Last night, my friend sent me a leaf of her presentation, reading very touching, with the consent of her consent, made on my blog. Ye are my junior high school students 1963mm1968, we have long sat at the same table, but also the same year was born the same day, a life-long friends. leaves many seniors in college who is very accomplished, a great scientist, for example, last year 500 million science-winning atmospheric physicist Professor Ye Duzheng. Her parents are to follow early revolutionary intellectuals joined the Communist Party during the war. leaves a teenager, is a mind clearly than their peers, many people often question the social problems, let us surprise. leaves early to go to the United States so far has been almost 30 years , Ph.D. Yale University, Harvard University postdoctoral, now a Boston University professor of history for life.
the right one for the leaves, the main Bo
right is a lot of years ago when I first arrived in the United States, and it would be Some words in English, attracted, like ambivalence, ambiguity, dilemma, paradox, and shades of gray. For me such a highly people, an experience a decade during the Cultural Revolution, the total is forced to use black and white vision of life and death of people see the world, these words and concepts behind them to help me moving away from the fixed, conceit of the narrow position, I see the world expanding vision, so I learned to analyze and understand the perspective changes things. I remember the first year I worked in the United States to write a paper interviewed a small town pastor. He is a I suppose I had the same generation. He told me that if the surface of the world than doing more than one diamond, and that religion is just one side (in fact, many religions have their own side), a person should be from different aspects to look and feel of the world. I like this attitude, he did not take yourself too as a matter of religion to settle down children, did not consider it as the embodiment of truth, but on the life of the other the same respect. with such an attitude to observe things, let me see a complex, changing, contradictory, multidimensional, ambiguous and even some of the world. I'm thinking of going abroad when the country's liberation movement in full swing, soon after I came to the United States experience changes in vision and perspective, can be considered a little on my own emancipation of it.
twenty years later, I had become a student at the university from the teaching faculty. Although there is no access to American society black and white overweening cognitive way of thinking on the world, but called in a free, pluralistic, open country it is the big brokerages, I thought it just a specialty of the information it closed country. slowly I realized that there are in the United States American friends referred to the What soiled with these word edge, has become unreasonably reasonable, most people no longer to doubt. and then say , although the vast majority of Americans what is even the basic concept of communism has not. If China has in the eighties during the deconstruction of the many revolutionary values, then the United States as the winner of the Cold War, not only without any reflection , and have actually strengthened among some black and white, the tendency of the embodiment of truth. This way of thinking in the United States who is the highest representative of the reader naturally a pretty good idea.
be fair, the United States University is the most liberal in American society where diversity, tolerance and the idea of the university campus has been fairly reflected. But the university, after all, part of American society, and the elite universities and U.S. national policy and even the power wire has a thousand million strand of the contact, the final analysis, is the academic and political inseparable.
I teach civilians is a very public universities, teachers are the backbone of the idealists over the sixties, and many students from working class family (working class context in the United States can not simply appear to be translated into From time to time been advocating socialism in distributing publicity materials, and Marxist and other left-wing thought is often the students themselves organized club discussion of philosophical topics. But even in such places mentioned above that way of thinking is still varying degrees impact on many of my colleagues and students around. in class I always have to face is filled with all kinds of mind more or less hackneyed words of American students. If I teach statistics, or computer down be it, but why I teach the history of the humanities are, and the modern history of China, things are somewhat complicated.
honest, things are complicated not only because the status of the students, but also because of this when the teacher the face of untold number of modern Chinese history are confusing. If all history is contemporary history a sense, then I went to country for many years, the rapid changes on the domestic sense of dizziness, not sure in the end is the primary stage of socialism in China, or state monopoly capitalism. uncertain judgments of contemporary China, has affected my grasp of historical events of the past. coupled with recent years, new historical data disclosed, various events of the past to challenge and subversion into that, sector in the material and views on their quality also reflects the restlessness of the era. in this case to teach Chinese in the United States is really a reluctance.
