Beijing Day Two – 5/25

Emma Cockerell

Hello blog! My name is Emma Cockerell, and on team Pop & Sicle (you’re correct in your assumption that we’re analyzing popsicle advertising!).

On our second full day in Beijing, we went to Juyongguan section of the Great Wall. The bus journey was a long one, so a group of us passed the time by playing Sushi Go. Others, weary from the early start, took the opportunity to nap.

At the base of the wall, we took some obligatory group photos, and began the ascent to the top of the wall (where top is the highest point that we had access to). Some, like Marissa and Noah, charged ahead and reached the top in an impressive 40 minutes. Others, me included, took a more leisurely pace. The trek was much more difficult than I had anticipated, and I’m sure many of us felt a similar swelling of pride when reaching the top. While the view was breathtaking, the surrounding mountains were cloaked in a thick smog, which surprised me given how far we were from central Beijing.

The class proudly unfurled the banner and held it up for a photo atop the Great Wall. Almost the entire class made it to the top!

Team Pop & Sicle poses for a photo atop the Great Wall.

After a thigh-burning return to the base and a short bus ride, we reached a cloisonné factory that doubled as a lunch spot for tourists. It was really fascinating to learn about how cloisonné vases are crafted, and I have so much admiration for the artists who spend hours painting layer over layer onto each vase. Lunch itself was the classic un-Chinese tourist fare, but filling nonetheless, and after waiting for the bus in scorching heat we arrived at the Ming tombs.

A cloisonne maker painstakingly paints a fresh layer onto this beautiful azure vase.

We walked through tranquil courtyards and various buildings to reach the mountain in which the Emperor Hu Di was buried, which featured a self-locking marble door leading to his tomb (which was not open to us to see, unfortunately). Later, we drove past groves of cherry trees to reach another part of the Ming tombs, in which a long walkway was flanked by marble statues of court officials, military people, and animals (including a cute elephant!).

A line of Ming statues stretches into the distance. This one specifically depicts a court official.

By the time we got back to the bus, we were all knackered and ready for naps, but still opted to visit the Olympic Village. Sarah and Jerry were extremely popular with the many Chinese tourists strolling around the plaza, and both took the attention like champs. With our brief 35 minutes, we were able to see the Bird’s Nest stadium and the water cube, which were impressive architectural marvels.

Connor poses with one of the five 2008 Beijing Olympics mascots, Ying Ying.

After Olympic Village, we went to Quan Ju De, a classic Beijing destination known for its Peking Duck (which we learned was traditionally made by blowing air between the skin and duck meat). After I made a toast to our tenacity, we dug into the meal. My table played “rose, bud, thorn”, where we recounted what we enjoyed about the day, what we were looking forward to, and what wasn’t so great. We enjoyed crispy duck meat wrapped in thin sleeves with cucumber and hoisin sauce. The meal was a great end to a great day!

Welcome to Beijing, here’s the old and the new! – May 24

Noah Blackman

Hey There, Mr. Mao

Hey y’all, its Noah again with the Global East Asia blog post reporting from Beijing, China! Our first full day here is one for the memory books. We begin our day by drudging through the dense Beijing traffic on our way to the historical center of the Chinese capital, The Forbidden City, which is surrounded by Tiananmen Square and other important sites.

Beijing Traffic…

Tiananmen Square, similar to the city it centers, is a bustling scene. Quickly my peers and I discovered that the Chinese tourism market is not inhabited purely by foreigners such as ourselves, but many Chinese nationals from outside cities and “China Proper” come and join tour groups as well. The timing for visiting the site was quite interesting, for it was nearly 30 years ago that the 1989 June student protests happened on the ground in which we stood, reminding us of the enormous freedoms we experience in the US. The Square itself houses the mausoleum where late Chairman Mao rests, mummified on public display to allow spectators and mourners to come appreciate, or contemplate, Mao’s contributions to China. We did not get to visit due to the site being closed for the day, none-the-less we explored the rest of the square which included the National People’s Congress, the National Museum of China, and the Monument to the People’s Heroes, a 30+ foot tall memorial to the revolutionaries who shaped China after the fall of the Qing Dynasty.

