Author: Val Wang
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592409423
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
A humorous and moving coming-of-age story that brings a unique, not-quite-outsider’s perspective to China’s shift from ancient empire to modern superpower Raised in a strict Chinese American household in the suburbs, Val Wang dutifully got good grades, took piano lessons, and performed in a Chinese dance troupe—until she shaved her head and became a leftist, the stuff of many teenage rebellions. But Val’s true mutiny was when she moved to China, the land her parents had fled before the Communist takeover in 1949. Val arrives in Beijing in 1998 expecting to find freedom but instead lives in the old city with her traditional relatives, who wake her at dawn with the sound of a state-run television program playing next to her cot, make a running joke of how much she eats, and monitor her every move. But outside, she soon discovers a city rebelling against its roots just as she is, struggling too to find a new, modern identity. Rickshaws make way for taxicabs, skyscrapers replace hutong courtyard houses, and Beijing prepares to make its debut on the world stage with the 2008 Olympics. And in the gritty outskirts of the city where she moves, a thriving avant-garde subculture is making art out of the chaos. Val plunges into the city’s dizzying culture and nightlife and begins shooting a documentary about a Peking Opera family who is witnessing the death of their traditional art. Brilliantly observed and winningly told, Beijing Bastard is a compelling story of a young woman finding her place in the world, and of China, as its ancient past gives way to a dazzling but uncertain future.
Beijing Bastard
Author: Val Wang
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592409423
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
A humorous and moving coming-of-age story that brings a unique, not-quite-outsider’s perspective to China’s shift from ancient empire to modern superpower Raised in a strict Chinese American household in the suburbs, Val Wang dutifully got good grades, took piano lessons, and performed in a Chinese dance troupe—until she shaved her head and became a leftist, the stuff of many teenage rebellions. But Val’s true mutiny was when she moved to China, the land her parents had fled before the Communist takeover in 1949. Val arrives in Beijing in 1998 expecting to find freedom but instead lives in the old city with her traditional relatives, who wake her at dawn with the sound of a state-run television program playing next to her cot, make a running joke of how much she eats, and monitor her every move. But outside, she soon discovers a city rebelling against its roots just as she is, struggling too to find a new, modern identity. Rickshaws make way for taxicabs, skyscrapers replace hutong courtyard houses, and Beijing prepares to make its debut on the world stage with the 2008 Olympics. And in the gritty outskirts of the city where she moves, a thriving avant-garde subculture is making art out of the chaos. Val plunges into the city’s dizzying culture and nightlife and begins shooting a documentary about a Peking Opera family who is witnessing the death of their traditional art. Brilliantly observed and winningly told, Beijing Bastard is a compelling story of a young woman finding her place in the world, and of China, as its ancient past gives way to a dazzling but uncertain future.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592409423
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
A humorous and moving coming-of-age story that brings a unique, not-quite-outsider’s perspective to China’s shift from ancient empire to modern superpower Raised in a strict Chinese American household in the suburbs, Val Wang dutifully got good grades, took piano lessons, and performed in a Chinese dance troupe—until she shaved her head and became a leftist, the stuff of many teenage rebellions. But Val’s true mutiny was when she moved to China, the land her parents had fled before the Communist takeover in 1949. Val arrives in Beijing in 1998 expecting to find freedom but instead lives in the old city with her traditional relatives, who wake her at dawn with the sound of a state-run television program playing next to her cot, make a running joke of how much she eats, and monitor her every move. But outside, she soon discovers a city rebelling against its roots just as she is, struggling too to find a new, modern identity. Rickshaws make way for taxicabs, skyscrapers replace hutong courtyard houses, and Beijing prepares to make its debut on the world stage with the 2008 Olympics. And in the gritty outskirts of the city where she moves, a thriving avant-garde subculture is making art out of the chaos. Val plunges into the city’s dizzying culture and nightlife and begins shooting a documentary about a Peking Opera family who is witnessing the death of their traditional art. Brilliantly observed and winningly told, Beijing Bastard is a compelling story of a young woman finding her place in the world, and of China, as its ancient past gives way to a dazzling but uncertain future.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture
Author: Edward Lawrence Davis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 041577716X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 1158
Book Description
First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 041577716X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 1158
Book Description
First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The Urban Generation
Author: Zhen Zhang
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822390000
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 459
Book Description
Since the early 1990s, while mainland China’s state-owned movie studios have struggled with financial and ideological constraints, an exciting alternative cinema has developed. Dubbed the “Urban Generation,” this new cinema is driven by young filmmakers who emerged in the shadow of the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989. What unites diverse directors under the “Urban Generation” rubric is their creative engagement with the wrenching economic and social transformations underway in China. Urban Generation filmmakers are vanguard interpreters of the confusion and anxiety triggered by the massive urbanization of contemporary China. This collection brings together some of the most recent original research on this emerging cinema and its relationship to Chinese society. The contributors analyze the historical and social conditions that gave rise to the Urban Generation, its aesthetic innovation, and its ambivalent relationship to China’s mainstream film industry and the international film market. Focusing attention on the Urban Generation’s sense of social urgency, its documentary impulses, and its representations of gender and sexuality, the contributors highlight the characters who populate this new urban cinema—ordinary and marginalized city dwellers including aimless bohemians, petty thieves, prostitutes, postal workers, taxi drivers, migrant workers—and the fact that these “floating urban subjects” are often portrayed by non-professional actors. Some essays concentrate on specific films (such as Shower and Suzhou River) or filmmakers (including Jia Zhangke and Zhang Yuan), while others survey broader concerns. Together the thirteen essays in this collection give a multifaceted account of a significant, ongoing cinematic and cultural phenomenon. Contributors. Chris Berry, Yomi Braester, Shuqin Cui, Linda Chiu-han Lai, Charles Leary, Sheldon H. Lu, Jason McGrath, Augusta Palmer, Bérénice Reynaud, Yaohua Shi, Yingjin Zhang, Zhang Zhen, Xueping Zhong
