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China
Diversity and Social Change on the Southwest Frontier
June 8-19, 2009
Itinerary
This 12-day seminar begins with a day of orientation in Beijing, before departing for Sichuan and Guizhou Provinces. The seminar ends in Beijing. Click here to see the Summer 2009 Seminar itinerary.
Seminar Fee
CIEE Member: $3,800 Non-Member: $4,000
Add-on Tour: Tibet
June 19-24, 2009
Fee: $2,000
Explore this remote land that for centuries has captured the imagination of travelers. The tour includes Lhasa, Tibet’s traditional capital and home to the Potala Palace, former primary residence of the Dalai Lama.
Academic Content (please note this is tentative and subject to change)
Lectures
- Multi-Ethnic China, Minority Policies, and Education
- History, Patriotism, and National Sentiments in Modern China
- China's Go-West Policy
- Chinese Society in Transition: Demographic shifts, Urban Residency, Population Control, and Rural-Urban Migration
- Buddhism and Daoism as Represented in China’s Sacred Mountains
- WWII American and Chinese Cooperation—Modern Public Interpretations, Traditional Friendship, the Flying Tigers, and the Other Heroes we Remember
- The Tunpu People—Ethnogenesis, History, and Ethnic Survival
- Imagining Guizhou from the Center—Suspicion and Fascination through Every Age
- Rural Migrant Labor in the City—Causes, Effects, and Remittances
- The Mutual Relationship between Miao Women and Miao Culture—Maintaining and Restraining
- Miao Customs and Religious Beliefs
- The Practice of Ethnic Autonomy in Guizhou Province
Co-curricular Site Visits & Field Trips
- Beijing city tour
- Giant Panda Research Institute, Chengdu
- Sichuan Opera and local teahouse, Chengdu
- Buddhist Emei and Daoist Mountain at Qingcheng, Sichuan Province
- Huangguoshu Waterfall (Anshun), Guizhou Province
- Tunpu village: traditional Dixi performance and meal
- Miao Village: Meal and Optional Overnight Stay and Hike
- Leishan: meet with Women’s Federation and local government officials
- Rural primary education school site visit in Leishan County
Rationale
The program starts in Beijing, the capital, with more general, introductory discussions and other content, in order to define and understand the issues and help establish an initial framework of understanding. Afterwards we move to Sichuan province, where discussions will start to focus in more narrowly on topics relevant to southwest China and ethnicity. Once in Guizhou, our final area of study and the focal point of the seminar, discussions and experiences will focus in on specific groups, issues, and case studies, and we will spend more time on-site, meeting not only with scholars, but also with local “real-life” experts and front-line workers, as well as local community members. We will have the privilege of being guests at a remote Miao minority village in Guizhou, as one of the first groups of outside visitors (second only to last year’s IFDS seminar) to that village, and participants can optionally spend that night as guests in village homes.
China's southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Guizhou are relatively unexplored compared to China's coastal areas. They are often described as the “real China” for their rich indigenous customs, colorful ethnic minority cultures, charming villages, and stunning landscapes. Sichuan is one of China's most populous provinces—more than 100 million people living in a land area equal to that of France. Long protected by a ring of mountains, the province has not been easily accessible and its rich traditions have been preserved: Buddhism and Daoism, world-renowned cuisine, refuge for the panda, and the popular teahouse culture. Guizhou, with its rugged mountainous landscape, areas of striking Karst terrain, and rich ethnic tapestry, has at times been rebellious to the imperial court in Beijing, and only really came under control of the empire six hundred years ago at the beginning of the Ming dynasty—a fairly short time from a Chinese perspective. Yet Guizhou has loomed large and mythic in Chinese lore, and Guizhou ethnic groups have been the subject of much curiosity and imagination in China throughout Chinese history, even up to this day. Although much development has occurred in Guizhou in the past 50 years, the region is still lightly traveled, and many ethnic groups hold onto their own distinct traditions and even thrive in their own enclaves. This seminar is designed to access this fascinating region, focusing on the issues of cultural diversity and social change.
Host Institutions
The Central University for Nationalities (CUN) in Beijing is the flagship for a nationality university system. Since the 1950’s, CUN has been teaching students about the rich ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity that exists in China. The university consists of 10 colleges, 19 faculties, 2 research centers and an ethnic minority museum. Click here to link to their Chinese language website. Other host institutions include The Guizhou Institute for Nationalities in the Guizhou Province and Sichuan University in the provincial capital of Chengdu.
Seminar Leadership
Patrick Lucas holds an MA in applied linguistics from the University of Oregon and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the Central University for Nationalities (CUN) in Beijing, China. Mr. Lucas is one of the first western graduate students to seek an advanced degree at CUN. His academic research interests focus on cultural survival, ethnic competition, and language endangerment. Outside of academia, Mr. Lucas is one of the leaders of a project that collects and preserves oral histories of Chinese and Americans who served as allies in China during the Second World War. The two related documentaries he wrote gained three awards in China. He is also currently working on a book of Guizhou province’s Tunpu people. Mr. Lucas has hosted over 20 seminars and has been leading study programs in China for almost 11 years, including an IFDS in 2007. He began his China studies as a university student in Beijing in 1985 and has spent 13 years living and working in China. Pat has led numerous groups in China including two CIEE IFDS seminars.
Click on the links below to learn more about participating on an IFDS.
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