Download or read book Mulan s Legend and Legacy in China and the United States written by Lan Dong and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mulan, the warrior maiden who performed heroic deeds in battle while dressed as a male soldier, has had many incarnations from her first appearance as a heroine in an ancient Chinese folk ballad. Mulan’s story was retold for centuries, extolling the filial virtue of the young woman who placed her father's honor and well-being above her own. With the publication of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior in the late 1970s, Mulan first became familiar to American audiences who were fascinated with the extraordinary Asian American character. Mulan’s story was recast yet again in the popular 1998 animated Disney film and its sequel. In Mulan’s Legend and Legacy in China and the United States, Lan Dong traces the development of this popular icon and asks, "Who is the real Mulan?" and "What does authenticity mean for the critic looking at this story?" Dong charts this character’s literary voyage across historical and geographical borders, discussing the narratives and images of Mulan over a long time span—from premodern China to the contemporary United States to Mulan’s counter-migration back to her homeland. As Dong shows, Mulan has been reinvented repeatedly in both China and the United States so that her character represents different agendas in each retelling—especially after she reached the western hemisphere. The dutiful and loyal daughter, the fierce, pregnant warrior, and the feisty teenaged heroine—each is Mulan representing an idea about female virtue at a particular time and place.
Download or read book Fa Mulan written by Robert D. San Souci and published by Hyperion. This book was released on 2000-03-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A good swordsman should appear as calm as a fine lady, but he must be capable of quick action like a surprised tiger," says a seasoned warrior to Fa Mulan, unaware that the young soldier is in fact a woman. Award-winning author Robert D. San Souci and Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng have created an elegant, visually stunning retelling of the popular Chinese legend. When Fa Mulan learns that her father has been drafted into Khan's army to fight the Tartars, she is shocked--her father is far too old and weak to go to war.She forms a brave plan, which her family reluctantly accepts, and, "At dawn she cut her hair short, put on her father's armor, and fastened his weapons to the horse's saddle." Fa Mulan is excited and afraid, and soon finds herself engaged in fierce combat with the Tartars. She studies the art of war, and becomes skilled with the sword. As her accomplishments gain fame, she is called to appear before the Khan in the royal city of Loyang. Fearing the discovery of her true gender, Mulan is anxious about the consequences for her family. But she needn't have worried; "'General,' the Khan began, 'you have served me well and have brought honor to your family. Your deeds are enough to fill twelve books. I give you a thousand strings of copper coins as a reward. What else do you wish?'" Relieved, the woman warrior simply asks to go home. The noble story of this legendary Chinese heroine has inspired poets, writers, artists, dramatists, and readers worldwide for centuries. This particular retelling dates back to the earliest versions of The Song of Mulan, probably composed during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (A.D. 420 to A.D. 589). San Souci's carefully researched interpretation of the ancient story is gentle, dramatic, and inspiring, and the Tsengs' beautiful, expressive watercolor paintings, bordered top and bottom like a Chinese scroll, are lovely. (Ages 7 and older) --Karin Snelson
Download or read book Heroism and Gender in War Films written by Karen A. Ritzenhoff and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filmic constructions of war heroism have a profound impact on public perceptions of conflicts. Here, contributors examine the ways motifs of gender and heroism in war films are used to justify ideological positions, shape the understanding of the military conflicts, support political agendas and institutions, and influence collective memory.
Download or read book Disney Mulan s Adventure Journal The Palace of Secrets written by Rhona Cleary and published by Dark Horse Comics. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow the fearless hero on a quest to save China for the second time in story that is interwoven with pages from Mulan's own journal. An assassination attempt is made on the Emperor of China's life. Under the backdrop of the beautiful Spring Festival, Mulan must go undercover as the guest of honor at the Imperial Palace to protect the emperor. When danger presents itself in the shadows and in plain sight, everyone is a suspect. Between his family, guards, counselors, and a deadly organization called The Golden Tiger--Mulan must figure out who among them is plotting treason. And in between all the commotion, Mulan must also find a balance between being a celebrated hero and staying true to herself. In this graphic novel, pages from Mulan's own journal are woven into the adventure! As you follow the tale, you will read her thoughts as she travels from her village to the Imperial Palace, from sunrise, to sunset. Beautiful watercolor illustrations fill her journal, giving you a glimpse into the human, the warrior, the woman, Mulan, like you've never seen her before!