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822390000
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 459
Book Description
Since the early 1990s, while mainland China’s state-owned movie studios have struggled with financial and ideological constraints, an exciting alternative cinema has developed. Dubbed the “Urban Generation,” this new cinema is driven by young filmmakers who emerged in the shadow of the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989. What unites diverse directors under the “Urban Generation” rubric is their creative engagement with the wrenching economic and social transformations underway in China. Urban Generation filmmakers are vanguard interpreters of the confusion and anxiety triggered by the massive urbanization of contemporary China. This collection brings together some of the most recent original research on this emerging cinema and its relationship to Chinese society. The contributors analyze the historical and social conditions that gave rise to the Urban Generation, its aesthetic innovation, and its ambivalent relationship to China’s mainstream film industry and the international film market. Focusing attention on the Urban Generation’s sense of social urgency, its documentary impulses, and its representations of gender and sexuality, the contributors highlight the characters who populate this new urban cinema—ordinary and marginalized city dwellers including aimless bohemians, petty thieves, prostitutes, postal workers, taxi drivers, migrant workers—and the fact that these “floating urban subjects” are often portrayed by non-professional actors. Some essays concentrate on specific films (such as Shower and Suzhou River) or filmmakers (including Jia Zhangke and Zhang Yuan), while others survey broader concerns. Together the thirteen essays in this collection give a multifaceted account of a significant, ongoing cinematic and cultural phenomenon. Contributors. Chris Berry, Yomi Braester, Shuqin Cui, Linda Chiu-han Lai, Charles Leary, Sheldon H. Lu, Jason McGrath, Augusta Palmer, Bérénice Reynaud, Yaohua Shi, Yingjin Zhang, Zhang Zhen, Xueping Zhong
Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers
Author: Yvonne Tasker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134656645
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers examines the work of some of today's most popular, original and influential cinematic voices. Each entry offers both an overview and critique of its subject's career and works, looking at the genres in which they work and their relationship to other film and filmmakers. It covers figures drawn from diverse cinematic traditions from around the world and includes: *Luc Besson *James Cameron *David Lynch *John Woo *Julie Dash *Spike Lee *Joel and Ethan Coen *Martin Scorsese *Mira Nair *Wim Wenders With each entry supplemented by a filmography, references and suggestions for further reading, this is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in contemporary film.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134656645
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers examines the work of some of today's most popular, original and influential cinematic voices. Each entry offers both an overview and critique of its subject's career and works, looking at the genres in which they work and their relationship to other film and filmmakers. It covers figures drawn from diverse cinematic traditions from around the world and includes: *Luc Besson *James Cameron *David Lynch *John Woo *Julie Dash *Spike Lee *Joel and Ethan Coen *Martin Scorsese *Mira Nair *Wim Wenders With each entry supplemented by a filmography, references and suggestions for further reading, this is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in contemporary film.
Pop Culture China!
Author: Kevin Latham
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 185109587X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
This exciting title in ABC-CLIO's Popular Culture in the Contemporary World series offers the nonspecialist reader the only up-to-date introduction to all facets of popular culture in China. China's release from Maoist austerity has produced an explosion in popular culture. The Chinese have embraced such technologies as television and cell phones and shaped them to their own social context. Understanding modern China requires a thorough knowledge of daily life there. This book presents readers, from high-school and college students to the inquisitive tourist, with that knowledge. The author, a scholar of Chinese culture, draws on his own fieldwork, along with authoritative scholarship and reporting, to give the reader a comprehensive, lively, and accessible introduction to all aspects of Chinese popular culture. The book begins with an introduction to understanding popular culture in China and covers mass media; print media; cinema, film, and video; the Internet; and also discusses the rise of consumption and consumerism. From the modernization of traditional theater to the traditional uses of modern technology, this book presents a guide to the emerging culture of a country that will inevitably become increasingly influential in coming years.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 185109587X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
This exciting title in ABC-CLIO's Popular Culture in the Contemporary World series offers the nonspecialist reader the only up-to-date introduction to all facets of popular culture in China. China's release from Maoist austerity has produced an explosion in popular culture. The Chinese have embraced such technologies as television and cell phones and shaped them to their own social context. Understanding modern China requires a thorough knowledge of daily life there. This book presents readers, from high-school and college students to the inquisitive tourist, with that knowledge. The author, a scholar of Chinese culture, draws on his own fieldwork, along with authoritative scholarship and reporting, to give the reader a comprehensive, lively, and accessible introduction to all aspects of Chinese popular culture. The book begins with an introduction to understanding popular culture in China and covers mass media; print media; cinema, film, and video; the Internet; and also discusses the rise of consumption and consumerism. From the modernization of traditional theater to the traditional uses of modern technology, this book presents a guide to the emerging culture of a country that will inevitably become increasingly influential in coming years.
