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Culture and china essay
Chinese culture a short introduction
Culture and china essay
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Culture is defined as “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time” (Merriam-Webster). Around the world, each country has its own designated culture where people either honor or rebel against it. In China, the Chinese view their culture as different from many. Ai Weiwei, a Chinese activist born in 1957, is known as the most dangerous man to many in China. He is know to rebel against the Chinese culture, which brought many struggles upon him. Ai Weiwei’s cultural rebellion includes being very critical towards the Chinese government and being outspoken towards human rights. He “has [even] characterized his increasingly dangerous jousting with the Chinese government as a kind of performance art” (The New York Times). He communicates his messages through his blogs, social media accounts, and most importantly his artwork. Weiwei is well known for his Tate Exhibition with the porcelain sunflower seeds, his work with the Bird’s Nest Stadium in China, and the 2008 earthquake in China. Ai Weiwei both honors and criticizes his culture through his work with traditional urns, the Bird’s Nest Stadium, and sunflower seeds. Ai Weiwei is known for his acts of cultural rebellion such as creating his understanding of artwork with valuable urns. He uses artwork as a way to successfully communicate with others and express himself. Weiwei was pictured while dropping the Han Dynasty Urn which was very valuable to the Chinese culture as it is very antique and unique. Through the actions of Weiwei with the vase, he criticizes his culture. When he broke the vase, he sent the message out to his people about his beliefs on what should be still considered valuable. He believes that the broken vase shows different ways, ... ... middle of paper ... ...ird's Nest." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 16 Feb. 2005. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. . "Is Ai Weiwei China's Most Dangerous Man?." Smithsonian. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2014. . "NY Times." NY Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. . "culture." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 9 Jan. 2014. . "艾未未 TED2011, Ai Wei Wei at TED talks 2011." YouTube. YouTube, 9 Apr. 2011. Web. 11 Jan. 2014. . MLA formatting by BibMe.org.
Hung Liu is successful in creating a juxtaposing image that tells a story about the many aspects of her Chinese origins. According to the painting, not all life in China is surrounded by beauty and elegance, like many believe it to be based on the traditional historical customs. Liu makes her point using a brilliant yet subtle progression, moving from the ideal to reality. Making use of the various principles and elements of art in her work creates a careful visual composition that benefit and support the painting’s achievements as a whole. This oil painting, being approximately 13 years old now, will hold a special place in Chinese history for the rest of its existence. The ideas Hung Liu portrays in Interregnum may help reform a social movement in the country by making her viewers socially aware of the cruel conditions the Chinese are facing under Communist rule, and this is all made possible through the assimilation of the principles and
In his poem, “Notes from the City of the Sun”, Bei Dao utilizes obscure imagery consistent with the Misty Poets and veiled political references to illustrate the struggles in Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution. The poem is sectioned into fourteen short stanzas containing imagery that are symbolic of the cultural hegemony in China under the rule of Mao Zedong. Bei Dao, born Zhao Zhen-kai, is an anti-revolutionary poet and one of the founders of a group known as the Misty Poets. The Misty Poets wrote poems that protested the Cultural Revolution led by Mao Zedong. Therefore, a lot of Bei Dao’s poems speak out against the Cultural Revolution and the restrictions that it placed on any form of art. Bei Dao’s poetry is categorized as “misty” because of the ambiguity in its references to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. An obscure imagery that occurs twice in “Notes” is the sun imagery. Another imagery that depicts the injustice of the Cultural Revolution is the description of freedom as scraps of paper. In the poem, Bei Dao also equates faith to sheep falling into a ditch; this is a depiction blind faith during the Cultural Revolution. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how Bei Dao’s use of the Misty Poet’s ambiguous imagery and implicit political context in the poem “Notes from the City of the Sun” to illustrate the cultural hegemony in China under Mao.
Ah Xian born in Beijing in 1960 left china following the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, also known as tank man incident, and moved to Sydney Australia. Having moved from his native country, Ah Xian wanted his work to represent that “cultural identity is permanent and no matter what other places and influences one
Schoenhals, Michael. China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969: Not a Dinner Party. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. Print.
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 him to the world of conceptual art, becoming influenced by Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. Ai Weiwei admired the ways of artists who could simply proclaim what was art and what wasn’t art, how Duchamp questioned art and when something gets to be art (Springford, 2011).Ai Weiwei came back to China in 1993 to take care of his sick father, and found himself drawn to his responsibility as an artist, to take the task of re-awakening his country through his art and to expose his thoughts on the corrupt and controlling nature of China’s government (Philipson,2012). Ai Weiwei has always been an outspoken artist. In the course of his art making, Weiwei has used a form of activism in his art, with political ideologies that exist because of the Chinese government. He also uses a sense of memory and the countrys past and history. Most of his art involves the public and their outlook of the government. Weiwei requests engagement from the public as a show of protest in his artworks (Harris & Zucker, 2009). When...
