Talking Points, March 23 - April 7, 2010

Talking Points
March 24 - April 7, 2010

Philadelphia is hosting this year’s Association for Asian Studies conference. Thousands of scholars are gathering to share new research, discuss contemporary issues and trends in various fields, share teaching tips, and renew acquaintances. The gathering is just blocks from Philadelphia’s Chinatown.

Chinese began to congregate in this area in the mid-nineteenth century. Relatively few people live there now (3,000, but the population is rising through immigration from China’s Fujian province as well as from Southeast Asia) as the area has physically shrunk through major civic and infrastructure building projects. These include the city’s giant convention center and a freeway. The Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation was created in 1966 as part of efforts to oppose or shape these projects. In the 1990s, the community managed to block construction of a federal prison and a baseball stadium in Chinatown. Some of this history is conveyed in murals around the community. (Please excuse the sharpness of the images. They were taken with a cell phone camera.)
 

"History of Chinatown," Arturo Ho, Giz, N. Phung, and H. Tran, 1995, USCI photo, 2010.

Detail from "History," USCI photo, 2010

"Color of light," Joshua Sarantitis, USCI photo, 2010

One edge of Philadelphia's Chinatown is demarcated with a wall. USCI photo, 2010.

"Harmony," Tomie Arat, 2001, USCI photo, 2010

One of the murals is entitled harmony and features a multiethnic mix of children. In the past year, however, Asian children at one high school have been targeted for violence. 

Philadelphia's Chinatown has the usual array of businesses, temples, association halls, and churches. And, we also find a bit of creative cultural interplay. The first photo below is of a store window featuring cat and a bit of Elvis Presley memorabilia. The second photo is a mural at a fire station. Then we have Marco Polo Pizza. Online reviews say Marco Polo’s offers great Philly cheesesteak, but right now a sign on the door says the place is closed for remodeling. The fourth photo below suggests Chinatown's diversity and fusion ethic. Pho Cali 加洲粉王 offers "traditional Vietnamese cuisine, California-style."

Philadelphia’s links to China go beyond the ethnic heritage of some of its residents (the

USCI photo, 2010.

Delaware River Valley is said to have more than 250,000 Asian Americans, with Chinese making up the largest group). Philadelphia’s Chinese sister city is Tianjin. In 1983 artisans from Tianjin began work building the Chinatown gate.

One of Philadelphia’s earliest and most profitable exports to China was ginseng (rensheng 人参). Collected in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, historian Jonathan Goldstein writes that the prices for North American ginseng in China reached up to 250 times its weight in silver.

Interest in China among Philadelphians preceded direct trade with the country. Edwin Wolf of the Library Company of Philadelphia noted that Ben Franklin and other prominent Philadelphians bought and read books about China. In 1799, a Philadelphia publisher reprinted the first popular account of the famous MacCartnery mission to China (1793-94). And the first book by an American about China (a discussion of the written language) was written by Peter Stephen Du Ponceau, a Philadelphian.

Left, Chinese ginseng, from a 1777 book by Mark Catesby; right, the West Gate of Beijing, from a 1797 work by Leonard George Staunton that was reprinted in Philadelphia in 1799. Both works are in the Library Company of Philadelphia collection.

Trade, however, once started, developed rapidly. Philadelphia was one of early America’s most important trading centers and many merchants entered the China trade. Samuel Archer, a Quaker, did more than $2 million dollars in business with China in the early 19th century, mostly selling cotton cloth. Stephen Girard, originally a sailor from France, settled in Philadelphia in June 1776, not long before American revolutionaries would formally declare their independence from Britain. Girard became one of America’s richest businesspeople. Jacques Downs has written how a portion of Girard’s early fortune was derived from the opium trade. Girard notified the captain of one of his trade vessels in 1805, “I am very much in favor of investing heavily in opium. While the war [between Britain and Napoleon’s France] lasts, opium will support a good price.” Over time, however, Girard found that dealing with opium complicated his other China trade and he left the business by 1821.

Interest in China was so great that Peter Browne built a pagoda and Chinese garden in 1828 (about 10 blocks north of today’s Chinatown). Goldstein notes that trader Nathan Dunn returned from China with many items, including some 53 full-size figurines. He put the collection on display as the “China Museum” in 1839. According to Goldstein and others, some 100,000 Americans visited Dunn’s exhibition. Dunn sold more than 50,000 copies of the exhibition catalog. He eventually moved his show to London. But interest in China didn’t abate. A few years later an American diplomat, John Peters, set up a museum of “the Central Flowery Nation” which drew crowds before Peters moved it north to Boston. 