Panoramic shot of the bustling square

The square led to the entrance to the Forbidden City, where the Qing and Ming emperors governed their kingdom. Seeing the palace was an event that astonished me due to the fact that one person used to have the whole complex as their home, not a bad time at all. Everything was elegant, strong, and meticulously designed to fit the standards of the most important figures in China. My favorite part of the city was the garden by the north gate.

Forbidden City Gardens

Forbidden City

After we left the Forbidden City we went back to modernity in Wangfujing, a consumer center with a large variety of shopping and dining locations, complete with robots who would assist you in finding whatever product you’re looking for. When we got there all the research groups split up and we officially began our fieldwork!

Customer Assistance Robot

After fieldwork, different groups met up and went out for our first solo dinners in China. Personally, I went and had BBQ, one of my favorite types of food. There was no better way to end the first day in China than with some great food and even better company.

BBQ on a stick!

Arrival Day! – May 22-23

Megan Bennett

Hi everyone, my name is Megan and I’m taking over the blog for Wednesday and Thursday! Wednesday marked the end of our time in LA as we spent about 13 hours flying to Beijing. Thankfully, everyone made it to the airport on time, though we had some close calls. The flight itself was pretty uneventful, we got two meals and a few snacks, and there were a bunch of movies to choose from.

Departing from LAX!

Once we landed in Beijing, we were able to get through customs pretty quickly and meet up with our tour guide, Alex. It was hot outside, about 95 degrees, but thankfully our bus had air conditioning. As we drove through Beijing, Alex talked a bit about China and its history. I was surprised by how open he was talking about controversial things like Tiananmen Square, which I thought most people generally didn’t talk about.

View landing from the plane

We had some extra time before dinner and went into a nearby supermarket to explore. We had some fun looking at both Chinese products and American brands that were changed for Chinese consumers. For example, we found Lays chips that were cucumber flavored and others that were butter and garlic flavored. My group project is on feminine hygiene products, so we also looked around for a bit in that section.

Our dinner was served lazy susan style, and Professor Sheehan made sure we knew the proper etiquette for eating this way before we started. We also do a toast every meal, leading up to the final banquet where we will all give toasts. At our table, Matt started a tradition of doing a round of rose, thorn, bud at dinner, where everyone goes around and gives highlights and lowlights from their day.

First dinner in China

Finally, we went to the hotel and got settled in. Some of us then went out to explore a bit but only Clarence, Connor, and Eric had the energy to stay out longer than 30 minutes. Overall, it was a pretty exciting day, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the trip will bring!

Last Day in Los Angeles! May 21

Jerry Slocum & Michelle Truong

Today was the last day of class in LA, and we leave to China tomorrow…it really went by fast! Almost every day we’ve gotten delicious snacks brought by latecomers. Today, Jerry brought vanilla wafer cookies, and Jeremy brought donut holes from Dunkin’ Donuts (Yum!). Professor started off the class with a #papasheehan lecture about not getting too involved with the expat bubble at bars and clubs. Basically, be aware of your surroundings and what comes out of your mouth (that’s what I got from that)! We also talked about our roommate situation, in which the boys are getting randomly assigned for all four hotels, and the girls (except for Mikaella and Michelle) are too, with Marissa, Wendy, Michele, and Emma switching off in the single room (thank you for taking one for the team, gals!).

Professor Sheehan and the GEA scholars in their last class before their travels!

After, we began our discussion of the readings for the day. We had two readings: one about hostessing as a type of consumption to make a public claim and the other about disco as a place of expression to “be consumed” as well as consume. It was a quick discussion about something different from what we’ve discussed before, but quite fitting to warn us about sketchy karaoke in China. Hostessing will most likely be present at karaoke centers offering services including singing and dancing. After discussion, we tried checking in, but some of us were notified that we would need to check in tomorrow with an agent so that they can double check that we have our visas and passports. This won’t be a problem since we will all be at the airport bright and early three hours before our flight.

Professor Sheehan in discussion with research group – Team Tampon

I’m sure I speak for all of us in saying that excitement is high as we approach our flight time. To conclude, the readings we have done have given us some basic tools to commence our research and some historical background to provide context to our experiences in China. We have all selected some very interesting research topics that will surely lead us into interesting discoveries in the next few days. Reminder to keep in mind “LONG AND CLUNKY, over short and vague” for our thesis! And remember, 119 (the opposite of America’s 911) in case of emergencies!!!

