Zhang Jizhong's "Journey to the West"

Screening of new 2011 episodes of acclaimed Chinese television serial.

Screening is in conjunction with the two-day conference "Media and Culture in Contemporary China."

The boundaries between Hollywood and Asia are fast disappearing, with Asian corporations playing a key role in U.S. film production, and with American theme parks and retail stores in Japan, Hong Kong and China attracting visitors from all over Asia. The location of Los Angeles and its media industries on the Pacific Rim makes it a vital space to deepen and enrich these trans-Pacific ties.  This conference will explore the globalization of the China entertainment industry and the impact of film and TV on public perception of history and culture in China.

The conference will feature a keynote address by Chinese producer and director Zhang Jizhong.  Renowned for his TV serializations of the classic Ming dynasty novels, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, and Journey to the West, he is currently creating a Chinese theme park based on the Monkey King legend.

Conference sessions will focus on the state of the film and TV industry in contemporary China; recreating Chinese history and classic literature in film and TV; and the globalization of theme parks.  Additional sessions will be devoted to graduate student and K-12 teacher training workshops.

The pre-conference graduate student workshop will be held on the UCLA campus on the afternoon of Thursday, October 20.  The keynote, the screening of Mr. Zhang’s work, and panels on the state of the industry in China will be held at UCLA on Friday, October 21.  The theme park panels, an audience conversation with Zhang Jizhong, and the teacher training session will be held on the USC campus on Saturday, October 22.

Conference planners are UCLA Asia Institute Director R. Bin Wong; UCLA history professor Andrea S. Goldman; UCLA Asian Languages and Cultures department chair David Schaberg; USC East Asian Studies Center director Stanley Rosen; and USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center director Martin Kaplan.  Additional support comes from the UCLA Confucius Institute and the UCLA-USC Joint East Asian Studies Center, with funds from the US Department of Education Title VI program.  Other partners include the History Department, the Humanities Division, and the International Institute at UCLA and the USC US-China Institute.