Download or read book Transforming Gender and Emotion written by Sookja Cho and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Butterfly Lovers Story, sometimes called the Chinese Romeo and Juliet, has been enduringly popular in China and Korea. In Transforming Gender and Emotion, Sookja Cho demonstrates why the Butterfly Lovers Story is more than just a popular love story. By unveiling the complexity of themes and messages concealed beneath the tale’s modern classification as a tragic love story, this book reveals the tale as a rich academic subject for students of human emotions and relationships, comparative geography and culture, and narrative adaptation. By examining folk beliefs and ideas that abound in the narrative—including rebirth and a second life, the association of human souls and butterflies, and women’s spiritual power—this book presents the Butterfly Lovers Story as an example of local religious narrative. The book’s cross-cultural comparisons, best manifested in its discussion of a shamanic ritual narrative version from the Cheju Island of Korea, frame the story as a catalyst for inclusive, expansive discussion of premodern Korean and Chinese literatures and cultures. This scrutiny of the historical and cultural background behind the formation and popularization of the Cheju Island version sheds light on important issues in the Butterfly Lovers Story that are not frequently discussed—either in past examinations of this particular narrative or in the overall literary studies of China and Korea. This new, open approach presents an innovative framework for understanding premodern literary and cultural space in East Asia.
Download or read book Variable Icons and Images written by Zhang Jing and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legend of Mulan, the Chinese woman warrior who disguised as a man and took her father's place in the army, has a thousand year history in classical literature and modern media, and has become localized in five places in China. I focus this study on contemporary oral legends of Mulan that I have recorded through my fieldwork in one of the claimed birthplaces of Mulan: Huangpi. I apply Timothy Tangherlini's methodology for interpreting legend ("Who tells what to whom in the form of a legend and why?") as I identify distinct storytelling groups, examine the narrative repertoire of each, and examine their respective attitudes toward Mulan and her legends. I trace the sources of each group's repertoire by examining the older written forms of the legend and I consider the role of brokers in transmitting versions between the telling-groups. The cultural and political context of the Mulan legend is also considered. The Mulan story has value to all levels of government in China, especially since the adoption of the concept of Intangible Cultural Heritage. For local governments Mulan is a driver of economic development through the attraction of tourists to sites identified with her. For the national government Mulan emblematizes ideal behavior as a filial daughter and a self-sacrificing patriot. The two main legend telling groups are the local and the official. The "local" group includes four sub-groups: the local people who have grown up around Dacheng Tan, Mulan's birthplace; those who live close to her grave at General Temple; the Buddhists and Taoists on Mulan Mount; and those who work in tourism-related roles on Mulan Mount who act as brokers of the legends. The other "official" group is composed of government functionaries, amateur folklorists, and cultural experts. The two groups have different attitudes toward Mulan and the versions told in the oral tradition among the local population are given little attention or respect by the official group. The image of Mulan varies in each group: to those at Dacheng Tan she was an extraordinary local maiden; around General Temple she is considered a tragic hero and a local deity; to the Taoists on Mulan Mount she was a goddess with magical power sent from heaven with a mission; and to the official group she is a perfect woman and a moral icon. I present the range of variation within the Mulan legend cycle through the narrative repertoires of these distinct groups. I suggest reasons for and processes of legend variation by examining narrators, contexts, and motivations for telling the legends in their various forms, from oral to written and beyond in film and televison. I hope that this study of a legend from diachronic and synchronic perspectives, in the context of a limited local area, will promote new methods for examining and interpreting legends in Chinese folklore studies.
