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This compelling book explores the explosive pace of change in China and how its citizens are grappling with a dramatically new world, both in the public and private spheres. China’s stratospheric growth has made it the second largest economy in the world—and one of the most unequal. Marxist ideology and socialist ideals have almost completely collapsed, replaced by a combination of materialism and assertive nationalism. The vast migration of labor from countryside to city has continued apace. The pressures of a hypercompetitive market economy are ripping apart the traditional family and threatening the environment. Corruption has reached new heights. The political system is even more rigid, but perhaps more brittle, than a decade ago.
There is enormous popular pride in the ascension of China to the rank of global superpower and general satisfaction in the material benefits that the poor as well as the rich have been gaining from an expanding economy. But there is also great restlessness, anger about structural injustice and political corruption, and a search for new forms of spirituality and ethics to replace a collapsing moral order. The question “What does it mean, in the new day, to be Chinese?” lurks just beneath the surface. This unique interdisciplinary book frames this central issue through an innovative set of case studies on such cutting-edge topics as reality dating shows, countercultural invented language, star bloggers, faith healers, and subversive jokes.
Contributions by: Jeremy Brown, X. L. Ding, Hsiung Ping-chen, William Jankowiak, Shuyu Kong, Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, David Moser, Paul G. Pickowicz, Su Xiaokang, Xiao Qiang, Yunxiang Yan, and Yang Lijun.
This compelling book explores the explosive pace of change in China and how its citizens are grappling with a dramatically new world, both in the public and private spheres. China’s stratospheric growth has made it the second largest economy in the world—and one of the most unequal. Marxist ideology and socialist ideals have almost completely collapsed, replaced by a combination of materialism and assertive nationalism. The vast migration of labor from countryside to city has continued apace. The pressures of a hypercompetitive market economy are ripping apart the traditional family and threatening the environment. Corruption has reached new heights. The political system is even more rigid, but perhaps more brittle, than a decade ago.
There is enormous popular pride in the ascension of China to the rank of global superpower and general satisfaction in the material benefits that the poor as well as the rich have been gaining from an expanding economy. But there is also great restlessness, anger about structural injustice and political corruption, and a search for new forms of spirituality and ethics to replace a collapsing moral order. The question “What does it mean, in the new day, to be Chinese?” lurks just beneath the surface. This unique interdisciplinary book frames this central issue through an innovative set of case studies on such cutting-edge topics as reality dating shows, countercultural invented language, star bloggers, faith healers, and subversive jokes.
Contributions by: Jeremy Brown, X. L. Ding, Hsiung Ping-chen, William Jankowiak, Shuyu Kong, Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, David Moser, Paul G. Pickowicz, Su Xiaokang, Xiao Qiang, Yunxiang Yan, and Yang Lijun.
Restless China: An Introduction
Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, and Paul G. Pickowicz
Part I: Legacies
Chapter 1: When Things Go Wrong: Accidents and the Legacy of the
Mao Era in Today’s China
Jeremy Brown
Chapter 2: "The Only Reliability Is That These Guys Aren't
Reliable!": The Business Culture of Red Capitalism
X. L. Ding
Chapter 3: Political Humor in Postsocialist China: Transnational
and Still Funny
Paul G. Pickowicz
Part II: A New Electronic Community
Chapter 4: From Grass-Mud Equestrians to Rights-Conscious Citizens:
Language and Thought on the Chinese Internet
Perry Link and Xiao Qiang
Chapter 5: Han Han and the Public
Yang Lijun
Chapter 6: Are You the One?: The Competing Public Voices of China’s
Post-1980s Generation
Shuyu Kong
Part III: Values
Chapter 7: The Sacred and the Holy: Religious Power and Cultural
Creativity in China Today
Richard P. Madsen
Chapter 8: An Invisible Path: “Urban Buddhists” in Beijing and
Their Search for Meaning
David Moser
Chapter 9: Chinese Youth: Hot Romance and Cold Calculation
William Jankowiak
Part IV: Global Standards
Chapter 10: A Collapsing Natural Environment?
Su Xiaokang and Perry Link
Chapter 11: Awash in Money and Searching for Excellence: The
Restlessness of Chinese Universities
Hsiung Ping-chen
Chapter 12: Food Safety and Social Risk in Contemporary China
Yunxiang Yan
Perry Link is Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University and Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines, University of California, Riverside. Richard P. Madsen is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Paul G. Pickowicz is Distinguished Professor of History and Chinese Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and inaugural holder of the UC San Diego Endowed Chair in Modern Chinese History.
[An] excellent interdisciplinary collection with chapters on
everything from courtship to consumerism.
*The Wall Street Journal*
The book’s material, culled from personal interviews,
Chinese-language periodicals and websites, and other sources, is
remarkably rich and wide-ranging, as is the expert analysis of its
thirteen contributors.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
In a rapidly evolving China, there have been real economic gains
for different social classes, but injustice and political
corruption remain. Through a variety of case studies, this book
seeks to offer a better understanding of what it means to be
Chinese today.
*Survival: Global Politics and Strategy*
[A]s the editors of this timely volume put it, 'What does it mean
now to be Chinese?'. . . .[A]nyone wishing to get a sense of the
popular ferment that lies beneath the rapid growth and strict
political controls emphasized in daily headlines will find much of
value in this book.
*Foreign Affairs*
The editors of Restless China have provided us with a stimulating
and wide-ranging collection of essays exploring important issues
and trends in contemporary China. The book would be a useful
addition to reading lists for undergraduate courses on contemporary
Chinese popular culture and urban social issues. Readers will
certainly understand the editors’ characterization of China as
restless, but it is likely that a range of other adjectives will
also come to mind as they make their way through these rich and
provocative analyses.
*The China Journal*
Restless China sets the same high standards as Unofficial China and
Popular China, the previous very well-received compilations from
the editors. In a crowded marketplace, this volume stands out by
focusing on the most exciting current developments in Chinese
society and popular culture, and by a close examination of Chinese
language sources that reveal what the Chinese themselves are
thinking about and debating as they seek an appropriate value
system and identity to reflect the new prosperity, all under the
continuing influences of the Maoist legacy and the impact of
globalization. As with the previous volumes, Restless China will be
great for teaching and stimulating class discussion.
*Stanley Rosen, University of Southern California*
For 25 years Perry Link, Richard Madsen, and Paul Pickowicz, three
of the most insightful Western scholars studying China, have
collaborated in studying the life and thought of Chinese people.
This is the third volume in their series, pulling together recent
work by Westerners and Chinese. The contributors have read widely
in Chinese literature on the internet and engaged in long
conversations with their Chinese friends. Many of them have
conducted lengthy fieldwork in China. They highlight fascinating
examples that reveal the issues faced by ordinary citizens: how
they are treated by officials after they have been involved in
accidents, jokes they tell about the Soviet Union, preparations
many well-to-do businesspeople make in case they decide to
emigrate, discussions about the holy and the sacred, responses to
food safety. The result is a book that has the vitality of
first-hand experiences and that helps foreigners to better
understand the restlessness so many feel as their country gets
richer and their problems become more complex.
*Ezra F. Vogel, Harvard University*
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