For this week’s presentation I chose to focus on the cultural revolution that happened in China in the late 1960-70’s, when the author Lisa Ko was born and moved to the United States. China had a split system known as ”hukou”, where citizens where given certain residency based on if they lived in urban or rural areas, similar to plebian and patricians from ancient Roman times. People given rural hukou are in the lower class of society and cannot live in the city, which is why Polly was excited to get a permit to work in a factory because she was able to live in Fuzhou.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution began in 1966 when Mao Zedong called for mobilization of the youth in order to overtake the current party leaders due to their values and lack of spirit. The students ended up forming militias known as Red Guards and attempted to rid themselves of old customs, culture, habits and idea. The revolution ended in 1977, after about 1.5 million people had died and the economy had been sent into turmoil. Chinese Immigration to the United States was mostly from Hong Kong and Taiwan during the 1960’s-70’s. The People’s Republic of China had restrictions on emigration until 1977 when the revolution ended, and. Many college students and professionals came to the United States. In 1970 only 0.13% of the US population were of Chinese descent, and that number grew to 0.66% 15 years later after the restrictions were lifted.
Citations:
“Chinese Immigration to the United States.” Timeline, bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chinese-immigration-to-the-united-states-1884-1944/timeline.html.
William Wei. “The Chinese-American Experience.” The Chinese-American Experience: An Introduction, immigrants.harpweek.com/ChineseAmericans/1Introduction/BillWeiIntro.htm.
Zhou, Xueguang, and Liren Hou. “Children of the Cultural Revolution: The State and the Life Course in the People’s Republic of China.” American Sociological Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 1999, pp. 12–36. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2657275. Accessed 20 Oct. 2020.
Hi Noah,
I found this post to be extremely educating as its helped give me more of an understanding on our reading. I liked how you compared hukou to the Roman times because this helped me get a better understanding on what hukou actually is. Also, I think it is crazy that Mao Zedong encouraged the youth to overtake the government to rid the government of the “old people” that had values differing from Zedong. This gave me a better idea as to why so many Chinese people immigrated to the United States at that time.
Hi Noah,
Thank you for the research presentation. As you said, “hukou” is the main policy governing the population in China. Actually, hukou is not only existed between urban and rural. It also exists between cities. For example, if you born in city A, you cannot buy a house in city B only if you get the hukou from city B. It does exist many injustices such as wages, medical conditions, and educational resources. However, it is also an important part of population management.
Hi Noah,
This presentation was an important piece for improving my knowledge on the background for the readings and the troubles those in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were having and why things happened the way they did. This is also interesting how it impacted immigration to the USA as a result of the actions of the government of the Chinese government.
Hi Noah,
Thank you for researching more about this topic, as it helps to deepen our understanding of Polly/Peilan, and why she did what she did. It is crazy to think that they were so controlled and could not even move to another city without permission, let alone work in another city as we in America are the exact opposite. I also found it interesting how many more immigrants came to America once the revolution ended and the restrictions were removed.
Hi Noah,
I really enjoyed this presentation since I felt like it really helped the class to better understand the novel as well was the background for the setting of the story a bit more. This post was very enlightening and was very helpful in bettering my understanding of this topic. Overall this was a very helpful presentation.
Hi Noah,
Your presentation was very interesting and helpful. Through knowing more about Chinese history, It was easier to emphasize and interpret the emotions of the novel, and the reasons behind their behavior and choices. Especially now knowing the government’s oppression through the Hukou system and the difficult situation China was in due to the revolution.
Hi Noah, I thought your post was very informative and helpful on why things are the way they are in the novel. The one of the presentations that I read last week was also about the “hukou” and more, but it was interesting to read yours after that because it elaborated more of it for me.
Hey Noah,
I have heard the term hukou before but never really did too much research on to all that it entailed. It is interesting to hear that a geographical location ended up being the deciding factor regarding one’s social class. I like that you connected this to The Leavers in how this affected Polly getting a work permit.
Hey Noah
This is all new to me and it took a long time for it to make sense to me, Hukou is something I’m familiar with, but you explained it really well. Social class is something that people are proud of.