Download or read book Global History with Chinese Characteristics written by Manuel Perez-Garcia and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book considers a pivotal era in Chinese history from a global perspective. This book’s insight into Chinese and international history offers timely and challenging perspectives on initiatives like “Chinese characteristics”, “The New Silk Road” and “One Belt, One Road” in broad historical context. Global History with Chinese Characteristics analyses the feeble state capacity of Qing China questioning the so-called “High Qing” (shèng qīng 盛清) era’s economic prosperity as the political system was set into a “power paradox” or “supremacy dilemma”. This is a new thesis introduced by the author demonstrating that interventionist states entail weak governance. Macao and Marseille as a new case study aims to compare Mediterranean and South China markets to provide new insights into both modern eras’ rising trade networks, non-official institutions and interventionist impulses of autocratic states such as China’s Qing and Spain’s Bourbon empires.
Download or read book Victims Perpetrators and Professionals written by Tingting Hu and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-07 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the representation of women in relation to violence in Chinese crime films made on the mainland, and in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It introduces a new trajectory in the investigation of the cinematic representation of female figures in relation to gender issues by interweaving Western feminist and postfeminist critiques with traditional Chinese sociocultural discourse. An in-depth narrative identifies three major representations of women: the female victim, the female perpetrator of violence, and the female professional. Salience to contemporary society shows up in many ways, passive and active, all of which reinforce a sense of male dominance and patriarchal power. Analysis bridges the gap in the field of female representation in Chinese culture/Chinese film studies by systematically examining Chinese crime films as a genre in its own right. The depiction of female victimisation at the hands of men in the selected crime films consolidates the notion of women's vulnerability and inferiority as perceived in Chinese gender discourse. On the other hand, the representation of active female perpetrators of violence, and as professional working women, presents what may be seen as a postfeminist masquerade a cultural strategy that shows an ostensible impression of female empowerment albeit that it reinforces traditional gender hierarchies in the Chinese gender context. While graphic female victimisation is commonly presented, female perpetrators of violence and females in professional roles in crime films are shown to remain under the control of male authority, leading to the conclusion that Chinese crime films are produced in a context of heavy patriarchal power and misogyny.
Download or read book Mulan written by and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legend of Mulan--the daughter who disguises herself as a man, dons her father's armor, and heads off to war in his place--remains one of the most popular Chinese folktales despite (or because of) its lack of supernatural demonstrations or interventions. This volume offers lively translations of the earliest recorded version of the legend and several later iterations of the tale (including the screenplay of the hugely successful 1939 Chinese film Mulan Joins the Army), illustrating the many ways that reinterpretations of this basic story reflect centuries of changes in Chinese cultural, political, and sexual attitudes. An Introduction traces the evolution of the Mulan legend and its significance in the history of Chinese popular culture. Annotation explaining terms and references unfamiliar to Western readers, a glossary, and a comprehensive bibliography further enhance the value of this volume for both scholars and students.
Download or read book Introducing Intercultural Communication written by Shuang Liu and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2010-11-09 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Books on intercultural communication are rarely written with an intercultural readership in mind. In contrast, this multinational team of authors has put together an introduction to communicating across cultures that uses examples and case studies from around the world. The book further covers essential new topics, including international conflict, social networking, migration, and the effects technology and mass media play in the globalization of communication. Written to be accessible for international students too, this text situates communication theory in a truly global perspective. Each chapter brings to life the links between theory and practice and between the global and the local, introducing key theories and their practical applications. Along the way, you will be supported with first-rate learning resources, including: • theory corners with concise, boxed-out digests of key theoretical concepts • case illustrations putting the main points of each chapter into context • learning objectives, discussion questions, key terms and further reading framing each chapter and stimulating further discussion • a companion website containing resources for instructors, including multiple choice questions, presentation slides, exercises and activities, and teaching notes. This book will not merely guide you to success in your studies, but will teach you to become a more critical consumer of information and understand the influence of your own culture on how you view yourself and others.
