CHINA “Chineseness”: RIGHTS Continuity and Change FORUMNO. 3, 2008 | US $8.00 Is the Past a Foreign Country? Culture as Ideology Perspectives: China’s Youth Abroad Corporal Punishment and China’s Assertive Only Children HRIC Talks with Hong Kong Activist Voices after the Quake Currents Round-up: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Ё೑Ҏᴗ HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA CHINA RIGHTS FORUM The Journal of Human Rights in China No. 3, 2008, September 2008 © Human RIghts in China ISSN 1068-4166 Cover painting: “Bird's Nest, in the Style of Cubism,” Zhang Hongtu. The views expressed in this journal are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Human Rights in China. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Ian Buruma, Cheng Xiaonong, Sharon Hom, Hu Ping, Perry Link, Andrew Nathan, Yan Li SPECIAL CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Nicholas Young EDITOR Mi Ling Tsui MANAGING EDITOR Abbey Southerland CULTURAL REVIEWS EDITOR Charlie McAteer REGULAR FEATURES EDITOR Sarah McKune DESIGN/PRODUCTION Jennifer Dossin Design Shirley Hao SUBSCRIPTIONS AND E-DELIVERY Changes of address and other subscription inquiries should be sent directly to China Rights Forum (CRF). If updating your address, please provide your full name. E-Delivery subscribers will receive advance copies of the China Rights Forum via e-mail. To change your hardcopy subscription to e-delivery, or to add e-delivery on to your current subscrip- Ё೑Ҏᴗ tion, send your request to communications@ hrichina.org. Note that size quotas on your e-mail mailbox may affect your ability to receive HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA the e-delivery. DIRECTORS Christine Loh, Andrew J. Nathan, Co-chairs, Sharon Hom, Executive Director, Cheuk Kwan, Secretary, R. Scott Greathead, Treasurer, Robert L. Bernstein, Chair Emeritus, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR William Bernstein, Ian Buruma, Cheng Xiaonong, Han Dongfang, Hu Ping, Li Jinjin, Liu Qing, All letters to the editor must include your name Robin Munro, James Ottaway, Jr., Megan Wiese and location. Letters may be edited for space and clarity, and may appear in online versions HONORARY DIRECTORS Joseph L. Birman, Marie Holzman, Robert G. James, Joel Lebowitz, of the China Rights Forum. Torbjörn Lodén, Paul Martin, Nina Rosenwald, Ruan Ming, Anne Thurston OUR THANKS TO The Robert L. and Helen W. Bernstein Foundation, The Joan and Joseph SUBMISSIONS Birman Foundation, Gregory C. Carr Foundation, Cheng Xiaonong, Joan Lebold Cohen and We welcome unsolicited articles, poetry, book Jerome A. Cohen, The Stanley and Fiona Druckenmiller Fund, Jack Edelman, R. Scott Greathead, and film reviews, as well as photography. For Han Dongfang, Han Xiaorong and Liu Qing, The Hecht Foundation, Marie Holzman, Sharon Hom, details on how to make submissions, send an e-mail request to: [email protected]. Hu Ping, Robert and Ardis James Foundation, Cheuk Kwan, Joel Lebowitz, Li Jinjin, Li Jie and Li Lu, Christine Loh, The Lubman Family Philanthropic Fund, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Paul Martin, Robin Munro, Andrew J. Nathan, National Endowment for ONLINE Democracy, Oak Foundation USA, James Ottaway, Jr., Warren J. Sinsheimer, Anne F. Thurston, Current and previous issues of the China Lee and Marvin Traub, The Svetlana and Herbert M. Wachtell Foundation, Linda and Richard Lee Rights Forum are offered online at HRIC's website, http://www.hrichina.org. Walter, Megan and Russell Wiese, and others for their generous support. Human Rights in China (HRIC) is a 501(c)(3) organization registered in the United States. HOW TO CONTACT US Contributions to HRIC are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. Human Rights in China 350 5th Avenue, Suite 3311 New York, NY 10118 USA Tel: +1 212-239-4495 Fax: +1 212-239-2561 REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE http://www.hrichina.org Help the environment by reducing paper consumption, reusing existing paper, and recycling [email protected] unneeded magazines. Switch your subscription to e-delivery, share your copy of the China Rights Forum with other readers, and/or recycle this and other magazines and newspapers through services available in your local community. CHINA RIGHTS FORUM | NO. 3, 2008 “CHINESENESS”: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE 3 Message from the Executive Director 64 What You Can Do Organizations to consider if you are interested in contributing to ongoing relief efforts in Sichuan. Identity and Change regular features 6 Is the Past a Foreign Country? A discussion on the multi-faceted definition of 66 Currents being Chinese. 15 Culture as Ideology 70 Round-up: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Nick Young explores how Chinese youth are 80 Take Action: IR2008 Campaign changing, and being changed by, traditional Chi- 85 Timeline: Human Rights Defenders nese culture. 