Fortunately, a few of my students did not eat Chinese food the future , and most of the candidates in my class is to complete the requirements for humanities credit. there is such a requirement is indeed a great American university strengths. I do is generally close to them about China is the outline of the history, may get to the bottom of which there is no subtle, multifaceted, contradictory and complex place, at this point is and I analysis, contrary to the attitude of looking at things. To the thirteenth, four weeks, less than three hours per week hours years, a hundred years of Chinese history to go through, do not say Individual students have interest in continuing down the school, serious or even applying to graduate school, reading and Ph.D. in Chinese history (teaching such students is a great pleasure, the feeling of both teaching and learning a bit much), but very few such students, after all. must If most of completely ignorant of Chinese history from the leaks of one, two, enough for me. U.S. private schools will also talk about what the Chinese history, the history of public secondary education is biased, outside of the United States and Europe States rarely involved. Most of my students from public secondary schools, their ignorance of history often makes my head spin. American elite education and mass education itself is a huge difference between an interesting topic, here refrain from that.
But even to teach such students, but also still have the same question: how in the end they talk about modern Chinese history?
I do not have a set of teaching programs. I am still constantly learning about Chinese history, constantly thinking, continue to sentiment, the concept of the process of continuously updated, while learning to teach, to learn while teaching, a little In the process of teaching, but also sort out some basic ideas, but also feel some perplexing problems. in and student contacts, also noted some interesting phenomena, how much can be seen as Students are expected through this article on the old ethics, the old institution of marriage and an understanding of the status of women, helping them to understand the new culture movement, but also to introduce them to one of the great twentieth century writer. Almost every student is Read the first time the Chinese translation of the novel, no one before even heard of Lu Xun's name. in the students read the work before I did not in class all about the New Culture Movement, but to draw their attention to the novel in advance social criticism, but also explains the Asian students are often students mm, put a are the same as, cleaning halls, worship their ancestors. homesickness in a foreign country, the mood is certainly understandable, but this is too far away from the subject of Lu Xun. I used a few years a students to read it into Chinese customs, so I laugh and cry.
other students, often white Americans, in the using wood instead of real sin and so on. Their eyes should be said that is sharp, it can be seen some stereotypes that society at that time. but some students report between the lines, I read about a kind of in the guidance. But I also understand that in the United States has the novel Lu said the town's dislike sympathy that society is unfair, Xianglinsao's fate is tragic. but then they quickly said that she did not want to use to measure the values of Western China. subtext behind this is that some in China This is, she just do not know much of the strange place. This attitude in the United States has considerable representation of the public. This attitude is often a bit reluctant to find fault with other cultures, to respect other people's customs, even the bad habits of oppression is obvious. It still has a treat inside inhuman, Xianglinsao it really can endure it? Lu Xun's novels is the complaint that the destruction of human life do?
have students write down a passage that moved me. She said Sister Xianglin Her story of a small town like a woman. this woman after the tragic death of a child in a trance, with a total milling in the city on bicycles, in the trunk stood a doll, people avoided her like the plague. Reading the feel the cold and desolate earth. In the eyes of her students, the story of Xianglinsao neither mysterious nor distant, now staged in her town.
students the experience of a sympathetic Xianglin , but often see it as a personal misfortune, and social system, not many stakeholders of power relations. This is reflected in the typical American individualism. Xianglinsao some students even psychological analysis has not come to her psychiatrist normal findings.
but I used a unjust, unequal power relations, low status of women, ritual and To a certain extent, help students understand why the Chinese revolution. To see them is to go beyond the American-style individualism.
Speaking of the Chinese revolution, which is present very fashionable topic. in the United States on academic annual meeting, has largely not hear the report on the revolutionary paper. For the first half of the twentieth century in China studies, and now the attention points in the . neglected the last Republican history, and now should be to strengthen research entirely, but one-sided tilt, but also a great problem. American academic session of the Herd fashion, is obvious. This course has a profound reasons behind them, and since the post-Cold War There are a lot of reflection, recently disclosed that the historical data also so that people oppressed by years of official history is not conducive to the dark side of the orthodox view of the many. It just helps to open the Chinese revolution, multi-level, multi-angle study , not the past that the two lines, black and white, to Conceal De one-man preaching, it is encouraging situation, I also have a lot of the Chinese revolution of new thinking, my current study is in this regard. but limited time in the classroom, in the face of the little knowledge of Chinese history, often biased against students of the revolution, I can not fully express their ideas out of the complex to have to simplify some trying to help students place on the Chinese revolution the social, economic, political, cultural and international background some basic, sympathetic understanding.
about China's recent history, not around the past, and the basic understanding of many of the problems of modern Chinese history can not be down about. But in today's American friends, speaking of nationalism, to frown, quite objectionable. In fact, to do detailed analysis of nationalism, for the latter half of the nineteenth century, has suffered bitterly from imperialist oppression of the Chinese people, ; national identity is a necessary about the Nanjing Massacre. a friend about this set of house, those of us who teach overseas, and sometimes there are some ambiguities in the identity, whether we are Chinese scholar or a China scholar? China, whether it is for us you is In the lecture never to render the brutal details. A student from Taiwan who sent me a video of Nanjing massacre documentary, I still can not afford the courage to see the drum, let alone put to the students. but I must the end of 1937 to tell Americans what happened in Nanjing, China, Japan and other Asian countries in the crimes committed, it is my responsibility as a historian. over the years talked about this subject all the students had encountered in response, I am here also talk about.