GEA China 2019 Day 6 (May 20)

Matt Slade & Jasmine Sears

Hey all, Matt and Jasmine here. Matt is a rising sophomore studying International Relations and Jasmine is a sophomore studying Environmental Studies. Today was one of the last days before we leave for China. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be there so soon – the time has really flown by. 

We began with a short discussion regarding transportation to the airport and currency exchange. We’re in the final stretch in LA so we really need to get things squared away soon. We then gave short presentations about the advertisement we chose for our two-page paper. Since Professor Sheehan did not want us to worry about discussing our ideas in front of the class, he did not tell us this was going to happen. So after a little hesitation, we got into it. It was really interesting seeing all the different products and ads from the various members of the different groups. I could see that everyone was using the analytical tools we have been learning in class and applying them to the assignment. Below are pictures of our two slides and the ads we have chosen.

Matt discusses the thesis for his chosen advertisement.

Jasmine discusses the thesis for her pad ad.

After this activity, we moved onto our lecture about globalization and China from 1975 to the present. These decades are commonly referred to as the “golden age” of globalization, and for good reason! The rise of the internet and the end of the cold war really facilitated an expansion of international connections and movements. Professor Sheehan made sure to note the drawbacks to globalization and its features as well, such as economic recession and environmental degradation. We discussed the rise of China from the Maoist period and the transition to a more open country that engaged in the international community, as seen through participation in the Olympic games of 1984 (just blocks away at the Coliseum!) and inclusion in the United Nations Security Council. Even with these changes and reforms, it’s important to note important events like the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and ensuing massacre in 1989. With that, we finished lecture and moved on to a discussion of the readings.

Tiananmen Square, 1989

We discussed the final two chapters of LiAnne Yu’s book, Consumption in China: How New Consumer Ideology is Shaping the Nation (China Today). The sixth and penultimate chapter, “Awareness” focused on changing Chinese morality, patriotism, degrading environmental conditions, consumer rights, censorship, and theoretical considerations. In discussing this chapter in class, there emerged an extended debate regarding whether or not a public sphere has developed in China. “Team Emma” argued that an effective public sphere had not yet emerged, while “Team Noah” argued that there was a public sphere. Some students, like Megan, were somewhere in between each side, believing that a public sphere did exist, though not in a traditional form that we see in America. Furthermore, some students discussed their interpretations of and concern with other components of the chapter, such as the worrisome amount of unregulated food production, anthropogenic impacts on the environment, and apparent declining moral state of the country. Some were impressed by netizens’ utilization of the Internet to manifest public discussion despite censorship in some aspects by the state. Furthermore, we looked at Yu’s concluding chapter on “Consumption with Chinese Characteristics.” In doing so, some disagreement ensued over whether the conclusion was sufficiently effective in wrapping up the book.

LiAnne Yu, Author of Consumption in China

Finally, the class ended with an exam, where Professor Sheehan asked us to analyze an advertisement for a Taiwanese company’s product, Giant Bicycles.

Giant, King of Chuan Zang

Fun Friday – May 17

Clarence Lai & Michele Torne

GEA China scholars focused on their research

After five days of in-class lectures and delicious snacks, we are anxiously awaiting our impending fieldwork in China. Today’s class focused on Lianne Yu’s theories and perspectives of “Lifestyles” and “Commodities” of the jiulinghou generation born in the 1990s. China, its people and culture are complex. After three generations under Mao Zedong’s regime, a new generation has emerged. Their grandparents and parents had lived through an era called the “iron rice bowl”, where self-sacrifice and saving money was most important. The jiulinghou generation is about consumption facilitating self-fulfillment, experimentation, and exploration. This is often seen as wasteful by the older generations. Our discussion honed in on a few aspects of Chinese life that were once shaped by political ideology and that have now come under the influence of the market such as housing, gender identities, child rearing and leisure time. With a better understanding of the social and political conditions in China from 1850 to 1975, we had the opportunity to conduct group work with our teams.

Group work time

During the second half of class, we met with our group members to discuss and finalize our research design. This includes the specific procedures we will follow, the different techniques of advertising we will focus on, and the overarching themes we will study. Along with this, the five groups listed questions that they were interested in answering when they did their research in China. These two elements will serve as a guideline for when we all get to China to conduct our fieldwork. All in all, we’ve completed a week of class and are two more days away from our big voyage to China. So exciting!

