Join us for a free one-day workshop for educators at the Japanese American National Museum, hosted by the USC U.S.-China Institute and the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. This workshop will include a guided tour of the beloved exhibition Common Ground: The Heart of Community, slated to close permanently in January 2025. Following the tour, learn strategies for engaging students in the primary source artifacts, images, and documents found in JANM’s vast collection and discover classroom-ready resources to support teaching and learning about the Japanese American experience.
In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China
Please join the USC U.S.-China Institute for a vivid and insightful portrait of China today, as featured on NPR’s This American Life, from the acclaimed author of "The Last Days of Old Beijing."
When:
March 4, 2015 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Where
Click here to watch a video of the presentation.
For three years, Michael Meyer rented a home in the rice-farming community of Wasteland, hometown to his wife’s family. Their personal saga mirrors the tremendous change most of rural China is undergoing, in the form of a privately held rice company that has built new roads, introduced organic farming, and constructed high-rise apartments into which farmers can move in exchange for their land rights. Once a commune, Wasteland is becoming a company town.
Amplifying the story of family and Wasteland, Meyer -- via photographs -- will take us on a journey across Manchuria’s past, a history that explains much about contemporary China—from the fall of the last emperor to Japanese occupation and Communist victory. Through vivid local characters, Meyer illuminates the remnants of the imperial Willow Palisade, Russian and Japanese colonial cities and railways, and the POW camp into which a young American sergeant parachuted to free survivors of the Bataan Death March. In Manchuria is a rich and original chronicle of contemporary China and its people.
About the Speaker
Michael Meyer first went to China in 1995 with the Peace Corps. His first book, The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed resulted in a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. Meyer has also received a Lowell Thomas Award for excellence in travel writing. His stories have appeared in the New York Times, Time, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Slate, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and on This American Life. Meyer is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches nonfiction writing.
The book will be available for purchase at the event.
Cost:
Free, please RSVP below.
Phone Number:
213-821-4382
Featured Articles
October 20, 2024
October 20, 2024
Please join us for the Grad Mixer! Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, Enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow students across USC Annenberg. Graduate students from any field are welcome to join, so it is a great opportunity to meet fellow students with IR/foreign policy-related research topics and interests.
RSVP link: https://forms.gle/1zer188RE9dCS6Ho6
Events
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 - 3:00pm
Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow international students.
Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 4:00pm
Join us for an in-person conversation on Thursday, November 7th at 4pm with author David M. Lampton as he discusses his new book, Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War. The book examines the history of U.S.-China relations across eight U.S. presidential administrations.