22 Mobilizing Youth, Molding Minds 88 Chinese Publication Highlights An in-depth look into how the Communist Party 90 Culture Matters educates Chinese young people. Event Feature: Comrades: The Chinese LGBT 26 Perspectives: China’s Youth Abroad Film Festival Fresh and surprising views on life overseas. (In)Human Scale 47 Education: More Extensive but Less Equal Claire Kells reviews the film Up the Yangtze. Nick Young looks at who benefits from, and who China’s Rich Scientific Past is left out of, China’s increasing government expenditures on education. Roger Garside reviews Simon Winchester’s The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the 49 Corporal Punishment and China’s Assertive Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked Mysteries of the Only Children Middle Kingdom. Ai Bai discusses the impact of the Chinese Keepers of the Big Life government’s one-child policy on the post-1980s generation. Li Miao Lovett reviews Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem. 52 HRIC Talks with Hong Kong Activist 95 HRIC in Action Christina Chan Hau Man explains what led her to become an activist. Nicholas Young, Special Contributing Editor Voices after the Quake Born in Zambia and educated in the UK, Nick Young moved to China in 1995 and founded the China Development Brief 56 The Necessity of Poetry (CDB), a specialist newsletter in English and Chinese reporting on development issues and the growth of China’s A selection of poems reflecting popular opinions civil society. The Chinese authorities shut down the English about the May 12 Sichuan earthquake. version of CDB in 2007 and barred Nick from re-entering China. Nick previously worked as a journalist in Nicaragua 63 Compensation for Silence and Malawi and wrote for the Financial Times, Economist, Translation of an agreement presented by Chinese Africa Confidential and other publications. He currently government officials to parents of schoolchildren lives in Uganda and is writing a memoir, China: Recollec- killed during the Sichuan earthquake. tions from Exile. CONTENTS | 1 CHINA RIGHTS FORUM | NO. 3, 2008 MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR e are pleased to present this issue of China between China and the West. What they said is by turns Rights Forum, “‘Chineseness’: Continuity and refreshing, surprising, and moving, and reveals a lot WChange,” with special contribution from Nick about what the young people think of themselves as Young, veteran China observer and analyst and found- Chinese as well as their view on China’s place in the ing editor of China Development Brief. Founded in world. 1995, China Development Brief is an independent, non- profit publication devoted to increasing communica- “Corporal Punishment and China’s Assertive Only tion and strengthening constructive engagement on Children” is about China’s new breed: a generation born development issues. under China’s one-child policy. Brought up by parents whose efforts centered on them and them only, they are Nick’s concept of examining China’s civil society and more assertive than children have ever been in Chinese his idea of talking to young Chinese abroad have now history: they talk back not only to their teachers, but to shaped an issue richly populated by voices from differ- their bosses as well! ent vantage points about what it means to be Chinese, and very moving reflections on the differences between “HRIC Talks with Hong Kong Activist” features Chinese and Western cultures. Christina Chan Hau Man, a 21 year-old philosophy stu- dent at Hong Kong University who catapulted to both “Is the Past a Foreign Country?” is a discussion among fame and infamy—depending on how one views a scholar, a historian, a journalist, a poet/novelist/ activism—on May 2, 2008, by leading a protest during painter, and a writer, on the meaning of “Chinese- the Olympic torch relay in Hong Kong. She is idealistic, ness”—which in different contexts can be either a geo- thoughtful, and a true believer in the individual’s right graphic identification, a cultural and linguistic to speak. identification, or a political identification. Among the other issues discussed are whether the entire 5,000 In this issue, we also offer a selection of poetry written years of Chinese history is indeed Chinese history, and after the Sichuan earthquake that reminds us of the the changing political status of neo-Confucianism in necessity of poetry for enduring grief and tragic loss. modern Chinese history. As China emerges strengthened from the spectacularly “Culture as Ideology” is an essay about the tug-of-war staged Beijing Olympics and as it continues to grow in between the Chinese youth and traditional culture. economic and political clout, human rights organiza- “Mobilizing Youth, Molding Minds” outlines the Com- tions such as HRIC are now facing the challenges posed munist Party’s efforts in shaping the thinking of China’s by a more complex and dynamic terrain. It is a new children and youth. field of action that calls for ever more effective and con- structive ways to engage both the Chinese authorities “Perspectives: China’s Youth Abroad” consists of two and people to promote change. The challenge of bridg- “focus group” discussions that HRIC conducted in New ing the vast information and understanding gaps York and Hong Kong among students, activists, and between different individuals, communities, and soci- scholars from China.