When did Asian Kids become good at Maths?

That's Shanghai

That's Shanghai

American Associoations for Chinese Studies

American Association for Chinese Studies

Gendered Body

现代人对自己的身体很重视。
身体反映了健康
什么样的身体属于女性的身体，什么样的身体属于男性的身体？

现代人的对于人身体的理解：
与个人的agency联系起来,
有gendered的区别。女性的身体更feminine一点，男性的身体更masculine一点。

中国文字对身体的理解，可以究到汉代。
汉代对身体的理解很复杂。
1） Confucianism对身体的理解：孝道
故事：24孝

身体是来自父母的，
子女的身体来自父母，所以父母的意志可以加到子女的身上。
父母可以体罚学生
子女要通过身体向父母表达孝道

孝道胜于性别。


2）Daoism对身体的理解
故事：孙悟空故事，七十二变

M0nk3y K1ng

身体是变化的
身体与自然之间的关系


3）Buddhism Body
Foreign Body
Gendered Body
Woman's body is inferior to men's
Six classes recast:
filial piety and body

Worship the God of Wealth during the Spring Festival

I ran into these pictures online:
500,000 citizens went to Guiyuan Temple, burning incenses and requesting blessings to worship the god of wealth.

The pictures remind me of what Qian Yong wrote on Popular Religion in 1838:

Every year in the spring when there is no farm work to tend to , people feel superstitious doubts about ghosts and spirits. What happened then is called "going out for a gathering," Everyone says that this [religious processions and gatherings] can "exorcise evil and bring good fortune" or "get rid of hardship and eliminate locusts." There is a great commotion when these gatherings occur and the whole area goes wild. Tens of thousdnads of men and women appear to watch these parades and although lcoal magistrates occasionally ban such actitives, they grow and prosper from year to year.

Qian Yong was frowning eyebrow on this. He recorded "Ten Evils of Relgious Gatherings" ( a scholar of Jiangyin, LiJiantian) to show his consent with the author. Li listed ten evils of such gatherings:
1. Blaspheming the ghosts and spirits
2. Confusing the ritual code
3. Squaderign money
4. Disrupting normal occuptions
5. Mixing of men and women
6. Causing fires
7. Promoting gambling
8. Causing fighting
9. Attracting robbbers and thieves
10. Damaginign social customs

If Li and Qian had lived today, they could have criticized the worship of the god of wealth with the same excurses. If it were twenty years ago, I would imagine that Xinhua New agency would have had a commentary criticizing such gathering as squanderign money, causing fires, and damaging social new customs.

Now people would hesitate to criticize such gatherings. At least in the above pictures, such gatherings is considered to embody the prosperity of China. We are living in the era of consumption.

Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo

They have been skating for eighteen years. I've been watching them twelve years. Congrats, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo.

Pair short program on Winter Olympic Games 2010

Even though Shen Xue slipped down from the top of Zhao's hand, they still got a gold medal.

Chinese New Year Eve

It is Chinese New Year Eve today. My husband and I called the families back in China. At 12pm last night, I was sending our daughter's videos to her grandparents. This morning at six my sister used QQ to wake up the whole family. She wanted us to watch the New Year Gala on TV with them together. It is an re-invented tradition starting from 1983 when TV became a necessary facility in Chinese households.

We had never thought it was so difficult to open up web page for the New Year Gala. We could have used pplive to see the gala broadcast. Unfortunately my mac does not support PP and my husband's PC cannot download the PPlive.

We try to use CCTV international channel to watch the live broadcasting. Unfortunately, the speed is so slow that we either cannot see the image or hear the sound. So we decided to watch live broadcast on the campus. Again, the campus internet does not improve the download speed. We cannot do anything but giving up. So we will see videos tomorrow.

My favorite song for this year's gala is
Wang Fei, Legend

Only one night, the video got 100,000 hits.


LL is with us today. She does not seem to watch the Gala. Once she has time, LL always browses videos on the youtube by herself.

Last time we had spring festival in China is 2006.

When will we have time to go back for the Chinese New Year?