#102 Approaching China's diversity

Preparation:

Read:

• Wasserstrom, 113-118:
  • What is the most common thing Americans get wrong about China?
  • Why is China’s diversity overlooked?
  • How does ethnicity come into the picture?
  • How important are regional divides?
  • How important are age divides in China?
• Wasserstrom, 122-25:
  • What is the biggest source of Chinese misunderstanding about the United States?
  • How do U.S. and Chinese views on Tibet differ?

Our reading picked up on a number of themes that we saw first in Pomfret, including the attempt to debunk the notion of an “unchanging China.” Today, however, we will focus specifically on the question of China’s diversity.
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Part 1: Visualizing diversity

View the images and data visualizations below covering climate, food, language, "high tech," and economics. As you view them, identify:

1. What differences do these images or visualizations depict?
2. How does one distinguish consequential from less consequential differences?
3. How significance might the differences being depicted here have on the worldview or perspective of Chinese who grew up in different regions, are of different ages, socioeconomic levels, or other important social distinctions?
4. What additional measures might be helpful for considering China's diversity that is not available here?
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Climate

Climate regions in China, Wikimedia Commons.

North Chinese village in Hebei province. Photo by Mr. Hall.

Southern Chinese village in Guangxi province. Photo by Mr. Hall.

Food

Chinese regional cuisines, MIT Technology Review.

Foshan, Guangdong, China. Photo by Mr. Hall.

Outside Yidu, Hubei, China. Photo by Mr. Hall.

Language

Dialect samples from phonemica.net:

• Beijing (Northern Mandarin)
• Chongqing (Southwestern Mandarin)
• Shanghai (Wu)
• Quanzhou, Fujian (Min/Hokkien)

"High Tech"

Villagers outside Beijing listen to radio, 1956. Everyday Life in Mao's China blog.

High tech in 2016.

Economics

Per capita GDP by province.

Per capita GDP per province.

​Part 2: Tibet question

On pages 123-25, Wasserstrom takes up one of the most divisive questions related to China's diversity, which is the politics of Tibet.

• What does Wasserstrom suggest about how Americans and Chinese view this issue differently?
• Why and how might views within China differ on this issue?