Secondly, Emperor Huizong was a patron of arts and in his painting academy he highlighted 3 aspects of painting: realism, systematic study, and poetic idea. (source dri buku yg foto di library) These 3 aspects were clearly shown in Cranes above Kaifeng: Auspicious Cranes which indicates the amount of control Emperor Huizong had on the visualization of auspicious events.
...ate her experiences and values into the novel while writing it, exemplifying the characteristics of curiosity, independence and rebelliousness that she feels are important in the conformist society of China. Only through curiosity can people learn of the political oppression so craftily utilized by the government. The Chinese must show independence to stand out from the average citizen “being brainwashed” (Wang, Personal Interview) by nationalistic pride. These individuals must be rebellious, in order to join the revolution desperately needed to break through the masquerade the Chinese dictatorship hides behind; a revolution to fight for freedom and democracy. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson`s ideals, being yourself means not conforming to a world filled with dictators, oppression and lies. These are the people who have achieved the greatest accomplishment.
Much of Ai Weiwei’s activism and artwork has been influenced by his experiences growing up. Ai Weiwei lived through a tumultuous time in Chinese history, with the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the Opening Up of China by Deng Xiaoping. Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing was a famous poet during the Cultural Revolution. However, he was targeted in the Anti-Rightist campaig...
Deng Xiaoping was a force for evil and that he was responsible for taking away
Throughout the film ancient China’s profound history and glorious culture has displayed through various cultural elements. The martial arts, writing system, architecture all together gives an image of the Chinese culture. The developments and advanced techniques have shaped the country and stabilized the society. China has accomplished some of the greatest achievements of mankind. It had also made significant contribution to the development of advanced systems around the world. Chinese culture is very unique. All the elements presented in the film have truly strengthened my understanding of the Chinese
Furthermore, the Cultural Revolution remains one of the most censored and unclear topics in China, indicating that the movement was much more impactful on the CCP’s political strategy than perhaps they would hope to admit. Simultaneously, the Cultural Revolution may also be diminishing in resonance over time, as many young people are simply unaware of the movement occurring at all, or not fully aware of its implications in Chinese
China is a country with a vast cultural and historical background. It is a country with four billon people with extreme cultural diversity, which is nourished by different philosophies of its own. These philosophies are the beginning ideas of Chinese morality and spiritual belief, which were enriched by different intellectual heroes like Confucius.
Chinese art went through many different stages starting from the year 1842. But the massacre of Tiananmen Square in the year 1989 was a turning point in the political life of China and in the country's art. Until the year 1992 art in China was underground, but it kept expanding. As a result of that, some Chinese artists started to do art works that rebel against their government and express their feelings towards China. One of these artists is the famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei who expressed in each piece of art he did, his feelings that China should let its people break away from the rotten traditional, in order to express their thoughts freely.
In a nation where free speech is prohibited, speaking freely can get you into a lot of trouble. Zhao Zenkai, more commonly known as Bei Dao, is a renowned Chinese poet, who lived in China during its conversion to communism. Living during and experiencing the Cultural Revolution, which was a series of political and cultural reforms in China, heavily influenced his writing. He was a member of the Misty Poets, a group of poets in communist China that used abstract metaphors in their poems to speak out against what their nation was doing. China would often censor or ban their work in an attempt to suppress their influence on the common people of China. Finally, in 1989, following the massacre at Tiananmen Square, Bei Dao was exiled from China. However, this did not stop his poetic desire. Throughout his career, Bei Dao’s poetry was impacted by his life experiences. Bei Dao would commonly write poetry from a political perspective, touching on topics such as the negative effects of the Cultural Revolution, politically charged events such as the massacre at Tiananmen Square, and communism as a whole. He would also often write from a personal perspective towards what was going on around him..
He distinguishes three elements: the dominant (the hegemonic culture), the residual (culture’s past elements) and the emergent (new meanings, values and practices being continually created). In the case of China, the dominant would be neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics, the residual – Confucian values such as obedience toward authority. Maoism, however, according to Qiu and other scholars, can be considered as both the residual and the emergent, as young workers tend to rediscover Maoism and employ Mao’s teachings in their online activities. Other parts of the emergence could be feminism, eco-socialism, human rights campaign