese have emerged with ingenious solutions, such as the Hangzhou Environmental Group’s landfill to energy plant, that facilitate not only economic growth, but also environmental health.
Works Cited:
Liu, Coco. “Turning Trash to Gold in China.” Scientific American Global RSS. N.p., 1 June 2011. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/turning-trash-to-gold-in-china/>.
“Premier Wen Jiabao Meets Press.”Premier Wen Jiabao Meets Press. Consulate of the People’s Republic of China, n.d. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. <http://toronto.china-consulate.org/eng/topics/lianghui/t240621.ht