"Pagoda and Labyrinth Garden," Library Company of Philadelphia, Brenner Collection, Bryn Mawr College

Trade with China is still making headlines in Philadelphia. On Tuesday, the Washington,

DC-based Economic Policy Institute issued a report arguing that between 2001 (when China entered the World Trade Organization) and 2008, some 2.4 million American jobs were lost or displaced. EPI blames trade with China for most of these losses. Pennsylvania lost 96,000 of those jobs. The US-China Business Council contends the EPI study suffers from “flawed analysis.” John Frisbie, its president, insists that much of what is imported from China used to be imported from somewhere else. The USCBC says China is Pennsylvania’s fourth largest export market and that its top exports are machinery, metals, and chemicals. Pennsylvania exported more than $1.6 billion in goods to China in 2008, up almost six times from the $276 million exported in 1999. You can see state by state export comparisons at US-China Today and click here to see our documentary segment on trade featuring Frisbie and others.

There are many important conferences and presentations over the next two weeks. At USC we have several events and hope you can join us for one or more of them. This Saturday, our Chinese Scholars and Students Association offers a chance to hear noted filmmakers and businesspeople discussing the challenges and opportunities facing China’s film industry. On April 1, UCLA political scientist and USCI board member Richard Baum discusses his memoir of four decades as a China Watcher. On April 7, East Asian Studies Center visiting scholar Chen Shengluo will share survey results of Chinese student attitudes toward the Chinese and American political systems. On April 8-10, an international group of scholars and filmmakers will examine film representations of Chinese lives and communities. Several films will also be screened. And on April 14, noted documentarian Carma Hinton will screen and discuss two of her films on the lives of women in rural China. The first is her 1980s look at Longbow in Northern China and the second is a recent film she's made about women in Anhui. On April 19-20, USC's Center for International Business Education and Research combines with the U.S. Department of Commerce for the annual Asia Pacific Business Outlook. Information about these events and others across North America is available below and in the calendar section of our website.

As always, we encourage you to forward Talking Points to others and to write to us at uschina@usc.edu with your comments. Below are some USCI resources on the Google and trade issues that figure so prominently in this week's news. We'll offer a look at both in next week's Talking Points.

Best wishes,
The USC US-China Institute
china.usc.edu

Write to us at uschina@usc.edu
Subscribe to Talking Points at china.usc.edu/subscribe.aspx
Support the USC US-China Institute with your tax deductible gift at giveto.usc.edu/

In the news:
Google
Talking Points (January 18, 2010; January 30, 2010)
USCI presentation by Guo Liang on the internet in China
US-China Today articles (“OMG! LOL! PRC!” – on text messaging; “Anonymity but No Place to Hide”)

Currency
Talking Points on Currency/Trade Disputes (August 2009, charts show China’s rise as a trading nation, yuan exchange rate, WTO disputes)

Events

USC 

03/27/2010: U.S.-China Film Symposium
University of Southern California
Olin Hall (OHE) Rm. 122
Cost: Free
Time: 1:00PM - 4:00PM
The Chinese Students & Scholars Association presents a symposium to explore the Chinese and American film industries. 

04/01/2010: 4th USC-Tsinghua University Faculty Forum on Green and Smart for a Sustainable Future
Ronald Tutor Hall, School of Engineering
3650 McClintock Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Time: 8:30AM - 5:00PM
Faculty from USC and China`s Tsinghua University will hold a two-day forum on environmental sustainability.

04/01/2010: Statistics, Census Data, and GIS for China Studies
Chow Tse Tsung Seminar Room, East Asia Library
USC Doheny Library
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Time: 1:00PM - 5:00PM
USC`s East Asia Library presents a talk by Shuming Bao, the Senior Research Coordinator for China Initiatives at University of Michigan`s China Data Center. 

04/01/2010: China Watcher-Confessions of a Peking Tom
University of Southern California
Davidson Conference Center, Club A&B, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Time: 4:00PM - 6:00PM
Dr. Richard Baum, a political science professor at UCLA, will speak on his new book.

04/07/2010: How Do Chinese University Students Perceive the Political Systems of China and the United States? A Survey of Five Key Universities in Beijing
University of Southern California
USCI Conference Room, FIG 202
The Chinese title for Chen Shengluo's presentation is “中国大学生对中美两国政治制度的看法调查研究."

California

03/30/2010: Writing China’s Modern History in Contemporary Greater China
UC Berkeley
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Cost: Free
Time: 4:00PM - 6:00PM
UC Berkeley`s Center for Chinese Studies presents a panel discussion historical archives in China and the heightened level of scholarly exchanges between Chinese and Western scholars. 

03/31/2010: Mapping Old and New Geographies of Religion in China and Tibet
Pomona College
Hahn 108 , Claremont , CA 91711
Cost: Free
Time: 4:15PM
The Pacific Basin Institute presents a talk by Karl Ryavec on recent findings from field research and GIS databases on the geography of religion in Tibet and China.
 