Reclaiming Chinese Society
Author: You-tien Hsing
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113527729X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Analyses the mechanisms, processes and actors producing a wide spectrum of social and cultural changes in reform China. Contrary to most literature that emphasize economic and political processes at the expense of Chinese society, the book argues for the centrality of the social in understanding Chinese development.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113527729X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Analyses the mechanisms, processes and actors producing a wide spectrum of social and cultural changes in reform China. Contrary to most literature that emphasize economic and political processes at the expense of Chinese society, the book argues for the centrality of the social in understanding Chinese development.
Contemporary Political Cinema
Author: Matthew Holtmeier
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474423426
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
The political films that have emerged on the global film festival circuit since the 1990s mark a shift in cinematic strategies for critically addressing dominant, militant, or otherwise repressive ideologies. From a focus on the representation of oppression in films like The Battle of Algiers, films such as Timbuktu, Nobody Knows About Persian Cats and Chop Shop now contribute to the active formation of political characters and viewers, a form not fully realized until the 21st century due to shifts in information technologies and resulting political organization. This book demonstrates that a contemporary form of political cinema has emerged, centered on the production of subjectivity and networks of protest, which depicts the active formation of political identities that resonates with off-screen protest movements.
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474423426
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
The political films that have emerged on the global film festival circuit since the 1990s mark a shift in cinematic strategies for critically addressing dominant, militant, or otherwise repressive ideologies. From a focus on the representation of oppression in films like The Battle of Algiers, films such as Timbuktu, Nobody Knows About Persian Cats and Chop Shop now contribute to the active formation of political characters and viewers, a form not fully realized until the 21st century due to shifts in information technologies and resulting political organization. This book demonstrates that a contemporary form of political cinema has emerged, centered on the production of subjectivity and networks of protest, which depicts the active formation of political identities that resonates with off-screen protest movements.
Cinema and Desire
Author: Jing Wang
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789607876
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Dai Jinhua is one of contemporary China's most influential theoreticians and cultural critics. A feminist Marxist, her literary, film and TV commentary has, over the last decade, addressed an expanding audience in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Cinema and Desire presents Dai Jinhau's best work to date. In it she examines the Orientalism that made Zhang Yimou the darling of international film festivals, establishes Huang Shuqin's Human, Woman, Demon as the People's Republic's first genuinely feminist film, comments on TV representations of the Chinese diaspora in New York, speculates on the value of Mao Zedong as an icon of post-revolutionary consumerism, and analyses the rise of shopping plazas in 1990s' urban China as a strange montage in which the political memories of Tiananmen Square and the logic of the global capitalist marketplace are intertwined.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789607876
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Dai Jinhua is one of contemporary China's most influential theoreticians and cultural critics. A feminist Marxist, her literary, film and TV commentary has, over the last decade, addressed an expanding audience in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Cinema and Desire presents Dai Jinhau's best work to date. In it she examines the Orientalism that made Zhang Yimou the darling of international film festivals, establishes Huang Shuqin's Human, Woman, Demon as the People's Republic's first genuinely feminist film, comments on TV representations of the Chinese diaspora in New York, speculates on the value of Mao Zedong as an icon of post-revolutionary consumerism, and analyses the rise of shopping plazas in 1990s' urban China as a strange montage in which the political memories of Tiananmen Square and the logic of the global capitalist marketplace are intertwined.
Generation X Goes Global
Author: Christine Henseler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415699444
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
This volume explores the converging properties of "Generation X" through the fields of literature, media studies, youth culture, popular culture, sociology, philosophy, feminism, and political science. It broadens critics' engagement with the "Generation X" label, tracing the global and local flows that determine the identity of each country's youth from the 1970s well into the twenty-first century.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415699444
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
This volume explores the converging properties of "Generation X" through the fields of literature, media studies, youth culture, popular culture, sociology, philosophy, feminism, and political science. It broadens critics' engagement with the "Generation X" label, tracing the global and local flows that determine the identity of each country's youth from the 1970s well into the twenty-first century.
In the Red
Author: Geremie Barmé
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231106146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560
Book Description
A leading observer of Chinese literature, society, and politics lifts the veil on the culture wars that have raged between officials and dissidents in the period before and after the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231106146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560
Book Description
A leading observer of Chinese literature, society, and politics lifts the veil on the culture wars that have raged between officials and dissidents in the period before and after the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.