What Is The Impact Of To Live And Coming Home

China has changed in certain ways and remained the same in others from the early Golden Ages to the late 1900s. China has experienced a series of cultural and political transformations, shaping the lives of many Chinese citizens. Culturally, the country’s art and literature hardly changed for almost eight hundred years. Along with their culture, China remained politically the same from the beginning of the Golden Ages all the way until the 1800s. On the other hand, China’s government and society were restructured after new leaders took over. From a monarch to total communism, China’s society had a multitude of new ideas and policies they had to adapt to.

“It was not easy to live in Shanghai” (Anyi 137). This line, echoed throughout Wang Anyi 's short piece “The Destination” is the glowing heartbeat of the story. A refrain filled with both longing and sadness, it hints at the many struggles faced by thousands upon thousands trying to get by in the city of Shanghai. One of these lost souls, the protagonist, Chen Xin, was one of the many youths taken from his family and sent to live the in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Ten years after the fact, Chen Xin views the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution internally and externally as he processes the changes that both he, and his hometown have over-gone in the past ten years. Devastatingly, he comes to the conclusion that there is no going back to the time of his childhood, and his fond memories of Shanghai exist solely in memory. This is in large part is due to the changes brought on by the Cultural Revolution. These effects of the Cultural Revolution are a central theme to the story; with repercussions seen on a cultural level, as well as a personal one.

Lam’s “Who Will Light Incense When Mother’s Gone” is an essay that expresses a son’s quest for identity. Andrew Lam is an example of a man who got caught up in the American culture and unfortunately over time he slowly distanced himself from his Vietnamese roots. Andrew’s dilemma is one that most, if not all families that immigrate to the United States face. Lam’s mother would light incense for the dead and was not sure who would continue to do so when she was gone. His aunt knew that when die there customs will end on the grounds that the adolescent and fate of the family don't comprehend the Vietnamese conventions. Lam's mom feels that America has stolen her kids far from her and their Vietnamese customs. Lam admitted that when his mom passes away he will lose part of

Recently, I read Postcards From Tomorrow Square by James Fallows. This book addresses the Universals of Culture by exploring different misconceptions about China and proving them wrong. From exploring the television programming to entrepreneurial endeavors, Fallows tries to paint a new picture of China. In America, we have many preconceived notions of what China and its people are like, but if you explore the country, you’ll see how unique and complex China really is. Three examples of this include: China’s recent industrial boom, China’s game shows, and China’s gambling industry. These each highlight some of the most prominent Universals of Culture in China.

Generational Differences and The American Dream As our parents and grandparents who enjoyed the American experience before us, we have been told that with hard work and determination anything is possible. Yet the older children get, the more they have to define their own identity and explore what this elusive “American Dream” might hold for them. Amy Tan who grew up in San Francisco enables her readers to understand what it was like to grow up in-between American and Chinese culture. She shows them that children do not have to sacrifice their own identity in the process of reconciling hard work with the expectations of parents and society.

The twentieth century was not only transformational but also traumatic for China just like other societies. Notably, the prevalence of warfare in China was high throughout the century. In addition to war, dramatic peacetime economic and social changes characterized the country’s twentieth century. These shifts often resulted from official policies related to redistribution of property, collectivism experiments, and land reforms. China’s early cinema industry represented these changes through films such as the Goddess, the Red Detachment Woman, and Farewell my Concubine. Each of these films represented societal shifts in the country during three unique historical periods. For instance, the Goddess is a representation of the economic, social, and political changes in the country during the Republic China period. Similarly, the Red Detachment of Women epitomizes China during the socialist era. Finally, the film Farewell my Concubine depicts the Chinese society during the Post-Mao age. The paper will provide a comprehensive analysis besides comparing the social, cultural, and historical aspects of the Chinese society based on these films.

Women in China were taught by their parents, rich or poor, to act presentable for their future husbands. For women to be presentable, their mothers have taught skills that is necessary to be a mother or that is required for the individual of a chinese family’s way of life. Chinese women, like Lindo Jong, were forced into marriage with a man she has never had an emotional attachment to when she was young. Within the passage of “The Red Candle”, the audience was shown the emotional struggle Lindo had lived through with her new family. While learning and adapting to her new environment, Lindo found a way to give herself strength and hope by discovering her own self worth. She discovered that she was capable of her thoughts and actions, by stating,

Eating Bitterness: Stories from the Front Lines of China 's Great Urban Migration, Michelle Loyalka writes about the changes that a developing China brings onto the people of Gan Jia Zhai, a village that is relatively close to Xi’an, a much more developed and industrialized city. The struggles and triumphs of Gan Jia Zhai’s people are depicted in Loyalka’s fifth chapter, The Landless Landlords. On another hand, the documentary China Rises depicts the rapid urbanization of Shanghai, a “mega-city”, and how it has affected the lives of many of it’s inhabitants from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Specifically, Wei Chin’s particular experience in Shanghai can be examined to distinguish what urbanization has done to alter her everyday life in the mega-city. Both works use the life-story method to capture the hardships that both the inhabitants of rural and urban spaces encounter during the time course of urbanization of their surroundings. Using the case studies performed on the Tao family and on Wei Chin’s, one can conclude that rapid large scale shifts influence and alter the quality of life of an urbanizing city’s peripheral and central populations.

