China Daily, November 18, 2014.
Qiao Collective is a grassroots media collective of diaspora Chinese writers, artists, and researchers devoted to challenging imperialism.
In May 2017, Yang Shuping took the podium before a packed auditorium. Sporting a black commencement gown streaked by the University of Maryland’s gold sash, Yang stood by university dean Wallace Loh as he tried to pick out Yang’s parents in the sea of seats before them. “You must feel very proud of your daughter. We certainly are proud of her,” Loh remarked as Yang’s mother stood, holding a bouquet of red roses to audience applause.
Unbeknown to them, this simple commencement ritual would spark international controversy. In keeping with the genre of the graduation ceremony, Yang’s speech mobilized tropes of struggle, hardship, triumph, and almost maudlin optimism. But filtered through her experience as a Chinese international student, Yang’s remarks presented a highly politicized affirmation of U.S.
by Lian Xi
This article was first published in the December 22, 2011 issue of
This autumn, China has been marking the one hundredth anniversary of the collapse of its last imperial dynasty, the Qing, with a series of grand celebrations. The government has released an epic film showing how the revolution of 1911 prepared the way for the Communists’ takeover in 1949. It’s also just opened a museum about the uprising in the Yangtze metropolis of Wuhan where the revolution started. And the National Library in Beijing is hosting an exhibition with the not-so-subtle title “Awakening of the East.”
These celebrations have focused on the political implications of the Qing’s fall, but the 1911 revolution was a major change in a less obvious realm: the spiritual. This might seem obscure, of interest perhaps only to specialists in religious studies. In fact, China’s religious upheaval around 1911 is central to its last hundred years of tumult, helping to explain the fanatical to