1 CHINA in Another Time A Guide to Online Curriculum Resources 2 1. Documentary films and videos
China: A Century of Revolution, PBS series Disc 1, China in Revolution, 1911-1949 With clear storytelling and video, this fine documentary illuminates China’s turbulent years from the Republican revolution to the post-WWII Communist victory. Interviews feature both Nationalists and Communists, from high-ranked officials to village partisans, and the film is candid about the cruelties on both sides. However, this final installment in a PBS series is nearly two hours long, and includes two brief but graphic videos of street executions.
China’s Century of Humiliation Rich with graphics and animated maps, this 2011 film shows how China’s failure to respond effectively to the 19th-century advances of Western trade and military power led to about 100 years of foreign domination. The documentary, by a U.S. filmmaker, reaches far back in history to trace the differing evolutions of Chinese and Western cultures. Interviews with American and Chinese academics tell a wide- ranging story in a way that’s clear and insightful, if somewhat dry.
China: The Roots of Madness Melodramatic and slanted, this 1967 U.S. TV documentary shares newsreel footage from 1911-1949 as it examines how China moved from the last dynasty’s end to the “madness” of Communism. It mostly ignores the impacts of Western power and trade, instead portraying the violence of the warlord years as the almost-sole cause of popular anger and Communism’s rise. The film does highlight how estranged were China and the West in the Cold War era.
The Story of China, six-episode PBS series Episode 6: The Age of Revolution In the engaging final segment of this PBS series, British host Michael Wood focuses on specific people and visits particular places that were key to the epochal eruptions and turning points in China from 1850 into contemporary times. The hour-long treatment has to gloss over various complexities, but it succeeds brightly in making modern Chinese history vivid and personal to the Western viewer.
2. Internet curriculum resources
Fordham Internet History Sourcebooks Project This incredibly rich resource, in Fordham University’s online Internet East Asian History Sourcebook, includes the sections “China’s Disaster: 1840-1949” and “China Since World War II.” Within each are excerpts from books, magazine articles, literature, images, translations of source materials — ranging from Chinese government proclamations to selections from Mao Zedong’s writings — and a whole lot more. 3
Fairbank Chinese History Virtual Library This “virtual library” has three parts: Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Republican Era (1912-1949) and People’s Republic of China. For example, the Republican Era section contains links to, among others, a 1937 TIME magazine profile of Gen. and Mme. Chiang, a collection of recordings of Communist revolutionary songs, a classified Chinese account of the Nanjing massacre, and the writings of Sun Yat-Sen.
Asia for Educators from the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University A deep and diverse collection of resources — from maps to online museum art collections, from Freeman Award-winning children’s and YA book titles to in-depth material on religion in late Imperial China. History resources are grouped by time period; other clicks lead to timelines, lesson plans, video resources, and elegant curriculum packages on themes like “China and Europe: What Is ‘Modern’?”
Searching for China WebQuest This cleverly engaging WebQuest asks students to imagine being on a fact-finding team for the U.S. government. Team members assume the roles of business investor, museum curator, religious leader, human rights activist, environmental activist, and U.S. senator. A downloadable “dossier helps you discover some ‘truths’ and to create an Action Plan that will be automatically formatted into your own customized report.”
Six Paths to China Packages of online resources and activities for elementary to HS students. For example, “Treasures of China” — “your choice if you want students to gain ‘hard knowledge’” — includes a set of questions, a list of online resources, and a unifying “Big Question”: “What is the truth about China today? Consider what you learned about China’s past, its relations with neighboring countries, the state of its economy, and how it treats its citizens.”
Mr. Dowling’s Electronic Passport: Chinese History Aimed at middle and high schoolers, this lucid set of lessons, with brief narratives, maps and illustrations, is downloadable in MS Word, pdf, PowerPoint or audio format.
China360 Rich and distinctive lesson plans, curriculum guides, and online resource collections from the U.S.-based China Institute & the School of Chinese Studies. Sample packages include “From Silk to Oil,” “Global Urban Explosion,” “Words Without Borders,” “Chinese Calligraphy, the Art of Writing,” and “Responses to Chaos: Art, Religion and Literature in Six Dynasties China.”
NationalGeographic.org Brief illustrated articles for students in grades 6-12. Examples: “Boxer Rebellion,” “Last Emperor of China Abdicates,” “1931: Floods Devastate Eastern China,” and “World War II in the Pacific [interactive timeline].” 4 3. Online photo collections
Historical Photographs of China This vast, sortable online resource, curated by the University of Bristol in the UK, collects some 19,000 photos, mostly from the late 19th century to 1949. The archive includes family collections from British and other foreign nationals who were stationed in China, plus images by professional and amateur photographers, both Western and Chinese. Here also are photo collections owned by other institutions, such as the Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard University and the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge University.
J. Paul Getty Museum The Getty collection in Los Angeles includes more than 600 photographs taken in China since the late 19th century.
4. Online museum resources
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery The Freer and Sackler are the U.S. national museums of Asian art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Nearly 14,000 images of Chinese artwork are posted on the website, with informational materials.
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Met has thousands of artworks and over 50 exhibitions related to Chinese art; many of the exhibitions include online narratives, images, and video.
Boston Museum of Fine Art The museum has a number of China-related collections and exhibitions, and several have online slideshows.
Asian Art Museum, Seattle Museum of Art The Asian Art Museum, its Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas, and its Asian Art Museum Libraries all post resources for online learners. 5 5. Books on women in 20th century China
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang This much-honored nonfiction account tells the story of three generations of women: the author’s grandmother, who was given by her father as a concubine to an early 20th century warlord; her mother, a committed Communist who suffered for the cause; and Jung Chang herself, who joined the Red Guard at 14 during the Cultural Revolution, then left China to live in England.
The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China by Hannah Pakula As the Wellesley College-educated wife of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Mei-ling became the world-renowned, eloquent spokeswoman for China during World War II. She also glossed over the corruption and incompetence of Chiang’s regime and rule. “Anyone who wants to learn about China in the first half of the 20th century will find The Last Empress a good guide,” said the Wall Street Journal’s book review.
The Soong Sisters by Emily Hahn This is the best book in English about these highly influential siblings: Soong Ai-ling, whose husband H.H. Kung was a wealthy businessman and politician in China; Soong Ching-ling, who married Sun Yat- sen, modern China’s first president; and Soong Mei-ling, the wife of Nationalist leader Gen. Chiang Kai-shek. Author Hahn was a prolific writer and pioneering feminist who lived in Shanghai from 1935- 1941. She also wrote the lively memoir China to Me.
Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck First published in 1946, this is a less well-known novel by the American Buck, who grew up in China and won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth. In Pavilion of Women, the main character, Madame Wu, pulls away from her family and searches for new meaning in her life as she struggles, in the early 20th century, to reconcile new ideas of personal freedom with traditional expectations of Chinese women.
The Lives of Agnes Smedley By Ruth Price An ardent 20th century feminist and revolutionary, Missouri-born Smedley became a friend and ally of key figures in the 20th century — including Mao Zedong, with whom she worked closely during the 1930s to further the Communist cause.