In addition to a frightening paper for my Organizational Theory class, China has been at the forefront of my mind lately. 7 of us from the Higher Education and Student Affairs cohort (HESA) are traveling to Wuhan University in the Hubei province of China. We have been planning the trip for several months now, and recently began to take our first steps to realizing our trip. Last week a couple people fromthe cohort took it upon themselves to research airfare to China. They were able to find a screaming deal that had us all emptying our pockets in a matter of hours. The airfare was several hundred dollars cheaper than we had initially budgeted for, and from brief conversations I've had with other international travelers it seems that our ticket price was a respectable one. We also all sent in our visa applications on Friday (despite some scrambling by both myself and J.T. York). At this point China is no longer an option, but a certainty.
In light of this fact I purchased a small guide to custom and culture in China. J.T. York was hosting a prospective Masters student for our annual HESA interview/visit event. I accompanied them and one other candidate around for a car tour of Columbus and a walking tour of the Book Loft. The Book Loft is a large multi-room book store that was (I presume) originally a house of some sort before being made into a bookstore. The rooms are as diverse as the types of books for sale; some rooms are long and narrow, some are squat squares with hardly room for four people, and some are open galleries of shelves. It's quite easy and fun to get lost in there. If you are from the Seattle/Portland area, just imagine Powell's on a small scale.
The guide is a useful precursor to the trip as it covers a very brief history of China and its culture. Useful bits of information include: cultural norms, banquet seating; ways to circumvent the language barrier, and funny stories of past visitors. An ongoing part of my blog will focus on brief research of different topics covered in the guidebook in an effort to educate myself.
The Chinese take pride in their extensive cultural history. Much of the technology and innovation that changed the Western world already existed in China centuries earlier; Gutenberg developed movable type in the fifteenth century, while the Chinese were already using movable type in the eleventh century. China's history is rife with competing groups vying for power and lineage, including multiple dynasties that resulted in at least two "golden ages" as well as much struggle. The most obvious bit of Chinese history for Western observers is the reign of Mao Zedong.
In 1916 the central government of China dissolved with the death of the reigning dictator Yuan Shih-Kai. 1921 saw the creation of Soviet backed Communism take root in China and in 1923 the Communists united with the Guomindang (National People's Party) to reunite Chine. However, in 1925 the new leader of the Guomindang declared war on the Communists. Civil war ensued until World War II when both sides fought to repel the Japanese. Civil war resumed after WWII and in 1949 Mao Zedong led the Communists over the Guomindang forcing them to flee to Taiwan (but not without the gold reserves of the country in hand).
Compared to the last several decades, the beginning of Mao's reign was an improvement for the Chinese. By the middle of the 1950's that improvement began to wane, and in 1965 Mao began the terrible "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." The Cultural Revolution lasted until Mao's death in 1976. His inner circle was incarcerated and Deng Xiao Ping came to power, ushering in the "Open Door Policy" that reintroduced China to foreign trade and being a member of the global community. Deng favored a socialist market economy with a strong central government and his policies allowed for immense growth in China. However, the Tienanmen Square massacre in June 1989 underscored the behavior of China's government and derailed progress for a time.
Today China ranks among the world's leaders and has proven itself to be an integral part of the world stage.
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