CHINA TRIP Day 9: Stocking Up on Hi-Chew

Wednesday, May 26

I had taken a Modern East Asian Studies course in high school that focused on China and Japan in the 20th century. I remembered bits and pieces of Chinese history such as the Opium War, Mao Zedong and the overthrowing of the Guomindang, and Deng Xiaoping’s economic policies that helped open more of China to the rest of the world. In high school we did have a segment on the Nationalists, particularly because of Sun Yat-sen, who attended my high school. I had always remembered Sun Yat-sen being referred to as the “Father of Modern China” and thought there would be more signs of him in China, or at the very least, in Taiwan where the Nationalist party ended up staying.

Today’s lecture helped me realize that while Sun Yat-sen is a prominent historical figure revered in the West, it isn’t necessarily the same for China. He dreamed of a democratic and equalized China, but just from our daily observations, those types of dreams are suppressed if not nonexistent. Mao had cemented his reign over China after years of turmoil but failed to really push China forward economically. I’m not big on history, but from what I remember, communes in general didn’t work for any country so I’m surprised that Mao’s vision for China included communes. At the same time, however, with how adverse China had been to foreign influence, I guess I’m not really surprised that he didn’t know communes didn’t have a very high success rate.

As we discussed the Cultural Revolution, I kept thinking that much of what happened was fairly predictable. Mao was a great leader with a vision that backfired, and since he had established what was basically a dictatorship, he was in constant fear of unrest. I think this would’ve fueled much of the events during the Cultural Revolution, in particular the establishment of the Red Guards, which was created for the purpose of promoting Mao’s image and ideals. Despite all the negative events stemming from the Cultural Revolution, I was surprised to learn that people still revere Mao. One of the salespeople in a Forbidden City bookstore had asked us if we knew Mao and seemed eager to share his opinion. Of course, denouncing Mao may be asking for punishment, and as an employee in the Forbidden City, I’m sure it was also part of his job to promote a positive image of China. I still think he was sincere though.

In the afternoon, we visited the Beijing Film Academy, which is where those aspiring to a career in the film industry can be found. The way the academy was described brought to mind Julliard and I wondered if the Beijing Film Academy was just as renowned for film careers in China as Julliard was for performing arts in general. There were a lot of small classrooms and various little studios. I couldn’t quite get a sense of what a student’s schedule might be like, and who would be working in these studios and what they would be working on exactly. We later got to listen to a few graduate students talk about the film industry and their studies but I still wondered how they chose to go into film and how realistic their futures were in such a competitive industry. We never got a chance to talk with the students individually, so I suppose I’ll never really know.

After Jasmine's birthday we all kind of just took a chill evening. The boys played basketball and a bunch of us just went to a small restaurant with free wi-fi to get some work done. Of course, I still failed to do anything productive haha. With regards to the title, we all became addicted to hi-chew. I had eaten it before but it had been a long time and I had forgotten how addicting it was lol. We'd all suffer withdrawals if we didn't have it at least every day.