Banned in China for its candid exploration of a young girl's sexual awakening yet widely acclaimed as being "the first novel of 'tough youth' in China" (Beijing Today), Beijing Doll cuts a daring path through China's rock-and-roll subculture. This cutting edge novel -- drawn from the diaries the author kept throughout her teenage years -- takes readers to the streets of Beijing where a disaffected generation spurns tradition for lives of self expression, passion, and rock-and-roll. Chun Sue's explicit sensuality, unflinching attitude towards sex, and raw, lyrical style break new ground in contemporary Chinese literature.
Banned in China for its candid exploration of a young girl's sexual awakening yet widely acclaimed as being "the first novel of 'tough youth' in China" (Beijing Today), Beijing Doll cuts a daring path through China's rock-and-roll subculture. This cutting edge novel -- drawn from the diaries the author kept throughout her teenage years -- takes readers to the streets of Beijing where a disaffected generation spurns tradition for lives of self expression, passion, and rock-and-roll. Chun Sue's explicit sensuality, unflinching attitude towards sex, and raw, lyrical style break new ground in contemporary Chinese literature.
This groundbreaking book presents a critical introduction to the cultural and political dimensions of contemporary Chinese cinema. Leading Western and Chinese scholars trace the changing dynamics of Chinese film culture since the early 1990s as it moves away from underground and toward independence in the new century. Yet as the rich case studies illustrate, the sheer variety of alternative film culture itself provides sufficient opportunities for different--at times contradictory--configurations of cinematic products. Drawing on vigorous interdisciplinary scholarship, the book investigates the objects of its study from various methodological perspectives, ranging from historical and literary to sociological and ethnographic. In addition to offering critical readings of specific texts, this book explores alternative film culture through personal interviews, on-site observations, and media interrogations, from traditional print media to the visual media of film, television, and video, including the new digital media of the Internet. The contributors also consider the flourishing independent documentary filmmaking scene, highlighting a crucial part of alternative film that has been previously obscured by an almost exclusive attention on the fifth- and sixth-generation directors of fictional movies. With its fresh and knowledgeable analysis of Chinese underground and independent filmmaking, this book will be essential reading for all those interested in a society caught between socialism and global currents. Contributions by: Chris Berry, Jim Cheng, Valerie Jaffee, Matthew David Johnson, Tonglin Lu, Chen Mo, Seio Nakajima, Paul G. Pickowicz, Zhiwei Xiao, and Yingjin Zhang.
This ambitious work is a multimedia, interdisciplinary study of Chinese modernity in the context of globalization from the late nineteenth century to the present. Sheldon Lu draws on Chinese literature, film, art, photography, and video to broadly map the emergence of modern China in relation to the capitalist world-system in the economic, social, and political realms. Central to his study is the investigation of biopower and body politics, namely, the experience of globalization on a personal level. Lu first outlines the trajectory of the body in modern Chinese literature by focusing on the adventures, pleasures, and sufferings of the male (and female) body in the writings of selected authors. He then turns to avant-garde and performance art, tackling the physical self more directly through a consideration of work that takes the body as its very theme, material, and medium. In an exploration of mass visual culture, Lu analyzes artistic reactions to the multiple, uneven effects of globalization and modernization on both the physical landscape of China and the interior psyche of its citizens. This is followed by an inquiry into contemporary Chinese urban space in popular cinema and experimental photography and art. Examples are offered that capture the daily lives of contemporary Chinese as they struggle to make the transition from the vanishing space of the socialist lifestyle to the new capitalist economy of commodities. Lu reexamines the history and implications of China’s belated integration into the capitalist world system before closing with a postscript that traces the genealogy of the term "postsocialism" and points to the real relevance of the idea for the investigation of everyday life in China in the twenty-first century.
A popular series of guidebooks for the modern-day traveler offering information on cities and countries around the world continues, presenting up-to-date backgrounds and descriptions, detailed maps, hundreds of photographs, and much more, including walking and driving tours, visitor information directories, and cultural sidebars.
