Ai Weiwei Contributions

In the fall of 2006, a lonely girl by the name of Jessica Jiang sits in the corner of a noisy classroom in Shanghai, China with a unique journey that dates all the way back in a hospital at Edmonton, Canada in the blizzard winter storm of 1999. The faces of the childhood friends flows through my mind, as well as the curiosity of the new things coming into my life. This all started from when I came to China from the United States at a age of 7 years old.

The film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) is a documentary directed by Alison Klayman. It follows contemporary Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei, documenting how he stood up against the Chinese government and revealed the horrific actions the government commits. Ai Weiwei differs from other critics of the Chinese government because he uses aggressive words, while his fellow critics do not insult the government or the Communist Party. He uses several mediums to show how the government has acted including his blog and documentaries, showing what Chinese citizens go through on a daily basis.. Weiwei is incredibly brave for putting his life on the line to fight for a better country and a better world.

Throughout the poem, May includes historical figures, like Huang Xiang, to show Jontae that he will not be alone throughout his journey of discovering his identity. May refers to Huang Xiang, a poet who was exiled during the Tiananmen Square incident, who he describes as; “the poet… who was exiled for these” (33-34), while “these” represents the words and the education of the poet. The incorporation of the allusions from a historical point of view, influences the idea that Jontae should stay true to himself, regardless of what the rest of society thinks. The fact that Huang Xiang was exiled for plastering his poems around the Square, goes to prove May’s point regarding society’s overall view on education. May goes on to write “there will always be those who would rather see you pull a pin from a grenade than pull a pen from your backpack” (37-40). Huang Xiang is a prime example of what the speaker longs for Jontae to be like. Roger Garside, a British diplomat who served in Beijing during the crisis explained Xiang’s efforts as “an equally bold initiative on the organizational front: after pasting up his poems on Tiananmen Square…” (Garside, 2005). Xiang exemplifies a deviant of society, with his nonviolent protests, and his education involving poetry. May is determined to convince Jontae that he is not bound to the option of

Alex is a 17 year old teenager from Canada, who is a protagonist in the Young-adult fiction book Forbidden City by William.E.Bell. He and his father who works as a journalist travel to China in 1989 to record events and report them back to Canada. Then a protest stirs up and the Tiananmen Square massacre begins. Alex’s father is captured recording the “illegal” events and is arrested. Alex fights back and barely escapes with a few tapes of the protest. He is reunited with his dad, and they return to Canada with tapes of the horrifying events.

“The mind changes, the word changes, time doesn't stay still, history is a verb, it is ongoing, there is no past tense, future tense, history is constant” Hung Liu told interviewer Rachelle Riechart (Riechart). Hung Liu is a Chinese woman who was born in Changchun, China in 1948. She was born during the age which we call the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which heavily impacted her life. She lived in China for 36 years and then left for the United States. She now resides in Oakland, CA, where she teaches art at Mills College (“A World of Art”). A lot of her artwork is based on photographs and memories she has from China and photographs she’s taken in the United

The apex of Wong’s book is how she displays the emotional overtones in reciting her account of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. She tells of being holed up in a hotel across the street from the square and actually being able to see the violence between the protesting students and citizens, and the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army. When she describes bodies falling from gunshot wounds, people being squashed by tanks, and the bullets ricocheting off their hotel walls, it produces multiple senses of horror, sorrow, and absolute terror. She further hammers this point across by displaying two images taken from the scene (245). The first is of a PLA platoon leader who was beaten, set afire, disemboweled, and to add further insult, positioned so that he would serve as an example of what the proletariats were capable of. The second, was of PLA soldiers examining the destruction of Tiananmen Square after they seized the square. Smoke and debris from the protestors are widely prevalent, and the image was even used in a propaganda brochure for the government.

Joshua Wong is one of the most well-known teen activists to date. He is doing a lot for his home city, Hong Kong, China, by revolting against China’s government. Joshua Wong is going above and beyond for not only Hong Kong, but the whole country of China. “ It’s time to renew the foreign policy of different countries toward Hong Kong ”, says Joshua himself. In 2014 Joshua Wong was all over the news about his student-led protest During this time Joshua Wong also had some struggles. Someone attempted to assault him at an airport, police set up roadblocks for his safety, hunger strikes were led by him. All of this for one teenage activist trying to support his rights for democracy.

Xin-Hua is the greatest character in William Bell’s Forbidden City. She is a caring, brave and selfless person. The first example of this happens when Alex first meets her when he is hiding from soldiers behind a car. They ended getting spotted and ran for it when Alex got shot in the leg by a soldier. Xin-Hua risked her life dragging him to her home to save his

A legacy is not based on what you wear or who you hang out with, it’s based on what you do with your life that impacts the lives of others. During World War II there where many people who did things to save the lives of other but put their own lives at risk at the same time. A man or woman who does this not only gives themselves great honor but also the people who helped them, whether they helped them with one little thing or with something that impacted the world. One of these people was a man by the name of Feng-Shan Ho.

It is often debated whether an individual person can make a difference. Whether an individual can change or help shape history. Throughout all of our World’s history, there have been many empires; some have prospered, while others have failed. At the heart of the more successful and enduring empires, typically, is a strong leader. The most successful leaders have unified feuding nations, brought law and order to regions where only chaos existed, and drove change; carrying their countries and people into the future. One such leader was Shi Huangdi. Shi Huangdi was born Zhao Zheng in 259 BCE, once in power he changed his name to Shi Huangdi, this means the “First Emperor”. He did this with the belief that all of China’s royal posterity would run through his bloodline. “Shi Huangdi was the first emperor of the Qin dynasty in the third century BCE” (Blackwell). Shi Huangdi ruled the Qin dynasty for a very brief time and isn’t one of China’s more celebrated rulers; largely because harsh rule and cruel methods of imposing punishment. However, during his reign, laws were established, great progress was made, China flourished, and Shi Huangdi cemented himself in history forever.

Mckissick, Floyd. “CORE Endorses Black Power.” In Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform and Renewal: An African American Anthology, edited by Marable, Manning, and Leith Mullings. Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Ai Weiwei was born during the Cultural Revolution in China of 1950s, he inherited a lot of his political knowledge from his father who was a poet called Ai Quig. Ai Quig was then later exiled with his family to re-education camps on the out reaches of a desert in 1958 for questioning government authority. After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese citizens were allowed to travel outside their borders again in 1970s. As a young man, the place that Ai Weiwei dreamed about going to was New York. He went to New York and was exposed to its western influences, its liberty and freedom of expression (Springford, 2011).Using photography Weiwei recorded and documented everything that inspired him. Weiwei visited galleries and art museums that exposed

Klayman show a interesting relationship between Ai and his son in the film, “AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY” describe Ai’s creation and show his political critical work, In Ai’s work, we can think about the background of the work. One of the political criticizing of creative subject is schools collapsed because of "tofu dreg construction" which cause thousands students deaths.

To delve into a piece of my family’s immigration history, I had the pleasure of having an in-depth conversation with my cousin Randall Quan, our family’s historian. In our chat, we navigated through the travels of my great-great-grandfather, Quan Wei. The hour-long discussion allowed me to learn about the dire conditions that lead to the Quan’s decision to leave a small village outside of Gau Gong and also about their rich history upon arriving in America.

“I don’t care if the cat is black or white, I just want it to kill the mice.” - Deng Xiaoping.