Written by Jon Howlett Most historians of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are avid collectors of curios: items that capture the spirit of certain historical moments in modern China’s ever-changing political climate. In this blog, I use a recipe…
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Written by Steven F. Jackson Happy. Angry. Inspired. Grateful. The emotions expressed in Chinese propaganda posters between 1949 and 1990 were not subtle or complex, nor for all of the embrace of ‘socialist realism’ in communist art were they realistic. …
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Written by Ruichen Zhang Visual culture in the People’s Republic of China features a rich collection of propaganda posters. With their unique visual style, language formation, and political messages, these posters are valuable for studying arts, social mobilization, and political…
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Written by Caterina Bellinetti On February 14th, the death of Liang Jun was reported by international media. Liang, a woman born from a peasant family in Heilongjiang in 1930, became a Chinese national hero thanks to her work as a tractor…
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Written by Cassie Lin Going to school in China can be quite different from the UK. The first time I noticed such difference, was during my early days living in England. It was 3.30pm on a weekday, I saw a bunch of school girls…
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Written by Cassie Lin In October, 2015, China announced the decision of ending the decades-long “One-Child Policy”. The policy was introduced in 1979, and stayed in the centre of international discussion for many years. With the abolition of the “One-Child Policy”, those Chinese children born in…
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Written by Cassie Lin I came across a lot of names when cataloguing the poster collection, names of the artists, printed at the bottom of each poster, some appear more often than the others. So I began to wonder – who…
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Written by Cassie Lin In the Arts and Entertainment section of our collection, I constantly came across these posters of “The White-Haired Girl”, a tale goes way back in China. The story is originated from legends circulating in the border region…
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Written by Cassie Lin As a research student often looking at feminist movement and theories, I am quite familiar with its history in the modern western world. But what about China? What happened to women’s rights in China back in the day,…
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Written by Cassie Lin First of all, I would like to wish everyone a fabulous Chinese New Year! It’s only the 3rd New Year’s Day and traditionally it lasts 15 days (much more luxury than Christmas holiday I presume), there…
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