Getting some words of wisdom before the weekend

Rainy Day in LA — Day 4

Wendy Liu

Wendy and her research group – 05/16/2019

Today we began class with slightly lower energy than usual due to the rainy weather. Thus, Professor Sheehan decided to give us a pop quiz to get the class going. Hopefully we all did alright. Afterwards, we learned about China’s Global Connections from 1850-1925. We covered topics such as colonization and the Opium War. Did you know that Tsingtao beer was a result of German colonization of Qingdao? A lot of rebellions also occurred during the Qing dynasty. The one that almost overthrew the Qing Dynasty was lead by the Taiping leader, Hong Xiuquan. He was quite an interesting character to learn about. He originally dedicated his life to studying for the imperial examination, but unfortunately failed five times. After becoming delirious after one of his failed exams, he had an out-of-body experience dream that brought him to Heaven. Later on, he came to the interpretation that he was a son of God and the younger brother of Jesus Christ.

After ending the lecture on Global Connections, we segued into our daily discussion of the reading. We discussed the chapters on Spaces and Status from LiAnne Yu’s book Consumption in China. Finally, we wrapped up the day in our research groups and began solidifying our research design and finding ads to analyze for our research papers.

Mikaella Ahn

Mikaella Ahn and Michelle Truong + Professor Sheehan – 05/16/2019

When I came into class, my face was drenched in rain, but luckily my raincoat covered the rest of my clothes. Unfortunately, Professor Sheehan decided the first thing for us to do was take a pop exam for us to get our creative minds flowing for the day. We then went to learn about globalization and how it is affected during the 1850-1925 time period. Afterwards, we had our class discussion on the readings of LiAnne Yu’s 2014 book, Consumption in China. During the discussion on the definition of middle class, I brought up what it means to be middle class for cosmopolitan Chinese singletons. I discussed how middle class might mean the value of continuously working hard to be able to afford mansions and multiple high-end cars and luxury bags. Being middle class to others is able to afford a leisure lifestyle where money is not a means of survival but being able to enjoy experiences with others.

For the last segment of class, Professor Sheehan split us into our research groups. My research partner is Michelle Truong and our project is on cosmetic eye creams. We asked Jeremy and Professor Sheehan to translate some of the advertisements that we found online from Innisfree and Estee Lauder on eye cream. Fortunately, the rain never came back for the rest of the day, and in the evening, I was able to enjoy board games with the professor and the rest of the students.

Day 3 in Los Angeles!

Connor Chapkis & Eric Ye

One of the biggest concerns before any trip is preparation.

For some of us that meant getting the right vaccines because going to a drastically different place will expose us to new kinds of pathogens. Thankfully, we have the Engemann Student Health Center and its Travel Clinic. Aside from vaccines, we also needed to prepare other things. What did we need to prepare? Thankfully, Professor Sheehan gave us a handy dandy note sheet.

Today’s lecture was quite exciting. We went over a lot, squeezing several hundred years of world history into a couple hours. During that period, we learned about how early trade networks displayed some of the characteristics of globalization. We then covered some important geography to form a conceptual map of what’s evolving in the world.

We started around the middle of the Ming Dynasty. After a significant discussion of the life and political career of a palace servant, Zheng He, including how a eunuch acquires his title and why emperors preferred eunuchs to normal slaves, we discussed the other “great” explorer of this century: Christopher Columbus.

After a brief history about Columbus and why he was able to make it to the new world, Professor Sheehan taught about Columbus’s legacy… the Columbian Exchange. Most of us already knew that the exchange spread “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” to completely misquote Jared Diamond. However, what was extremely important about the Columbian exchange was its scale. There were small scale trade networks that were mostly regional (but when a product goes through multiple regional trade networks, it might go pretty far), but the Columbian exchange started globalization at an unprecedented scale.

At this point, Professor Sheehan led a discussion on whether we thought that the Columbian exchange resulted in globalism, and if it did facilitate globalism, what we thought the elements of globalism were.

After concluding his lecture, he diagnosed how much we understood the symptoms of globalism by presenting us an ad from the WeChat website’s splash screen. Then, our good professor had us form research groups. We began by narrowing down our broad ideas of what we might want to research in China. Each group began to write down research questions that will help us gather relevant evidence and form our eventual theses.

