Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
¶ … Live vs. China's Past
Memories of China's Past
In 1994, the Chinese celebrated film director Zhang Yimou produced a film adaptation of Yu Hua's novel by the same name To Live (Huozhe). The film received widespread acclaim from the international audience but was banned in mainland China and Yimou, as well as his wife who played the main female character in the film, were banned from making films for two years. That was somewhat an odd development since Yimou had modified the original novel to soften its criticism of the Chinese realities. It may be argued now that the original novel, its film adaptation, and censorship by the Chinese state all represent the significance of disparate retellings of China's recent past.
Since the Revolution of 1949, China went through a series of reforms and political and economic transformations. Each period within these transformations affected generations of Chinese artists, ordinary people, and politicians...
It is not surprising then that China has a conflicting history-telling. People have different memories of what happened after the Revolution, during the land reform and the Great Leap Forward, consequences of Cultural Revolution, and the post-Mao economic reforms. And obviously the age difference between Yu Hua and director Yimou reflects some differences in the novel and the film. Yu Hua was a little child during the Cultural Revolution while Yimou was at school and had move vivid memories of the time.
Both the novel and the film revolve around the man named Fugui. He is a degenerate who cannot help his compulsive gambling. Due to his habits, he loses his wealth and temporarily his family. He is taken captive by the Nationalist Army of Chiang Kai Shek and later joins People Liberation Army. He eventually returns to his family and becomes a model citizen, only to find himself and his family in a state of bare survival. He struggles to survive during…
Works Cited:
Yu, Hua, and Michael Berry. To Live: A Novel. New York: Anchor Books, 2003. Print.
Yimou, Zhang, Ge You, Gong Li, and Fu-sheng Chiu. Huozhe. China: Electric; Century; Era; shanghai Film Studios; Chiu Fu-Sheng, 1994.
China-U.S. bilateral relationship The past one decade of the 20th century has witnessed dramatic fluctuations in the China-U.S. relations. For instance, the Taiwan Strait led to several summit meetings to take place in Washington and Beijing to decide the fate of the countries. Additionally, the decade ended with the relationship facing serious challenges including a U.S. congressional investigation on the contribution of the Chinese government to the U.S. campaigns (Huang 2000).
Confucianism in Pre-Modern China Confucianism comes from the Chinese philosopher Confucius, after whom the philosophy takes its name. Confucius lived from the middle of the 6th century BC to the first part of the 5th century BC and was a teacher of the values of those who lived in the days of Chinese antiquity. For Confucius, the greatest years of the Zhou dynasty had come in the three centuries prior to
There is a romantic charm in the notion that outsiders only 'pass through' while residents are in a kind of stop time, insular and part of the background, not part of the larger cultural narrative. Thus the Chinatown idea is fundamentally that Asia is 'different' -- exotic, of another world, rather than part of 'America.' This has often subverted the ambitions of those residents who do wish to become
The Nature of the Book Trade between China and France Introduction In the past, it was apparent that the Chinese government’s approach to matters culture and art did not significantly differ from its stance on a variety of other factors that involved various internal affairs of the nation. However, while it may have exercised some control on the distribution aspect of culture and art, it has largely remained ineffective as far as
China's Daughter of the River -- a Personal Snapshot of Memoir of Marxism's betrayal in the form of Maoism Maoism is its own political animal. Maoism cannot be called synonymous with Marxism, Leninism, or even the communism as previously envisioned in the Soviet Union and the other communist nations of the past century. When one considers how communism functioned in the nation of China from the years of 1962 to 1989,
Art Over the past several thousand years, the Chinese have contributed some of the world's most significant technological tools and inventions. Most of these inventions have had a tremendous impact on human history and it is hard to imagine life without any of them. Among the most influential of Chinese inventions include gunpowder/explosives; paper; moveable type; the magnetic compass; tea; noodles; matches; and silk. Of these eight inventions, the four most