Some years ago I started teaching in the United States, the can not find a college textbook about the Nanjing Massacre, and I know some Chinese in the United States is the library to find books and photographs, but I was in a remote town, and sometimes can not get pictures. no photos and the backing of English teaching, I had talking to itself. Many students do not believe that the initial reaction was: if you say so seriously, and that how we A little did not hear? I mentioned the atrocities of Nazi Germany's infamous Jews, and the Japanese in China and Asia but little known elsewhere in the misdeeds, the more than one student said, it is because the behavior of German is the policy is implemented from top to bottom, and the behavior of Japanese soldiers is personal, is the result of upper management out of control, the two are not comparable. until Iris Chang (Iris Chang) 的 ; out, the students read the relevant sections of the people still adhere to the above statement, do not think that happened in World War II Asians and Europeans can be compared. In fact, even in China in 1937, the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War is not the beginning of World War II is controversial in the academic part has a lot of people think that the outbreak of World War II, Germany invaded Poland in 1939 from the date. what is happening in Asia, How much, how deep the suffering of war.
about the Nanjing Massacre a few years ago, I met an individual student protests in Japan. They found my department chair, said that my lecture is not objective, there is bias. if under the sun like a purely objective history, and I as a teacher should be like a history lesson about no hair, and some head buried too deep. Looking at these young students, my feelings are complex. I did not, Japanese soldiers to write letters to their families, to illustrate the ordinary Japanese soldiers were also victims of Japanese militarism. In fact, I very much hope that the Japanese students in the classroom to talk about how the Japanese mainstream society viewed the war, what the various factors behind this. There is not one student willing to talk about this issue. I am very sorry. both as a history teacher, or Chinese, and I were eager to learn the Japanese experience of that war, the idea of young people want to hear, but This is clearly the topic of ordinary Japanese do not want to touch .. Japanese students just told me privately that they are not totally ignorant of the Nanjing Massacre, the Japanese history books UNESCO is very briefly mentioned the incident, in passing.
Iris Chang publication of the book helped me a great favor. I do not have to Chunjiao mouth, even tearful in class mentioned above, the following people still skeptical. with great difficulty with a monograph in English, which finally entered the Nanjing Massacre under the Americans vision, has finally been recognized as She is not precise enough), but that she was writing in English. that's all. This is the hegemonic power of English. But the Chinese are so grateful to her, her death was so sorry. She deserves to be grateful, be remembered as second-generation Chinese, the parents of the state over the past period of history to hold such a painfully earnest attitude is commendable. But having said that, even with these English books, but also how many Americans do not read, or noticed her recent of death. her influence is mainly in Chinese circles.
some students asked why the Americans Nanjing Massacre and Japan's atrocities in other Asian countries such ignorance? Iris Chang, in her foreword to the book an explanation, but I feel a little stressed enough, it is the responsibility of the United States. after the start of the Cold War geopolitical situation in East Asia has undergone tremendous changes, U.S. policy toward Japan has also been a fundamental adjustment, from the punishment, reform to support the war against Japan do not want to get to the bottom of the crime. which I must point out to students. Many Americans have strong moral superiority, that the United States on behalf of justice and human justice, let the students know what the actual situation.
said would go, I am of the 20th century Chinese history is not the most difficult to talk about war and revolution, but the fifties and sixties, also known as appalling famine, and gave the Chinese society from the economy to positive changes in all aspects of society, including the foundation of industrialization and greatly improve the status of women in the era of complex multi-faceted. in the end how to evaluate that age? how to evaluate China's social Marxist legacy? in the country because of a hit TV series on the era of clean the ; past does not smoke, the characteristics of the age.