04/01/2010: The Political Impact of New Media in China
UCLA 10383 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA
Cost: Free
Time: 4:00PM - 5:30PM
The UCLA Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Anne-Marie Brady on the impact of the continuing evolution of new media on governance in China as well as elite political dynamics. 

04/02/2010: Indigenous Knowledge?: The Politics of Traditional Chinese Medicine
UC Berkeley
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Cost: Free
Time: 4:00PM - 6:00PM
UC Berkeley`s Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Judith Farguhar on contemporary Chinese medicine as a weave of local historical constraints, global economic and epistemological pressures, and clinical and pedagogical pragmatics. 
 
04/05/2010: China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom
UCLA 10383 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA
Cost: Free
Time:  4:00PM - 5:30PM
UCLA Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Richard Baum on forty years of learning about and interacting with the People`s Republic of China. 

04/05/2010: When Village Meets Financial Tsunami: Reconfiguring Urban Space and Cultural Belonging in South China
UC Berkeley
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Cost: Free
Time: 4:00PM - 6:00PM
UC Berkeley`s Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Helen Su on village life in a district of Guangzhou that is being developed into a new Central Business District. 

04/07/2010: Remembering the Past Bitterness to Salve Present Injuries: Rural Women and New Uses for China`s Collective Past
UC Berkeley
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Cost: Free
Time: 5:00PM - 7:00PM
UC Berkeley`s Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Gail Hershatter on how rural socialist construction depended on women’s work in the cotton fields and their domestic labor. 

04/07/2010: Punctuations: Taiwan in 1989, 1999, and 2009
UC Berkeley
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Cost: Free
Time: 5:00PM - 7:00PM
UC Berkeley`s Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Ping-hui Liao on three small but timely events on Taiwan. 

04/07/2010: Surviving the Dragon: A Tibetan Lama`s Life Under Chinese Rule
UC Berkeley
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Cost: Free
Time: 5:00PM - 6:30PM
UC Berkeley`s Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Arjia Rinpoche on his book, which provides a rare window into a tumultuous period of Chinese history and offers readers an uncommon glimpse inside a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

North America

03/25/2010: 2010 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown
1201 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Cost: $45-145
The USCI listing includes China-focused presentations and panels at the 2010 AAS annual meeting. 

03/25/2010: Reverse Orientalism: The Myth of Holism in Early China
Princeton University
202 Jones Hall
Cost: Free
Time: 4:30PM - 6:00PM
Princeton University`s East Asian Studies Program presents a talk by Edward Slingerland. 

03/25/2010: Taiwan Documentary Series: Spirit Talk & Super Pigs
1957 E St NW, Washington, D.C.
Time: 6:30PM - 8:30PM
Two films will be screened. 

03/31/2010: Symposium: “Chinese Workers: Under Threat or a Threat to American Workers?”
Oak Room, Indiana Memorial Union--IU-Bloomington campus
900 E. 7th St., Bloomington, Indiana
Time: 4:00-5:30 pm
Indiana University presents a symposium on labor issues in China.

Exhibitions  

09/22/2009 - 06/30/2010: China`s Great Wall: The Forgotten Story
NYC offices of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, New York, NY
The Forgotten Story is a series of historically-based photographs of the Great Wall of China. It is a collaboration between Jonathan Ball, a California based photographer, and David Spindler, one of the world`s foremost experts on Great Wall history.

03/28/2010 - 07/25/2010: Secrets of the Silk Road
Bowers Museum
Address: 2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706
Cost: Adults/$18 Weekdays; $20 Weekends/ Students & Seniors/$16 Weekdays, $18 Weekends; Children (under six) Free
The Bowers Museum presents an historic exhibition of over 150 objects drawn from the rich collections of the Urumqi Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of Xinjiang reveals surprising details about the people who lived along the ancient Silk Road.

01/01/2010 - 12/31/2010: Ancient Arts of China: A 5000 Year Legacy
Bowers Museum
2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706
Bowers Museum presents a collection that portrays the evolution of Chinese technology, art and culture.

 

____________________________________________________________________

Please invite others to subscribe to USCI’s free email newsletter for regular updates on events and programs. We will not share names or email addresses with any other entity. Sign Up.

We provide information about China-related events as a community service. If you would like your event considered for inclusion in the USCI calendar, please click here to submit event details.

If you would like to support USCI by making a donation please visit http://www.usc.edu/giving/.

USC U.S. – China Institute
3535 S. Figueroa St.
FIG 202
Los Angeles, CA 90089-1262
Tel: 213-821-4382
Fax: 213-821-2382
Email: uschina@usc.edu
Website: http://china.usc.edu 

You have received this e-mail because you have subscribed to receive updates from USCI. If you feel this message has reached you in error or you no longer wish to receive our updates, please click, unsubscribe, and enter "Remove" in the subject line.