文艺青年 – China’s Emerging Hipsters

By Aimee Strang, Student at Nottingham University Ningbo Summer School. Wenyi Qingnian – aka the Chinese expression used to describe a hipster. The term hipster has become increasingly popular over the past decade to describe those who belong to a certain subculture and are predominantly from Generation Y. The idea of hipster has primarily been …

Translation and Modernity: Rethinking the Semantic Shift of “Civil Society” in the Chinese Context

By Meixi Zhuang, Studying a PhD in Contemporary Chinese Studies, The University of Nottingham Ningbo Campus. What does it mean to translate Western ideas into the Chinese language on the basis of hypothetical equivalences? What happens in the process of intercultural interpretation and how do translated concepts impact Chinese people’s perception of their own society? …

Western Goggles and Contemporary Chinese Art

By Abigail Aikins-Hawkson, MSci Business and Economy of Contemporary China. The Contemporary Chinese art scene has become a subject of fascination for Art Critics around the world because once again, China is providing the rest of the world a situation where everybody else seems to be at standstill. Everybody else except China. As China continues …

A world of shared influence

By Dr. Xiaoling Zhang, Head of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Associate Professor in Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham. Soft power has beguiled governments around the world. Appealingly, it serves national interests, cheaper than the exercise of hard power (money and force), at least in the short term, …

China and Industrialisation

By Calvin Johnson, Studying Economics at the University of Nottingham UK. Over the past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to experience and witness the transformation that has occurred in China in recent decades, creating China into a truly economic superpower. However this is an achievement that could have happened centuries ago, had China …

The Differences between Western and Chinese Culture

By Abigail Hopcroft, Studying Sport, PE and Coaching Science at the University of Birmingham UK. After visiting Shanghai and Ningbo, trying to compare Western and Chinese culture is like trying to compare day and night. The cultural difference is open to interpretation and is a question of perspectives, beliefs and values; not all Western things …

China and the West – Opposite attracts?

By Hans-Christian Mehrens, Studying International Relations at the University of Nottingham UK. Shanghai… Food Market… One song on my mind: “I’m a legal alien. I’m an Englishman in Shanghai!” Indisputably, we as Europeans are as much of an attraction to the local Chinese population as it is the other way round. Everywhere we went, pictures …