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