China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, began to propagate the “China Dream” in 2013. At this time, Dr. Crook was living in China, cooperating with the China Charity Federation of the Ministry of Civil Affairs to implement charity projects. He began to observe many wall posters appearing in public spaces from July 2013 onward. He photographed 272 of these posters which he placed in his collection of 45,000 reports on rural China (1958-2015) and 40,000 plus photographs (1982-2014) now housed in the Brigham Young University Library. Upon his return to the USA, he began a review of his reports and photographs and found some interesting patterns and connections between the posters and Chinese press reporting on the “China Dream.” For this presentation, he selected 20 posters to highlight the variety of “China Dream” messages that he saw and the different art styles used by the government to transmit these messages.
Dr. Frederick William Crook has a Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He worked for the US Department of Agriculture for 30 years. He served as Agricultural Attache, Hong Kong, 1974 and 1975, and was Editor for the annual China Situation and Outlook Report. He is the author of 9 books and 170 articles on China's rural economy. He has lived in greater China for nine years and speaks Mandarin Chinese.