So far, the groups are focusing on feminine hygiene products, frozen treats, beer, eye cream, and storefront layouts. We’re all excited to get a better idea of what lies ahead once we land in Beijing! Here are some pictures of our research groups at work.

Professor Sheehan with GEA China Research Group: Make-up Moguls

GEA China Research Group: Team Tampon posing for the camera

GEA China Research Group: Pop & Sicle focused on their research

GEA China Research Group: China Beer Crew discussing their research

Day 2 – GEA China 2019

Sarah Ajise & Marissa Yee

Hello blog! Today was our second day of class in Los Angeles. We began with a recap of the main ideas in the readings we discussed in class yesterday: What is globalization? What is the difference between subjective vs. objective globalization? And is a broad term like globalization worth defining?

We continued the morning by reviewing the basic geography of China, also known as “Professor Sheehan’s Quick and Dirty Guide to Geography.” The two major rivers, the Yangzi and the Yellow River, run east to west. China itself can be regionally divided in three ways. China proper contains the fertile land of the Southeast and excludes the plateaus and deserts. The North-South division lies between the Yangzi and Yellow Rivers with wheat and rice as respective characteristic crops. Land in the east is wetter and more densely populated while the land in the west is used for herding sheep and horses.

Next, Professor Sheehan gave a lecture on Global Connections before 1500. Examples included the spread of homo sapiens out of Africa over 40,000 years ago, the Silk Road between 200 BCE and 900 CE, trade diasporas, and Zheng He’s expeditions. It soon became clear to the class that globalization is not an entirely new phenomenon – aspects of global interaction have occurred since the very first humans.

GEA China 2019 Class

Today was particularly exciting because we formed groups for our field research projects to be conducted in China. We each discussed our personal interests for the project, then picked groups based on broad connections between those interests. Currently, potential subjects include coffee shops and tea shops, Chinese beer, face masks, store design, and sustainable packaging. With such a variety of subjects at this preliminary phase, our projects surely seem promising!

Global East Asia scholars discussing research topics.

At the end of class, we discussed two readings, Cochran – “Consumer Culture in Chinese History,” and Wang & Yeh – “Globalization and Hybridization in Cultural Products.” We discussed whether consumer culture was top down or bottom up, that is, whether consumer culture is primarily driven by imposing corporations or the selective support of consumer choice. We also discussed terms like deculturalization, acculturation, and reculturalization through the lens of two Chinese hybrid movies, Mulan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This led to more discussion on cultural appropriation, cultural signifiers, and the search for the authentic.

The East Asian Studies Center staff also came by at the end of class to take a picture of the group. Here we are in silly mode!

GEA China 2019 Class and Grace Ryu in silly mode

By the end of today, everyone had become aware that within a week we’d be in China! As we were looking over the final logistics of our travel—flight seats, currency exchanges, VPN installations, WeChat, and packing lists—everyone expressed their excitement. We’ve got a great group of 15 students, and we are all psyched to travel and explore.

你好-GEA China Day One, May 13, 2019

Noah Blackman

Hello & welcome to the introductory 2019 Global East Asia China blog post! My name is Noah Blackman, a rising junior studying International Relations and Economics.

This will be the first in a series of updates to both our travels in China and the progress of our research projects as they develop. These updates will be written by different groups of students as the program ensues. The first day of our Maymester began with a unique icebreaker. Professor Sheehan instructed us to write two “twitterographies” about a classmate that we hadn’t met before and then present them to the rest of the class. The result was a funny and memorable way of being introduced to each person. One thing I remember was being astounded by the variety of interests of my peers regarding China.

After that, we talked more on the necessities for traveling to China and the professor gave us a checklist to help us prepare. Besides preparing us for traveling, we began assembling our analytical toolkit, which we will use when inspecting marketing techniques in China. Understanding the concepts in the readings will help contribute to our toolkit as we navigate the effects of globalization on the consumer culture of China. That’s it for me tonight, soon you’ll hear from my group members Megan Bennett & Emma Cockerell, pictured with me below.

Global East Asia China scholars (left to right): Noah Blackman, Megan Bennett, and Emma Cockerell

Fight on!