By: Greg on June 16, 2018
It is almost a utopian scene to describe a world that everyone works, lives and strives for the betterment of everyone else. This “imagined community” in which all work together sounds like something only possible if you are smoking something the hippies call Ganga. This image of communism is such a stark contrast to those…
By: Jean Ollis on June 15, 2018
There are many important themes in Jung Chang’s text, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. This text highlights family – and the love within a family – as well as loyalty, self-sacrifice and the connection of the three (family loyalty and self-sacrifice as women). As we’ve learned through reading Simon Chan’s, Grassroots Asian Philosophy, Jackie…
By: Jason Turbeville on June 15, 2018
When I first started reading Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang one of my friends stopped by my office, she saw the book sitting on my desk and asked, “Are they having you read romance novels in your class”? Of course, she was joking with me but in actuality this book is a…
By: Chris Pritchett on June 15, 2018
The secret untold story of the cultural revolution in China in the 1960s came as just that – a huge surprise to me. I had no awareness of the atrocities of Mao and his youthful army. That’s a little embarrassing. It’s a part of the world of which I am quite unfamiliar. Jung Chang is…
By: Jay Forseth on June 14, 2018
I have a twin sister named Sandy. No we are not identical–she got all the hair and brains, all I got was the height (it is surprising how many people ask if we are identical). My twinkie Sandy is a VERY courageous woman, as she proves DAILY, through one of the most selfless acts humanly…
By: Stu Cocanougher on June 14, 2018
As I sit down to write about the history of Hong Kong, it would be easy to put a black hat on Great Britain and a white hat on China. England is often cast in the role of the power-hungry colonizer who sent ships across the world in order to take advantage of less powerful…
By: Chip Stapleton on June 14, 2018
As a history major in undergrad, I am acutely aware of the fact that nothing happens in a vacuum. History – at least the good, important, interesting and useful kind is only partially about what happened. It is also and maybe especially about why something happened: what societal and/or systemic factors contributed to the outcome;…
By: Jennifer Williamson on June 14, 2018
The General’s wife told her to sit down. My grandmother had to make a split-second decision. In a traditional Chinese household, where one sits automatically reflects one’s status. General Xue’s wife was sitting at the north end of the room, as befitted a person in her position. Next to her, separated by a side table,…
By: Kyle Chalko on June 14, 2018
Wild Swans by Jung Chang is a revealing look inside what real life was like in China during Mao’s reign. At the time of it’s publishing, details of life in Mao’s China were still coming to light. Chang’s family story was a disturbing tale of life in closed communist world. Its biographical and auto-biographical in…
By: Lynda Gittens on June 14, 2018
The early years of China although challenging and prosperous, politically it had its challenges. Its decision to return to the Communism was a surprise. “The Hong Kong identity that emerged was based on a shared outlook and a common popular culture which blended traditional Chinese culture with that imported from overseas, with…
By: Dave Watermulder on June 14, 2018
Have you ever read any James Michener novels? Michener is a master of the historical fiction genre, and is known for taking the reader on a long journey, across generations and time, to tell the story of a place or a people. In preparing for our South Africa advance last year, I read The Covenant, which…
By: Katy Drage Lines on June 14, 2018
When we moved to Kenya, we spent our first twelve months learning the language and culture of the people we were living among. There were no language schools, and very few books about Turkana, but we read what we could find. We hired a language helper to guide us in learner-directed language acquisition. During that…
By: Jim Sabella on June 14, 2018
Most of my recent in-depth reading within the context of world history has been focused on Europe, particularly on former Eastern Europe and it’s communist history. This is my first more in-depth look further east toward the eastern Asia region and at Hong Kong in particular. What little I do know about Hong Kong and its…
By: Mark Petersen on June 14, 2018
The twentieth century in China was, to put it mildly, tumultuous. War, famine, revolution, and totalitarianism deeply impacted the Chinese in their daily lives for most of the century. Bringing social order was the Communist Party, and yet in bringing order and egalitarianism, many other orders were disrupted and tossed out. Jung Chang, in her…
By: Mike on June 14, 2018
Jung Chang’s Wild Swans is an intriguing love story about mothers; her mother, her grandmother, and her mother-country Communist China. Set in biographical format, Chang’s tri-generational review covers her experiences from binding feet and shoulders, to her membership in the Red Guard, to her earning a PhD from the University of York. The narrative is…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on June 13, 2018
Another fascinating read about real-life experiences in China, this time by author Jung Chang (not Chan as the schedule and reading list says J) Her book, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, was an amazing story that chronicled three generations of women and their wild experiences in China. The most heart-wrenching story was that of…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on June 13, 2018
When I was a history teacher, the development of Hong Kong was fascinating to teach from a historical perspective. In my opinion, Hong Kong could be described as an accidental, real-life social and economic experiment comparing capitalism to communism. Although it was originally Chinese territory, it became a British colony, came under Western influence, developed…
By: Trisha Welstad on June 13, 2018
I remember one of my friends in college, an exchange student from China pursuing fine arts, telling me about Mao and his father’s work for the government. At that time, I had no clue who Mao was or anything about the situation in China. Learning my friend was an only child and that parents were…
By: Mary Walker on June 13, 2018
Steve Tsang, professor of Contemporary Chinese Studies & Director of the China Policy Institute, wrote A Modern History of Hong Kong, detailing how Hong Kong developed from “a barren island with hardly a house upon it” to one of the world’s most spectacular cosmopolitan metropoles. (1) Tsang covers the period of British rule in Hong Kong…
By: Kristin Hamilton on June 12, 2018
I know I sound like a jerk when I say I have never been particularly fascinated with Asian countries other than Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea, but it’s sadly true. I know people who have moved here from these countries and most of my international students came from them. I did become more interested in…