Download or read book Transforming Monkey written by Hongmei Sun and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Able to shape-shift and ride the clouds, wielding a magic cudgel and playing tricks, Sun Wukong (aka Monkey or the Monkey King) first attained superstar status as the protagonist of the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) and lives on in literature and popular culture internationally. In this far-ranging study Hongmei Sun discusses the thousand-year evolution of this figure in imperial China and multimedia adaptations in Republican, Maoist, and post-socialist China and the United States, including the film Princess Iron Fan (1941), Maoist revolutionary operas, online creative writings influenced by Hong Kong film A Chinese Odyssey (1995), and Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese. At the intersection of Chinese studies, Asian American studies, film studies, and translation and adaptation studies, Transforming Monkey provides a renewed understanding of the Monkey King character as a rebel and trickster, and demonstrates his impact on the Chinese self-conception of national identity as he travels through time and across borders.
Download or read book Hawai i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture written by Victor H. Mair and published by Latitude 20. This book was released on 2005-01-31 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture is a collection of more than ninety primary sources—all but a few of which were translated specifically for this volume—of cultural significance from the Bronze Age to the turn of the twentieth century. They take into account virtually every aspect of traditional culture, including sources from the non-Sinitic ethnic minorities.
Download or read book Asian American Identities and Practices written by Jonathan H. X. Lee and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asian American Identities and Practices: Folkloric Expressions in Everyday Life probes the intersection, interplay, and interconnection of Asian and Asian American folklore and folklife in globally fluid and culturally creative landscapes among Asian American communities and subjects. Asian American folklore, as a way of life and practice, has emerged and continues to emerge as Asian Americans lay claim and take root in the American mosaic. As such, the contributors in this volume all show how the Asian American historical experiences and continued international migration inform the production of new folkloric practices, subjectivities, and ideologies, which in turn strengthen specific Asian American ways of life while normalizing folklore that are squarely produced in Asian America. This collectionillustrates that Asian American folklore and folklife is interwoven with social relationships, the creation of various types of ethnic, cultural, and national identities, and adaptive strategies within the particular historical periods, communities, and shifting boundaries and demographics of Asian America. The global context of Asian American folklore and folklife, especially in the racially charged post-9/11 context, bespeaks how Asians, past and present, maneuver the cultural spaces of their host society and old traditions to create new sites and new opportunities for cultural folkloric production and expression in everyday life.
Download or read book War and Popular Culture written by Chang-tai Hung and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive study of popular culture in twentieth-century China, and of its political impact during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 (known in China as "The War of Resistance against Japan"). Chang-tai Hung shows in compelling detail how Chinese resisters used a variety of popular cultural forms—especially dramas, cartoons, and newspapers—to reach out to the rural audience and galvanize support for the war cause. While the Nationalists used popular culture as a patriotic tool, the Communists refashioned it into a socialist propaganda instrument, creating lively symbols of peasant heroes and joyful images of village life under their rule. In the end, Hung argues, the Communists' use of popular culture contributed to their victory in revolution.
Download or read book On the Legacy of Maxine Hong Kingston written by Sämi Ludwig and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2014 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of recent scholarship on Maxine Hong Kingston, gathered on the occasion of the very first conference ever devoted exclusively to Kingston and to celebrate her opera omnia. Featuring the work of researchers from four continents, the book represents the cosmopolitan reception of the most important Asian American author. In addition to many new angles on her two canonical postmodern autobiographies, The Woman Warrior and China Men, this collection also tackles Kingston's less frequently discussed writings and her most recent publications. Parallel readings and comparisons further test her legacy in the sense of her enduring influence on younger Asian American writers. Though it is a conference book, this peer-reviewed volume includes additional articles by selected scholars. It also contains original presentations by Maxine and her husband Earll Kingston. (Series: Contributions to Asian American Literary Studies - Vol. 7)
Download or read book No Logo written by Naomi Klein and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-01-15 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.
Download or read book Dream Builder written by Kelly Starling Lyons and published by Lee & Low Books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A biography of Philip Freelon, whose rich family history and deep understanding of Black culture brought him to the role of lead architect for the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture"--