“Where is the market?” inquires the tourist one dark, chilly morning. “Follow the ghosts,” responds the taxi driver, indicating a shadowy parade of overloaded tricycles. “It’s not called the ghost market for nothing!” And indeed, Beijing is nothing if not haunted. Among the soaring skyscrapers, choking exhaust fumes, nonstop traffic jams, and towering monuments, one discovers old Beijing—newly styled, perhaps, but no less present and powerful than in its ancient incarnation. Beijing Time conducts us into this mysterious world, at once familiar and yet alien to the outsider. The ancient Chinese understood the world as enchanted, its shapes revealing the mythological order of the universe. In the structure and detail of Tian’anmen Square, the authors reveal the city as a whole. In Beijing no pyramids stand as proud remnants of the past; instead, the entire city symbolizes a vibrant civilization. From Tian’anmen Square, we proceed to the neighborhoods for a glimpse of local color—from the granny and the young police officer to the rag picker and the flower vendor. Wandering from the avant-garde art market to the clock towers, from the Monumental Axis to Mao’s Mausoleum, the book allows us to peer into the lives of Beijingers, the rules and rituals that govern their reality, and the mythologies that furnish their dreams. Deeply immersed in the culture, everyday and otherworldly, this anthropological tour, from ancient cosmology to Communist kitsch, allows us to see as never before how the people of Beijing—and China—work and live.
The Rough Guide to Beijing is the ultimate insider's guide to China's fascinating capital. With the extravagant 2008 Olympics marking the city's triumphant return to the global stage, the city now draws thousands of visitors a year by offering world-class hotels, fashionable restaurants and the coolest clubs alongside fantastic historic sites that remind us of the thousands of years it has spent at the heart of the Chinese empire. Both the popular and less well-known sights are covered in The Rough Guide to Beijing; from avant garde architectural projects (the new CCTV Tower), to hip bar district Nanluogu Xiang, and the achingly cool arts districts of 798 and Caochangdi. But the guide goes beyond the trendy, revealing the best places to eat and the best places to stay, ranging from charming youth hostels and courtyard boutique hotels to the most luxurious business behemoths. When the pace of the city gets too frenetic, the guide provides all the information you need to plan great daytrips, from the magnificent temples of Chengde to the grandest and most secluded stretches of the Great Wall. Easy to read maps are provided throughout the guide, plus there's a handy colour subway map, and the pinyin and Chinese characters are given for all destinations. Make the most of your time on earthTM with The Rough Guide to Beijing. Originally published in print in 2011. Now available in ePub format.
The volume reveals an astonishing richness in the theatrical approaches to Ibsen across the world: it considers political theatre, institutional 'high art', theatre for development, queer and transgender theatre, Brechtian techniques, puppetry, post-dramatic theatre, rural village performance and avant-garde touring companies. Investigating varied renegotiations of his drama, including the work of Thomas Ostermeier in Germany and other parts of the world, versions of A Doll's House from Chile and China, The Wild Duck in Iran and productions of Peer Gynt in Zimbabwe and Egypt, Frode Helland provides a deeper understanding of a cross-cultural Ibsen. The volume gives an in-depth analysis of the practice of Ibsen in relation to political, social, ideological and economic forces within and outside of the performances themselves, and demonstrates the incredible diversity of his work in local situations.
In this timely work, Liu Kang argues that globalization in China is both a historical condition in which the country's gaige kaifang (reform and opening up) has unfolded and a set of values or ideologies by which it and the rest of the globe are judged. Moreover, globalization signals a significant ascendancy of culture. Liu examines China's current ideological struggles in political discourse, intellectual debate, popular culture, avant-garde literature, the news media, and the internet. With careful textual analysis and observation informed by critical theories and cultural studies, he offers a forceful critique of the Chinese version of globalism that privileges economic development at the expense of social justice and equality.
