Jiang Qing

Kukan: The Battle Cry of China (Scott, 1941) is a lost Oscar-winning film produced during the Second World War. In April 2015, the Academy Film Archives sent an incomplete film print of Kukan back to China. A grand ceremony observing the arrival of the film was held in Chunking, China, one of the most grievous battlefronts of the eastern hemisphere during the war. The film itself, although “crudely made,” was one of the handfuls of documentaries that captured Japan’s invasion of China from a…

Lin Zexu's Letter to Queen Victoria The commissioner of China, Lin Zexu wrote a letter to Queen Victoria of England regarding the opium crisis in 1839. This opium was delivered through trade. Men of England would sail to China with the purpose of giving and receiveing needed goods for themselves. It came to a point in time where this trade became illegal and dangerous, this is the point in time that the drug of opium came in to the mix. As the fatalities and sufferings of China natives grew…

Millions of people have migrated to the United States in search of a better life. Until the middle of the 19th century, most of them came from England, Ireland and Germany.23 The “melting pot” metaphor was used to describe the heterogeneous society of immigrants with different cultures becoming more homogeneous through blending together all the races.20 Chinese immigrants joined this mass migration to America in three waves, beginning in the 1840s and extending to the present era. During these…

The Chinese examination has been known to be an extremely hard literary test of intellectual skill. Passing this examination allows one to obtain a position in the state bureaucracy. It consists of composing essays that will exhibit the intellectual potential of the applicant. Individuals who decide to take the examination go through multiple rounds of tests and the majority of applicants do not pass the exam. Based on the intensity of the examination and opinions on intellectuals, I argue that…

During the beginning of the 20th century, China had severe repercussions on its economy and social life, along with many natural disasters. The scatter of foreign and domestic policies across China, along with the defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War, eventually led to an uprising in China. During the rebellion there was an imbalance between social classes and power. Unfortunately, this created instability among the Chinese, leading to the 1911 revolution. Foreign influences in China were seen…

Introduction: The global economy is one that is directly impacted by Earth’s biodiversity derived from its rich and varied environments. The locations of each region correlate to the resources and products that are able to be produced, distributed, and exported. Throughout history, humans have established societies and civilizations around these resources unique to their own location and trading patterns. The nation of China has been heavily influenced by their location, regional environment,…

Philip A. Kuhn presents the socio-psychological aspects of the sorcery scare, which occurred during the last imperial dynasty in China. Kuhn, a Harvard Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, examines the “Prosperous period” and how the effects created a state of uneasiness in both the conscious psychology and economic _***_. In Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 Kuhn focuses on the social and economic setting of the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on a…

Before 1911, China was still under absolute monarchy, which was Qing Dynasty. The economy during that period was agricultural based, not by trading or colonies. Unlike Western countries, there was no industrial revolution happened in China. Due to the closed economy (or self seclusion), China did not receive any new technology to improve the developments in many areas. There are three characteristics of the traditional Chinese economy before 1911. The first characteristic is highly productive…

1.) Civilizations in the pre-modern world were highly advanced in their own standards. Chinese invented weapons, silk, china, paper and many technological, as well as political influence in the region of origins. Indians were known for their spices, as the people of East Africa traded slaves, timber, and ivory. All over the world, civilizations were inventing tools and coming up with new ideas on how to better their culture. This is the cornerstone, or backbone of what started a series of the…

The Rise of Eunuchs in the Middle of Confucianism The Ming Dynasty witnessed the highest point of the eunuch system and its political influence in the Chinese government during the 15th century. The eunuch system was the system where castrated men were responsible for carrying out assignments as servant for the Chinese emperor and government officers in the palace, also known as Ceremonial Directors in the Ming court (Scholz 129). Despite the conflict against traditional Confucianism, which was…