The 1991 Chinese film Raise the Red Lantern, directed by Zhang Yimou, demonstrates power relations within the household in 1920’s upper class Chinese society and uses them to challenge the dominant patriarchal ideologies through a critique of Chinese social culture while also reinforcing the idea that tradition is ultimately the most powerful and thus the relations of power in the household. By culture I am referring to Raymond William’s definition of culture as lived cultures and signifying practices. Lived cultures being the particular way of life held by a particular group of people that can be seen in literature and holiday practices. And signifying practices as meaning-making practices such as music, poetry and T.V. dramas (Williams R, 1983). The particular definition of ‘ideologies’ I’ll be using is the masking, distortion or concealment of particular ideas and images of reality, giving a ‘false consciousness’ or a blind acceptance of notions (Storey J, 2015). The underlying theme of the movie Raise the Red Lantern and this essay is politics. Specifically the social politics within the household and how tradition dominates these relations. In 20th century China, Sun Yat-sen tried to change Chinese government to become more westernised, however eventually failed. Because of, this feudalism was introduced to China, both landholding and tax liability was increased in every area, (Deng K, 2013). Meaning the poor were even poorer and that families would have to sell or

Deng explores how China has adapted its government and political system to successfully coexist with foreign countries, particularly after the Cold War. The novel focuses on about six areas of concern, including a chapter discussing international human rights and how China’s policy in comparison to them. It goes without saying that this is a major area of concern for China, as they have been heavily scrutinized for it, but Deng also mentions the improvements that the Chinese

China, officially the People 's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereignty in which many of its citizens can live contemporary lives. In the 1960 's after Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward, Moderates Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng

"Between 1958 and 1984, the communes were responsible for procuring grain, for drawing up plans for subordinate units (the production brigades and teams), and for managing water and pest control, afforestation, and transportation projects. They also operated facilities for marketing crops, as well as stores selling consumer goods, seed, fertilizer, implements, and other farm inputs." So basically by 1985 the communes were transformed to economic units with no political influence. The commune movement was the key starting point for Chinese rural agriculture to become decentralized or in other words become free from complete control of the central government.

The allure of the Sing Song House and opium parlors attracted many of China’s younger generation to leave home. Most of them came with dreams of trying to make it big in Shanghai while hoping they could make enough to send money back home as well. With the colonization of Western nations in Shanghai such as the International Settlement and French Concession, the real estate market soared, with buildings in Chinese and Western styles. Factories sprung up all over Shanghai mostly owned by the British, and Japanese, “in the 1920s and 1930s it had half of China’s modern industry.”(Ebrey, 431) With the death of a Chinese employee working for a Japanese factory on May 15, 1925, riots and protests began to run rampart. During this time the minds of the people of Shanghai turned against the Municipal Council creating even more tensions with foreigners especially the Japanese. The city of Shanghai is a place “where foreigners exercised their political and economic power and enjoyed special privileges, and as the places from which emanated modern, Western influences.”(Lu, 93) Students and factory workers alike were the main pushers for a change in China. Inspired by the late Sun Yatsen’s words, a nationalist sprit began to grow within Shanghai and move through China. “The movement also coincided with the beginning of the civil war in China, a war that eventually drew Japan into a full-scale invasion, and ended only with the ascension to power

Home of 20 percent of the world’s population, China has a very unique and diverse culture. This research paper is going to introduce and educate the reader about the geography, economy, political party, and military that makes up the mysterious country to the East.

“We’re moving to China” is the sentence that little did I know would change my life and family in an enormous way. I grew up with my Father as the traditional ‘breadwinner’ of the family and my Mom, a stay at home Mother, taking care of my sisters and me. I guess you could say we were the typical All-American family until my parents decided to pack up all our things in 2009 and move us to Beijing. The move to China had a huge impact on my life and my sisters’ lives, but it had even more of an impact on my parents’ marriage and my Dad’s contribution to family life as a Father and Husband. In this paper I will discuss how my family’s move to China caused shifts in the quality of my parents’ marriage, and how fatherhood within my family changed