popular in the West about China, caused a sensation, has a considerable impact. Some American readers if only read a book about China, it often is one to see a copy. These books help the formation of American public opinion against China. In general, the book China, the author of previous political campaigns either direct victims or relatives of the victims, who mainly write inhuman political movement. I was labeled a rightist because of the experiences of friends and relatives and their own experiences in the Cultural Revolution, these have considerable experience of the content, very sympathetic to the authors of books. I understand they want to grief in the hearts of long-term suppression of a spit out of mind. tell the truth, but they described the cruel persecution of the iceberg that year only, regardless of the individual and history, is an account written down and witnessed.
but I still feel that the era of one-sided account of the complex there is a problem. This is not only because of basic position, but also because it was too close to overcome the party's history of cold (cold war victorrs version of history). Dahon its capitalist globalization is today, with this view of history is quite profound meaning, the subtext of which is : Human to this day, in addition to taking Western-style capitalist road, past experience and explore all the other complete failure, there is no value. The world seems to have no sense of any real critique of capitalism conflict, the revival of a face-lift of imperialism, rampant global capital, rapidly expanding gap between rich and poor, and serious environmental crisis. This is a disturbing, very uncertain world. people of this seems to do nothing.
my attention to sum up Mr. Qian Liqun recently called the legacy of socialism in China, he believes the Chinese intellectual decades a major mistake, China's socialist thought is not a serious clean-up and research, neither the good of its problems , but also long-term neglect of its rationality. He believes that the socialist legacy is the Chinese people to face the grim reality of the current domestic and international complex inheritance and reference to a resource. And the resources are not careful summary and study, is caused by confusing people today One of the many reasons.
Mr. Qian's proposal in the country how many people did not seem to be echoed, and I quite agree with it overseas. I am a personal feelings, but they can not agree on the total negation of that era. If so, I can even talk about how he is going on is not clear. More importantly, the kind of approach to meet the cold side of history over , while for the year have millions of people participate in social practice is unjust, and also clean up serious review of a complex era no help. I noticed that the Chinese popular in the West individual memoirs, the fifties and sixties political history is just history, and economic, social, cultural, daily life is almost non-existent, American students about this history is really a problem. my classes are introductory rather than research purposes, in just a few hours of that time really can not be revealed complex multi-faceted. fifties and sixties, China is full of have a huge shocking events, such as the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution, etc., first heard of these events students are subject to great psychological shock, feeling overwhelmed by their impression of other events. that history too much like a strong the impact effect of drama, ups and downs, great compassion grief. I once heard a Chinese musician living in America writing a symphony about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, from start to finish the whole is a hoarse noise.
but the fifties and sixties Chinese history is not only political history, there are other aspects of history, those who research, whether at home or abroad, are very inadequate. This is a great challenge for teaching. Over the years I have been pondering , how can the number of students of that era understand the complex multi-faceted. This material first encountered a problem. For example, I would like to find a style that reflects the era of women's literary works will be very laborious. translated into English on China women's literary works are mainly before 1949, which is often the image of women being insulted and being damaged. fifties and sixties appeared in China's cities, a number of weapons does not love love the red makeup makeup of their male colleagues new young women, it seems that these women really possible for a long period of time, change. Unfortunately, almost in the English translations do not see their shadow. Recently a group from China, now the United States to teach women scholars wrote a book about women in the experience. I think their one purpose to examine their own back in the fifties and sixties the growth process. look, then said to himself, especially in the era of their own personal experience.
with the United States I also write books and scholars used to teach, is the scholar spent a decade or so, a visit to the oral history of Henan peasants. I chose this book is intended to let students know from the perspective of farmers in China in recent modern changes. present memoir is the large number of Chinese people from the city's intellectuals who write, but after all, the vast majority of China's population are farmers, their historical experience we do not know too much, but too little . The farmer is extreme poverty, when land reform became activists, land reform has been done after the village cadres. This book is a farmer and from the perspective of grassroots cadres in the Communist Party of China from the twenties of the twentieth century history of the eighties made review, including the early years of the famine, warlordism, Sino-Japanese War, land reform, co-operative movement, the Great Leap Forward, communes, the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution and the reform and opening up of the household responsibility system, beyond the 1949 distinction. The Village Although illiterate cadres, spoke, but clearly and logically, quite frankly, both readability, but also historical value, in which the co-operative movement, people's communes and the remarkable memory of the Great Famine. One of my students told I, after he read the book of rural grass-roots level in China not to general denials.
problem, which can be thought as my next lesson and research topics. all these years I tried to learn about this world, whether of history or reality mm, have an open, tolerant attitude and analysis. But even in the called diversity a black and white,
